Maeve Kneafsey of CloudKPI: A Female Tech Founder in the US
On today’s episode we are joined by Maeve Kneafsey, owner of CloudKPI. Running a company that has teams in both Dublin and America, she knows a lot about what it’s like to be moving your business.
From the very start of CloudKPI’s conception Maeve decided to focus on the American market and have a base set up in the States.
She had a lot of people help her make the transition from Ireland to America, and now she’s looking to help others who want to do a similar move.
We talk about her whole experience moving across, from the different ways she’s treated for being a foreigner and a woman, to how America changes depending on where you are within it.
“Don’t go out there, trying to spend any money on lawyers or advisors.”
Time Stamps:
00:41 - Who Cloud KPI are, and what they do.
3:02 - Why they decided to focus on the American market.
4:42 - The logistics involved with moving their company to the US.
8:42 - What kind of product they had when going into the market.
9:11 - The network of people that helped them, and why they moved to Connecticut.
11:25 - Where their team is based.
12:31 - The logistics involved with moving your operations to America.
15:25 - The importance of having a physical presence where your market is.
17:09 - The differences with running a business in America compared to Ireland.
18:15 - The differences between the East and West Coast in America.
19:59 - Tips for companies that are looking to make the move across the pond.
21:50 - How you’re treated differently as a foreigner in America.
23:09 - The different things that helped them get into the market and understand the culture.
24:19 - Unexpected reactions she got being a female tech founder.
27:22 - Do’s and don'ts for startups moving to the US.
29:54 - The usefulness of having a base, and the hardships of running a business remotely.
31:55 - When you need to meet people face to face and when virtual meet-ups are adequate.
33:00 - What makes Enterprise Ireland uniquely useful.
34:46 - The main pieces of advice for someone wanting to move their business to America.
36:43 - How to contact CloudKPI.
Send us questions you want answered to info@mtbonnell.com
Resources:
Cloud KPI
Connecticut Innovations
Enterprise Ireland
www.mtbonnell.com
Connect with Maeve Kneafsey:
Email
LinkedIn
Connect with Sebastian Sauerborn: Linkedin
Connect with Nastaran Tavakoli-Far: LinkedIn
Episode Transcript
I’m Maeve Kneafsey and I’m cofounder and CEO of CloudKPI.
Nas: That’s Maeve Kneafsey of CloudKPI who provide predictive analytics for SaaS companies. This is Move Your Business to the United States from Mount Bonnell Advisors, the consultants who help you expand your business to America.
I’m Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and we’re learning wisdom from the companies who’ve made the move so we can find out more, also send your questions about expanding to the US to Mount Bonnell CEO, Sebastian Sauerborn, the address is info@mtbonnell.com we’ve also put that in the show notes.
Now, CloudKPI is a platform for cloud businesses, they provide key metrics and information from across each businesses existing software, and can be up and running in a matter of minutes. They allow companies to use data dispersed in the cloud which is then aggregated and analyzed by CloudKPI’s algorithm, allowing businesses to make better decisions.
While the cofounders are Irish they’ve decided from the get go that the US was going to be their market. We’ve caught up with cofounder Maeve Kneafsey on a trip to Dublin to find out more.
Maeve: So we are an analytics solution, specifically designed for SaaS subscription companies, and what we do is we use their business data, CRM, sales revenue and product data, and we interrogate that data to analyze it to find ways in which they can replicate success and identify things that are holding them back in terms of their growth.
Nas: So, can you tell us how long the company has been going and when you decided to move to the US and why you’ve made that move?
Maeve: Okay, so the company has been going three years and from the very get set we’ve decided even though we’re an Irish, two cofounders based here at the time, that the US market was our market, North America was our market.
So, we’ve never built a product for the European market, we went straight to the US, and when I say straight to it, we first entered the market through an accelerator. So, there’s an accelerator called Access Silicon Valley and we became part of that, it’s run by an organization called Enterprise Ireland, and they are an organization, state organization, they are also big investors in startups and they do this as a way of accelerating people’s access to the US, particularly Silicon Valley, hence the name.
