Take an Indian product to the world
Sell to the US or the Gulf from Bengaluru or Chennai, and be trusted doing it.
5 steps, 20 questions underneath, read for how the best do it
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1
Who you sell to
Picking a customer worth chasing, and knowing early when a deal is not one.
How do the best companies keep their ICP sharp as they grow instead of letting it blur into everyone?The gist They re-derive it on a schedule from data they already have: which segments renew, which expand, which churn, which cost the most to serve. Then they act on the answer, including the unpopular half, cutting a segment they used to sell to. The best ones also separate the ICP from the total market deliberately, so nobody confuses 'who we could sell to one day' with 'who we chase this quarter'. And they revisit it whenever the product changes shape, because shipping a new capability quietly makes a previously bad-fit segment good, and vice versa.
Defining our ICP is the most important thing we ever did A real company showing its ICP before and after, including the messy middle where they were guessing. The point that narrow ICPs beat broad ones, a... 4 questions on who you sell to → -
2
Positioning and messaging
Making a buyer understand in one sentence why you exist and why you are the one to pick.
How do the best B2B companies get positioning agreed when product, sales and the founders all disagree?The gist They stop arguing about opinions and go find the buyer's view, because the only competitive alternative that matters is the one the prospect would actually pick if you did not exist, and that is a research question, not a debate. They run the exercise as a cross-functional working session rather than a marketing deliverable, with sales in the room, since sales already knows which strengths land. They also watch for product pessimism, teams get so close to their own gaps that they discount advantages customers find remarkable. And they treat positioning as something revisited as the product and market move, not carved once at launch.
A guide to advanced B2B positioning This is the piece for teams that already know the theory and are stuck on the human problem: nobody agrees on the competitors, and everyone is pess... 4 questions on positioning and messaging → -
3
Brand and narrative
The founder story as a GTM asset, a point of view that sells, and earning trust selling from India to the world.
How did Zoho build a global brand from India without a US sized budget?The gist By buying attention cleverly and by having something to say. For the Super Bowl they skipped the multi million dollar network spot and bought many OTT slots at a fraction of the price, getting the association without the invoice. The Made in India Made for the World campaign used real artisans and Shekhar Kapur's voice, which tied a global ambition to a specific national story instead of a generic one, and the UAE VAT campaign won a market by solving a local regulatory problem nobody else was speaking to. Underneath all of it sits Vembu's transnational localism, a genuine belief stated for years, which is what makes the campaigns read as conviction rather than advertising.
How Zoho Cracked Global Markets with 3 Iconic Campaigns India Zoho's former creative director explains the UAE VAT campaign, Made in India Made for the World, and how they bought Super Bowl reach through OTT s... 4 questions on brand and narrative → -
4
Pricing and packaging
What to charge, what to charge for, how to package it, and how to change it later without losing people.
How do the best companies raise prices without losing customers?The gist They change price alongside a visible change in value, they tell people early, and they stage it. Grandfather existing customers for a defined period, roll the increase out in tiers rather than everywhere at once, and give the sales and support teams the reasoning before the email goes out. Build an annual escalator of roughly five to eight percent into contracts so the increase is expected rather than a shock. Watch the actual effect on churn and expansion rather than the noise in your inbox during week one. And note where growth in average contract value really comes from as companies scale: more from usage and smarter packaging than from raw price increases.
Navigating Monetization Strategies: How to Iterate Pricing While Keeping Your Customers Happy The operational side of a price change: tiered rollouts, grandfathered rates, what to communicate and when, plus data showing 73 percent of subscri... 4 questions on pricing and packaging → -
5
Partnerships and alliances
Tech and integration partners, co-selling, co-marketing, when a partnership is real, and your first partnerships hire.
What does a genuinely best in class partner program look like up close?The gist Look at Shopify, HubSpot and Microsoft rather than at frameworks. Shopify paid out over 1.3 billion dollars to partners in 2025 and treats developers and agencies as a real business, with revenue share, docs, CLI tooling and certification, which is why people build careers on it. HubSpot's channel worked because it put partners through the same culture and enablement as its own reps and tiered on retention and certification rather than raw volume. Microsoft wins on onboarding: structured training, certification and marketing assets from day one. The common thread is that the best programs treat partners like employees, not like a discount tier.
How to Build the Best SaaS Partner Program (with Examples) Named teardowns instead of theory: Shopify, Microsoft, AvePoint, Nintex and Lookout, with what each does differently on onboarding, automation and ... 4 questions on partnerships and alliances →
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