We are opening a new market, the US or Southeast Asia or the Gulf. Do we carry the same ICP across or start again?

Zenoti and MindTickle founders on what actually transfers to a new market and what has to be rebuilt, including the line that you need five to ten prospects, a few customers and one good success story rather than a sales team.

Entering a New Market as a SaaS Business and Finding First Customers

From SeedToScale (Accel India) by Ajay Sethi with Sudheer Koneru and Mohit Garg 14 min read

• You do not need 50 customers to enter a market: 5 to 10 prospects, a handful of customers, and one good success story.
• MindTickle's founders spent 2013 meeting Indian sales teams, CEOs and sales leaders before making a first sale.
• Zenoti kept early reach to its own backyard, Hyderabad and Seattle, and spent a year on product before the US push.
• Mohit Garg closed the first 50 deals himself before hiring a sales team.

Compares direct sales, channel and marketing-led entry for an Indian company going abroad, and makes the case that the US may not be your best first market. Honest about the cost of a wrong first sales leader hire in a new geography.

Indian SaaS And The Art Of Going From Local To Global

From Inc42 by Sandeep Chawda ~12 min read

• The US is not the automatic first market: GCC, Southeast Asia, or Japan can be the better first step out of India.
• Three entry motions compared: feet on street (a hired sales leader, high risk if it stalls within 2 to 3 quarters), resellers, and marketing-led sales.
• Pay channel partners on revenue share, not retainer, and pick ones who already sell into your target domain.
• Marketing-led works for SMB and PLG, and breaks down for enterprise deals that need heavy onboarding.

Accel India's three tests for a segment (uniformity, enough size, reachability at a sane acquisition cost) are the cleanest way to judge whether a candidate second ICP is a real market or a distraction.

Defining Your Market: Choose the right peak before you start climbing the mountain

From SeedToScale Insights (Accel India) by Accel India 12 min read

• Treats 2 million dollars of ARR as the benchmark by which product-market fit has actually happened.
• A TAM of 500 million to 1 billion dollars gives you a chance at 50 million dollars of revenue.
• CAC should be recovered in 2 to 3 months of revenue if bootstrapped, under 12 months if VC backed.
• Do not enter a new region unless you can see 5 to 10 million ARR there, and pick a second domain only past 3 to 5 million.

Zoho's ex creative director walks through the UAE VAT campaign, an Indian company winning a Gulf market by rebuilding the buyer profile down to who the accountant actually is. That is this answer in practice: same problem, different profile per market.

How Zoho Cracked Global Markets with 3 Iconic Campaigns | Prime Venture Partners Podcast #marketing

On Prime Venture Partners by Raffic Aslam 53 min

Indian founders comparing notes on launching in Southeast Asia, where technical maturity and buyer behaviour differ country by country, so you cannot treat the region as one ICP. SaaSBoomi blocks automated fetching, so open it in a browser.

Southeast Asia Expansion Playbook for Founders Looking to Launch a New Geo

From SaaSBoomi 12 min read

• Southeast Asia looks like India from outside, but every country differs and technical maturity is 4 to 5 years behind India.
• Settle your why before expanding, on a read of market readiness, target segment, competitors, and product maturity.