June 10, 2020
Chris Andrew, Chief Product Officer for Hearsay Systems on: How to Expand Internationally if Your Product Depends on Regulation; Biggest Mistakes Companies Make When Expanding
This episode is a little different. It focuses on a vertically-focused Silicon Valley Fintech company, Hearsay Systems, that expanded to Europe. In this episode, Chris Andrew, Hearsay’s Chief Product Officer, talks to me about how and when they decided t
Show Notes:
- [1:15] - How Chris went from being the #1 employee at Hearsay to now being Chief Product Officer at Hearsay
- [4:22] - What does Hearsay do?
- [6:16] - How has the current pandemic affected Hearsay's business.
- [7:51] - What criteria did Hearsay consider when it decided to expand into Europe.
- [10:47] - How to prioritize different markets in Europe. How did you pick where to go?
- [12:40] - Was your strategy to go country by country or to all of Europe?
- [14:43] - How did you personally prepare before going to Europe?
- [18:36] - Given your product had a compliance element to it, how did you build awareness with the compliance community across different countries and different regulators?
- [26:33] - What do you wish you had known before moving to Europe/ What are some of the biggest mistakes companies people make when they move internationally?
- [29:19] - Is there a hiring plan you would recommend for businesses looking to expand into Europe?
- [30:44] - What did you personally learn from your time in Europe?
Recommendation and Links:
Business book: 7 powers by Hamilton Helmer
Jazz concert: Delfeayo Marsalis
Fiction: Mislaid by Nell Zink
