Your first 90 days in the US decide how the rest of the year goes. Here’s where to spend them.
Days 1–30: Learn the market before pitching.
Your first month should be almost entirely about learning. Talk to 20–30 people in your target market: potential customers, competitors’ customers, partners, industry analysts. Use these calls to test your assumptions about the US market.
Questions to answer: Does the problem you solve exist here? How do people describe it? Who are the incumbents? What’s the buying process? What price would they expect to pay?
Days 30–60: Position and package.
Based on what you learned, rewrite your positioning for the US market. That covers your website, pitch deck, one-liner and pricing page. Write them from scratch for US buyers.
At this stage, you should also be setting up operational basics: US entity (if needed), banking, a US phone number, and a physical address (even if it’s a registered agent). American companies want to buy from American companies.
Learn something new every week, even if sales take months.
Days 60–90: Test with real conversations.
Start having sales conversations with real prospects. Skip the demo for now. Use the positioning you built in month two and see what resonates. Write down every objection and question you hear.
By day 90 you should know if your pitch works with US buyers and how long they take to decide.
What to ignore in the first 90 days.
- Hiring a US team: too early
- Attending every conference: pick one small, focused event. The big shows rarely pay off unless your industry does its buying there
- Building US-specific product features: wait for real demand signals
- PR and media: wait until you have customers to talk about
Hiring a sales team and opening an office before anyone in the US has agreed to buy is the fastest way I know to burn cash.
Written by Kaspars Koo in Boston. More about Kaspars