So that was our first entry into the market but sorry, I should say that, predicate that by saying the purpose of us going at that time and using the accelerator was to find out whether we could see SaaS companies struggling with in Europe, was replicated over in the US, in North America, because basically, if we’ve got that wrong there’s no point of developing the product, and we felt that if you develop the product for what you might call, the European market would call, certainly at the time was quite a bit behind SaaS, and what was going on in Silicon Valley. You know, your product would be at the backward, so we wanted to be ahead of the market.
Nas: And why did you want to focus on the US right from the get go?
Maeve: At least- we’ve been doing so much research on the subject, but we’ve reckoned 48% of all SaaS companies worldwide are based in North America.
Nas: So basically that’s where the biggest market is.
Maeve: That’s where the biggest market is and a huge concentration as well, so I mean, when you think about the States, I think one of the biggest challenges for any technology company going in the States, is it’s so enormous, of course that is a massive opportunity, great, millions and millions of people, great, but the other challenge with so enormous is how do you, you know, with your money that you do have and your focus, how do you get to the market to start making attraction, so you have to really bring it down to small pieces and start get going in, you know, bit by bit, how to eat an elephant, one bite at a time.
So we knew that what was very good about North America when it came to Saas was that, there were clusters of where those companies are. So we don’t have to be everywhere.
Sebastian: And what are those clusters?
Maeve: So the clusters are Silicon Valley, massive, in fact all California, including LA. Then, there are clusters in places like Atlanta, but then, really New York. New York, so it would be California, New York, then you’ve got clusters again around Amazon, of course and Microsoft, so they would be going up in Seattle that way, and then Atlanta, I’ve mentioned Atlanta earlier on, so those are really the clusters where we are, and in fact we were lucky to stumble across some really good research about where SaaS companies in North America are based. So, we’ve kind of worked our way out from there, but I think, if my memory serves me correctly that in California it’s up to 26% of all those SaaS companies. So you can see how dominant they were.
Nas: Can you tell us about actually literally moving your company, what did you, what did it happen, what were the logistical steps you took to do that?
Maeve: So I know in your previous podcast, you refer to getting the visa and all the logistics, so I’m not going to go in all of that, but we did have to take the steps, so our first piece of going to the States was really about research, and then identifying partners. But prior to that, we said where we would do that, what part of the States we will do that.
So, when we went to, we decided the Silicon Valley, because, kind of, both the money, in terms of investing in Saas, and the leaders in SaaS are in big number. I mean it’s a bit of a Disneyland for SaaS, every street has the SaaS company in most leaders are there, and so that’s where we went, and when we went there we thought, we can’t afford this, you know, we have a 150 thousand in investment so how long does that going to last, okay, in the most expensive place in probably the world to have a company.
But at that time, it was just me and my cofounder, and we were seating at a dinner party with some friends and before we left, one of our friends one of them was South African, telling them what we were doing and we were just renting a Airbnb for four months, costing us, I won’t even tell you how much but a lot, four thousand a month for a cottage basically, in San Jose which is an hour from San Francisco, and she said well my brother lives in Silicon Valley, he’s an entrepreneur, why don’t you stay with him, and we said, but he doesn’t really know us, in fact it’s not just me it’s me and my friend, you know, my cofounder, no, no, you have to- so I’m saying that- we did stay with him by the way, and we were staying with him on and off for year and a half, and his wife who also very much at the beginning would say, your husband may say yes, but what do you think [smiling] and that was actually an entree to actually understanding the psychology of Americans particularly, the Californians in Silicon Valley, it’s all about, I’ve been here before, I’ve gone through a tough times, I know how it’s to start a business, or I just want to help you.
And so they take that very seriously there, and that enabled us to get about two years out of that 150 thousand basically. And the other thing we did, we said, look, how are we going to find the right people, like, we know the companies are here but how we’re going to find the right people to help us guide in terms of what they need, in terms of product, but also help us with the investments, and the stages we should be taking, because we were both entrepreneurs, we both had run businesses before but, you know, scaling an international business is a different dynamic, it’s not the same as we’ve done previously.
So we knew the only way to do that was to get really good people around you. And so, we had read about it, and heard from our experience before about these accelerators, the tech accelerators and we heard about Plug and Play, you’ve probably heard about, in 500 startups, Plug and Play, they would be the big tech accelerators, that the premises they take is small piece of equity in exchange of guiding you through, providing you with the program to improve your product and your team, and also making intros to investors.
And so we met a guy called Mansour who was a leading partner at the investment side of Plug and Play, have seen either us presenting or something we’ve done, and contacted us and said, look, come and see me, and we went to see him and he really liked what we were doing but he was a bit hesitant, so he said, come back and talk to me again, and we’re thinking, yeah, right, that’s another flight, you know, we talked and we flew back to meet him, and Bren couldn’t come at the time and I was there and I could see him as I was telling the story about what we’re doing, what we’re planning to do, I could tell I was losing him, you know, the eyes beginning to [smiling] just glaze over a bit, and I was- I’m not gonna lose this, so basically I said, look, you know, we are going to be massive, we are going to be huge, and you had helped us this far, why don’t you help us a bit more and actually get involved with the company.
And so he just said okay. And that’s really, when the people say things gonna happen in the States, they can really happen, he just said yes, and that ended up us being in Plug and Play.
Sebastian: And at that time did you already have your technical platform developed to a degree or did you not have anything?
Maeve: We had a really basic MVP, I say MVP is probably Minimum Viable Product, but I think that’s probably exaggeration, it wasn’t really- it was really a prototype we had.
Sebastian: [smiling]
Maeve: We knew there are the next thing was to get was a product but I thought what’s the point of putting a hole in the money into developing a product that we’re not absolutely sure it meets the needs of this market.
Nas: You’re now based in New Haven in Connecticut, so, how come you went from being in San Francisco to being New Haven?
Maeve: So when we were in San Francisco at this stage we were, you know, we were saying, okay, we’re gonna start looking for investment, okay, so we were literally hanging around bar fingernails on keeping going at that stage and we’ve had huge amount of people by the way helped us along the way, everything from, the lawyers both in Ireland and the States doing pro bono, we’ve had advisors who’ve met us through a different pitches that we’ve done who liked us and kept us in the hallway.
So we had that helpful network around us so it was very tempting in a way to stay in San Francisco. But, Brenda, my cofounder Brenda Jordan, had meshed with a guy called Doug Roth, at Futurescope which is a technology event that’s held here for startups and different technology companies, and Doug was from, VC from called Connecticut Innovations, and Connecticut Innovations was looking for really good startup technology companies to come and pitch for them for funding, and part of that was to attract them to Connecticut. So he really- I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me for saying this, he really chased us and saying, I really like what you’re doing, I really get what you’re doing, I know this problem, he supplied, and we got used to getting “no-s” and we thought, oh, there was a lot of paperwork involved in this application, what we really going to do, so Brenda and I talked for the weekend, and we were, let’s go and see what happens, so we got, we won a competition among 300 companies-
Sebastian: Wow-
Maeve: So we won, one of five winners I think it was. So, then we said, look, let’s have a look at Connecticut, because we’re beginning to realize that San Francisco is just so expensive. So you can melt through your money in no time, but on top of that, trying to keep people, developers which was what we really needed, and sales people, was going to be really hard.
Sebastian: And it’s far away-
Maeve: And it’s so far away. Connecticut, they were trying to get us to stay there, that was part of the deal-
Sebastian: Still Irish connections there, there’s a lot of Irish in Connecticut [smiling]
Maeve: Yeah, even more so in Boston, but yes, absolutely. But anyway, took a long story short, once we’ve read the economics, we’ve said, you know, this really makes sense, lots of really good universities around, yes, we are competing with New York, but a little bit further north in Connecticut, you’re not necessarily directly competing. And so we’ve said, let’s give it a go, and of course, it helped with having funding.
Nas: So right now you have people in Dublin and people in New Heaven.
Maeve: Our team are in Dublin, Brenda and I as cofounders as a two people who are in Connecticut and now we’re just closed down around and so now we’re willing to hire in the US. And so rather exploring, researching we’re now into a new phase of actually developing the business over there and investing there.
Nas: And so, if your focus has been in the US market, why have you kept a base here in Dublin?
Maeve: Because, of course initially we’re building a product with the team here, and you know, they were incredible so why would we move, and also it was working really well. And we also found a CTO in California, but he’s been working remotely with the guys a year and a half and he’s working really well, I mean, I would wonder whether it actually worked before we did it, but it’s working brilliantly and he’s extremely experienced, very good in running remote teams, and we’re going to stick with him because he has been superb for us.
Nas: So, what are the actual logistics of making that move to the US, what things you had to prepare for, things that you’ve ended up having to deal with once you got out there.
Maeve: Well I suppose you need certain people behind you, right, you need, we knew that we were going to apply for visa, so we needed good people around that, we had to set a Delaware corporate company, so all of those things were costing us money, but what we managed to meet this woman, Karen Shreider and she is a whizz in terms of understanding how the whole America operates, North America operates.
And she was based in San Francisco and she actually knew one of our angel investors, so when we met her, she said, don’t go out there trying to spend any money on lawyers or advisors, because remember over here, they will put a certain part of money aside as investors and companies that believe in, and they will give you work pro bono. So, that was really good piece of advice, so we would go into talk to Vinston Salsinni, Coudie, all the big law firms, asking them to tell us why should be going to them as opposed to the other way around, right, and that changes the dynamic.
And then we’ve managed to get Coudie as a fantastic counselor for us, but lawyers are different over there, which we may have realized, they’re much more business connectors as opposed to lawyers, they can accelerate introduction to customers, they can accelerate instruction investors and they can do that. So learning how to get things for nothing was very important for us, and we do that, and with the accelerator, you know, you get premises, you also get all these contacts. You have to give a small equity fee, but it was very small amount of equity, and so we ended up actually being there a year without having to pay the rent, so, again, that was really important for us. But, you know, we really learned how to find lots of ways of saving money.
So for example, if you’re in San Francisco, parking is incredibly expensive, 40 dollars for a couple of hours, so, there’s little app called Spot Hero so we discovered this, it will show you if there’s extra stock in the car park in your hotel, they would send it to you through Spot Hero and you would get parking for 8 dollars. So you know, we learned all these little tricks to shortcut the cost of being there, and also I think you can waist a lot of time if you don’t narrow down who your customer really is.
You know, you can’t say all SaaS are customers and I think it would be the same for everybody, when you’re starting to build a new market you would say, who’s your absolute easiest person to sell to, rather than everybody, and we discovered that SaaS companies that are beginning to scale and are looking for investment, they absolutely had to have their fingers on the data, because that’s what the VCs were looking for and so we can deliver that for them in an automated way and give them insight they wouldn’t normally have, so they were the easiest first to identify, so then we had to find how to get to them, where are they.
Nas: And how important was it to physically be there?
Maeve: I think vital, I don’t think you can break into the market and not be in there.
Sebastian: Did you actually move there or did you just go back and forth?
Maeve: We went back and forth. You know, now that we have, we are at the new phase and we would have people working for us, we have to be there further more.
Sebastian: So you’re going to move there?
Maeve: Yeah, once we get our visas and work had finalized that’s our plan.
Sebastian: And with family?
Maeve: Yes.
Sebastian: And so are they looking forward to it?
Maeve: My family we’re older that’s the great thing about it, right, I’m not 26 or I’m not 35.
Sebastian: [smiling]
Maeve: So I don’t have to worry about that in a way, they’re a little bit older but they will come absolutely and my partner he’s a businessman as well so he really gets it, he is very involved in startups in technology anyway, so he’s gonna come back and forth as well.
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Nas: So I wanted to know, you have ran other companies as well in the past, what’s the difference in terms of doing business out in the US compared to here in Ireland?
Maeve: I mean, I would’ve told it in the UK as well, and I would have another startup that did benchmarking, for software solutions, benchmarking for retail banks and insurance companies so I sold it to our- I really tried to sell it to Germany, to Holland and the UK, to Ireland, and I think the single biggest difference is that, there’s an appetite for trying new things and new technologies in the States, the people will leap in and say, yeah, I think I can trust this woman, I know this is new, but I think that team is going to do it, and they will make that leap.
Now, it’s a non-fair comparison in a way because the banking industries and insurance industries who were my customers for the last product they would tend to be more conservative in a way, and at the time I was selling to them they were in a middle of crisis. And so at the time I was selling to them they had to do with the crisis, it would be not fair to have a comparison, but in general, I think it’s at very different mindset about buying new technology and new products and new services, people, they want to, if they can give you a start.
Nas: And what about the two coasts of the US because you just move from the West Coast to the East Coast, cause often we think of the US as being as one big place, but have you found doing business in the two places different?
Maeve: I mean, this is not- this is my impression, rather than being logical, my impression is, in Silicon Valley there is a- like, if you love technology, you can just be there every day talking about technology. You never escape from it. And there is always something on, and somebody has an event and you can get access to amazing people, so for example, one of our accelerators, we’ve spent three hours with the lead product developer in LinkedIn from founding days, you know, so you can get access to these people.
But everybody in a taxi, everybody in a shop, everybody everywhere in California or in Silicon Valley are interested in technology and have a portfolio of some kind. So, it’s not about investing, it’s about what’s the new- so it’s a little bit manic, now that’s great but it could also be really noisy and sometimes I think you need to get away from it as well, cause it could be all consuming. Much more kind of calm, different approach in the East Coast, and they are both open in terms of new technology and bringing it into the business but they are a little bit more calm. I think they see the long term game but that’s my personal opinion about it, other people may have different opinion about it but that’s what we’ve seen.
But both sides of the East and West Coast once they become your champion they will really work hard to help you succeed. And I’m always blown away about that, I still feel guilty about people who’ve helped us, and I’m not being able to pay them but they don’t want to be paid it’s the way they see the world, they’ve got so far in their careers they are very happy help you, actively help you get further on.
Nas: And so, what would be your tips for a company who are looking to make the move?
Maeve: I think that before you go the big thing is, you know don’t try do too much, you know, what am I here for, what’s this trip about, have a bones of a strategic view of what are you doing there. Like, if you take us, the first step was our market there, okay, if the market is there, what do they want, who in that customer base are the most likely to buy from us. And then, around that was how do I find my way what works, and how am I going to do it, what’s the methodology. And I think for me it was a bit of an advantage because my background before, I had a digital strategy agency so I kind of was thinking like that, but that really helped us to frame what we were doing and why we were there, and with every trip before we went, we did lots of prep, we planned who we’re gonna meet, all of that work was done before we got there, so we won’t go out there, we were going out there meeting some place and then we’d spend the first week augmenting other meetings with the ones who’ve already booked. So it really allows you to make the most of your time.
And then I think you have to know who you are, I don’t care if you are fifteen million dollar company going to the US from Europe, really have to watch the money, because it can just melt away it’s such a big country.
Sebastian: Do you think it’s a disadvantage or advantage to do business in the US as a European or maybe as an Irish person in particular? Is the response positive, or you know there’s often this I think these conceptions of whether it’s best you really need to have Americans doing business with Americans that don’t take Europeans seriously, whereas other people think it’s the opposite, you have a big advantage if you’re not American because there is the curiosity and people give you the benefit of the doubt and you’re allowed to make more mistakes in a way rather than being an American.
Maeve: I think it might be slightly different on the West Coast and the East Coast and the reason I’m saying that, is the West Coast, everybody knows someone else, you know, you’re not unusual, you’re one of many, okay, and I loved that, because you’re learning from lots of different people, loads of different perceptions, loads of different angles and I think that really improves the business, but being Irish in that certainly it helps and the reason it helps is because once we learn to slow down when we speak, people can understand us
Sebastian: [smiling]
Maeve: You know, cause when Irish people talk and they get excited, everything speeds up, so that’s a big advantage cause you can speak English, and then on the other side there’s such a big potential that iadn some Irish ancestry
Sebastian: Exactly
Maeve: And even if it’s not direct memory, the emotional memory of people coming from Ireland and trying to make their way is there, so there’s a propensity trying to enable you and so those two things definitely help, I think definitely they helped, now by the way that only opens the door, it’s up to you then to deliver, and if you don’t deliver they are hard to you as they are to everybody else.
Sebastian: That makes sense.
Nas: So you mentioned the family who you stayed with on and off year and they were really helpful in terms of guiding you, were there kind of other communities or people scenes you can plug into that were specifically for people just moving or trying to move their business over to the US?
Maeve: I mean the family we’ve stayed at was really logistically helped us and probably psychologically helped us because they were there themselves they come different country, not the wife but the husband Martin, but the accelerators there that’s why they are there, cause they are there to enable companies who don’t know the locality, give them a soft landing really and kind of guide them.
So I would be a huge believer in accelerator as they enabled us to get in the market and understand what’s going on and understand the culture, cause they attract so many mentors and advisors that you can really learn very fast.
Now, if you are very mature company you probably will not use the accelerator the same way we did it, because we gave away a small bit of an equity to be there, but the accelerators usually have room for more mature companies as well, it’s a different dynamic they pay a rent or whatever, but I think being an accelerator is just the right place to be, if it’s the right one for you, and I did an article on the different accelerators because there’s all different kinds of accelerators that suit you, so if you’re Biotech or Analytics like us, you’ll fit in, you’ll find your home, of you like, amongst all those different accelerators.
Nas: And what was unexpected when you were moving out there?
Maeve: I think I didn’t expect any much, this is naïve, I didn’t expect that, a little bit of raise eyebrow be two female cofounders of a tech company, there’s a little bit of that, it’s quite a macho environment in the Silicon Valley, not so much on the East Coast which is interesting, you wouldn’t- you think, I would’ve thought before that the Silicon Valley is incredibly forward thinking but around that it is not, it is very male dominated, both in terms of the companies, who runs them but also in terms of investors. So that was a bit of a surprise, they are trying to change that obviously.
Nas: But what were the reactions you were getting or how were you sensing the reactions?
Maeve: It’s- you know, I’m not gonna talk about me having factual to express what I think underneath but I think we’ve been asked questions that maybe other companies wouldn’t get asked if they were male cofounders of a tech company.
But, let’s go back to facts, right, the stats are proving, 2% of investment from VCs in North America are women, right, women founded company, so it’s definitely there, it’s somewhere there and underneath some other research which is all around, of the VCs who were predominantly male, of those males who do invest in female founder companies, is that particular, they share and some of the evidences that they are VCs who have daughters who are working and they understand what they are doing right, and they can see what they’re doing and/or what the wife work and it’s something that’s very subliminal and it’s not conscious people don’t want to be biased but it’s a subconscious bias. So it is there and on the other hand the people that helped us most have been men, so in terms of both investors, it’s not everybody, just it isn’t but it is a challenge.
Nas: And this is something you weren’t expecting it to be as severe or-
Maeve: I would’ve thought, gosh, you know, Silicon Valley, America as being a country of equality and liberation and well ahead of everybody else but it’s not that.
Sebastian: Is that lest the case in Ireland or in Europe you would say, is that a particular issue in the Silicon Valley, I mean, we’ve heard all these stories they confirming what you’ve just said, in Uber you know, in a sense, that chief executive had to leave because of this very poisonous culture within the company which has not changed a lot I believe, do you think this is an equally significant problem in Ireland and in Europe?
Maeve: So first thing, I’m not the spokesperson of this subject [smiling] I brought it up because I just think, you know, be aware, so I couldn’t really say, but what I did see was that, okay, could it be that technology companies have this propensity, right
Sebastian: Good point
Maeve: Because of the number and the percentage of biased towards men as engineering and that’s what Silicon Valley is all about and that’s what’s happened.
Sebastian: Interesting
Maeve: Because I don’t know if it’s experienced in other industries over there in California because I don’t really know them, I know my area, and so it’s expected maybe it has to do with that.
Nas: And just more broadly, what would be your dos and don’ts for a company who are making that move?
Maeve: I think, you know, we’ve got lots of advice and I- might have listened to people, you know, you have to pick your advisors carefully and you can ring people, if somebody says to you, I have worked with lots of startups in Europe, you’ll say, okay, well who did you work with? Those founders who have no problem with you ringing them up or you linking them into the LinkedIn and say listen we’ve met David, whatever his name is, and he offered to help us and he said he’s worked with you, have you had a good experience, so I would definitely do that, because you’re going to be working closely with these people and you don’t have a lot of time and you need to pick the right so I would definitely get advice and make sure to qualify where they are, it helps if you’re in a group like an accelerator because they’ve already been prequalified, but even so, and then I suppose the other thing would be, I wouldn’t jump in and open up an office, I would say, okay, let’s figure out first who the customer is, what they’re looking for and do a lot of smoking mirrors in terms of making sure you’re always online when you’re needed and people believe you all of the time and you have an office there, but you know, use the acceleration to show you have some base there, but until you know really what you’re building, for whom, and what your business is going to look like, take your time.
And I know for us, you know, you could say, why don’t we get a hall of the fame US, to work for us, you know, we’ve done the product as much as we can specifications what the market needs now we’re beginning starting to sell it, but you’ll never be able to hear what the customers are really saying if you pass that job to somebody else.
And all of that feedback goes back into the direction you go the partnerships you build further the way you develop your product, and you pass that over to somebody else. You’re not gonna hear it and so I would definitely not- I would either put in the founder or someone very serious in the business to do the first customer acquisition and understand what they are saying to you because they don’t think the same way we do.
And as long as you speak slowly and clearly in English [smiling] you know, it’s fine they don’t care if you’re from different country. But on the other hand the other thing we’ve learned really fast is that we’re not put Anglicized spelling [smiling] they don’t mind what accent you have, they even struggle listening to you if it’s a heavy accent but they are really annoyed if you write things with s instead of, you know that kind of thing, so that’s kind of worthy if you have a website make sure that they are Americanized.
Sebastian:** It’s a very good tip, yeah, good point.
Nas: So you said, don’t jump in and open up an office and a moment ago you’ve said it’s worth doing your prep and then going out for meetings. How feasible is it to do all of this remotely and I’m also thinking of the time differences, especially here in California it’s like eight hours or so-
Maeve: Yeah, I mean, actually to go back to what I’ve said, actually don’t open a big office I should’ve said, you have a base there, let’s say you’ve got two people who are going to do get you into the market, you’re going to have a base for them, right, and if you are a company that you can afford to get an office, there are lots of co-working spaces, there are, you know, like WeWork etc. which I think it’s great because you can get a sense of everybody else, you’re not stuck hid away in office, you’re learning about what’s going on. They give you tips, you find out what’s going on and you learn much more quickly.
Nas: How feasible is it to do a lot of this setup remotely and I’m thinking also the time difference and you’re just logistically trying to make that happen?
Maeve: I mean the time difference is a big deal, so, I mean, when we’re over there, it’s fine, right, and even the East Coast, the West Coast you have to manage, but it’s totally feasible, but when we do come back, let’s say we come back from worm with our developers for two weeks or whatever and in fact we’re back a lot the summer because- so that anybody can plug into our product, so we need a time here and we’re also, our Irish investors so we don’t really secure our US ones, and so that was a real challenge quite frankly, it’s really hard to do the different times, so in theory you would say to yourself, I tell you what I’ll do I’ll start late in the day and then I’ll work late in the evening. But nobody does that, not with founders you get up and you can’t help it, you’re starting straight in, you’re not going to do yoga in the morning, that’s not gonna happen [smiling] I mean I tried-
Nas: Cooked dinner for later-
Maeve: And you do stuff you know, trying not to kill yourself cause you’re not going but the time differences is definitely a challenge, so being there, particularly with our partners and investors in the US, in Connecticut, you know they could see we have to be there, because the time differences make a big challenge otherwise.
Nas: But even some of the setup prep, like contacting people or contacting people you might have not met before in person, and then trying to set up meetings with them, how feasible is some of that, or is it really a case of, you’ve got to get out there face to face and make all those connections?
Maeve: I suppose it’s how important that meeting is, so let’s say, let’s pretend, for example, Amazon or AWS partner okay, and so the discovery about that, whether we’re a good match or, you can do a lot of that through Zoom, but the minute you start wanting them to support you and really getting with them you’re gonna have to meet them, they are too big organizations, you know just their number and you want them to remember you and part of being early in any kind of new market is people have to go behind you you don’t have the power of the big brand so that they have to support you, so I think it’s hard to get that if you’re not there some of the time.
Sebastian: We met team members from Enterprise Ireland last year when we met for an event, we met them at South by Southwest and every single entrepreneur from Ireland that we’ve met has spoken very positively about the impact and the support and them being very hands on, can you tell us a little bit about your own experience with them and why they are so important because I think that’s a really good tip for many of our listeners who are from Ireland.
Maeve:** Okay, so even if you’re not from Ireland I would encourage every state agency to do what Enterprise Ireland are doing, I mean, without blowing our trumpet too loudly they are very good at what they do and we are really proud of the fact that they are so good in supporting startups but on a practical level, you know, I think, Enterprise Ireland, you’ve got to think what their job is and how you make the most of that right. And they will invite you, once you become their investor- company you get invited to lots of stuff so you can’t go to everything, you got to narrow down what it is you want from them, to make the most of it, but what’s amazing about them is that their offices overseas are so good.
So for example we’ve narrowed down as I’ve told you the profile who we are going after and so Enterprise Ireland New York, he would help me build up a list and get the list of leads and also find out their companies that he knows that could be my first customers.
So that’s really practical help on the ground and also there’s a lot of research available if you need it, you know, and just generally, they are right behind you, for example, let’s say we decided we’re going to have CEO event for SaaS making seven millionaire, Enterprise Ireland will host that in New York, they will help us with the logistics and invitations so that’s massive for us and also that gives you credibility because where they are is usually downtown San Francisco or New York so you get all of that and right there set up for you and so I think they are very, very important.
Nas: You’ve talked about this a little before but I’m gonna ask in a different way, what would be your main advice to a company wanting to do the move in the US?
Maeve: Obviously firstly, definitely, don’t go overwhelmed by the size of the States, and I hope I’ve said that earlier, but it’s really about breaking it into pockets, you know, so if you’re a well-established business you would say okay I bet your customers in the States are the same but I suspect they are not they could be different so it’s to trying to kind of hone in on, not be too narrow for start but try to understand what customer need that you could fill in, maybe even an industry you haven’t broken in Europe, because people can find that changes and you definitely need people to navigate through that.
So I think bringing up your whole team in Europe is not the answer, I think it’s bring over people who are taking ownership of it and get local people to help them do what they’ve done in Europe and understand what’s happening because there are nuances out there that you wouldn’t get and I think it is even harder if language barriers so you definitely need somebody who would say it as it is and also don’t get people to tell you what you want to hear, you know, if you think that I’m really successful that I know everything, you’re not gonna hear the answers you need to hear. So whenever and if we got rejected in any way, our job is before we get, why did you say no, cause we learn from it, we won’t be offended.
Nas: And were people quite receptive in giving you an honest feedback?
Maeve: They were but you have to ask the question they’re not gonna volunteer so you have to say, you know, why you didn’t buy the product, and they will tell you.
Nas: Okay, and what were the reasons that, sort of cultural differences and not knowing the market enough that fact that you are from here, was that ever a factor?
Maeve: Never, I mean, unless it was hidden, and I don’t feel it was, it was more to do, maybe our product wasn’t exactly right for them or maybe we were not further enough along in terms of longevity and what we could do as we are now, so therefore that might be something else they could look at.
Nas: Cool, and how do we find out about what you guys are doing?
Maeve: So, by the way, we’re open for business, any SaaS companies who really want to accelerate their growth, we are the people to call and my address is maeve.kneafsey@cloudkpi.com and we also have a website cloudkpi.com and we’re also on LinkedIn so we’re available, and also to give back, I’m happy to help somebody within reason because I’ve had so much help, so if there’s something I can help with, email me.
This is Move Your Business to the United States from Mount Bonnell Advisors, I’m Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and you’ve just heard Maeve Kneafsey from CloudKPI who are at CloudKPI.com do check them out, our sound engineer is Emmett Glynn and our podcast manager is Nevena Paunovic, we use some samples from the Prelinger Archives who have some great educational films and home movies from the US. We’ll be back in two weeks with more from another company who’ve made the move. Send us questions that you want answered to info@mtbonnell.com you can also find that in the show notes. Okay, we’ll speak to you again in two weeks.
Listen to the full episode – Maeve Kneafsey of CloudKPI: A Female Tech Founder in the US
