Once you’ve gained traction in your home market and raised your next round, you're most likely eager to scale abroad. And Europe remains an affordable, trustworthy and solvent series of countries, where even the smaller ones can serve as a safe proof of concept before expanding region-wide. Whereas going to the U.S. often requires a ten-fold budget versus even any of the largest European countries.
Indeed their funders advise the founders to scale abroad! Why should you be looking at Europe as your next expansion landing pad?
In part, it’s defensive, keeping ahead of the competition that might try to mimic what you’ve achieved in your home market, at a cheaper price, so they beat you to neighboring markets. And there are compelling offensive reasons as well, like increasing revenue, diversifying risk and leveraging bigger buying power. Which ultimate makes your company more valuable.
But how do you know your company is ready to expand abroad? See how you score on the European Growth Compass. This exercise has startup and scale- considering the internal and external factors that help determine where you stand, what remains to be done, and where to focus first.
Each compass ray is measured on a scale of 0 to 5. We suggest treating each ray equally, with the best total readiness score being 40.
For instance, for Cultural Fit and Adaptability Score, translating your website gives you barely a 1 now, given the location-based automatic translation features already integrated. While ensuring your customer success team speaks the local language and is available in the corresponding time zone, not only shows your local commitment, but raises your Adaptability Score to a 4. To get a 5, your company also needs to boast local references with testimonials, to exhibit clear adherence to national and European regulations, and to demonstrate readiness in addressing challenges specific to that country. Only then are you ready to start reaching out to an in situ network of decision makers.
Across eight directional goals, we have crafted a series of questions in order to score your expansion readiness. See where you map out.
Work with your team — and trusted partners like Sales Force Europe — to evaluate each of these considerations to see how your scale-up measures up for the European market.
These are the metrics that you as a startup or scale-up founder should already know or have the mechanisms in place to see if you’re ready to scale.
An example of scalability is how DailyMotion was able to leverage the Applause crowdtesting platform to test out 10 new country markets a month, from one homebase, only launching a new version once it was canary and A/B tested to a smaller segment of each new population. Not all updates were proven right for each market, but this way they didn’t break trust with any market by releasing the wrong thing.
Examples of evaluation topics:
Scale-ups like yours need to assess your financial health before any expansion, which may vary by country. For example, targeting a smaller country like Slovenia, which is 4% of the size but the same GDP per capita as France (and Europe at large, Eurostat 2025), makes for a good European proof of concept, without risking too much investment upfront. Plus, if you don’t do well, it doesn’t leave as big a mark on your reputation as if you failed to launch in a bigger country like Germany, France or the UK.
Examples of evaluation topics:
A fintech consumer electronic client of ours partnered with local retailers and distributors when expanding across Europe. By collaborating with established brick-and-mortars, that scale-up gained access to local markets and enhanced distribution chains for its products.
Examples of evaluation topics:
Most companies are facing currency risks when selling abroad. SaaS providers often use hedging to prevent currency fluctuation issues when operating cross-boarder.
Examples of risk mitigating actions:
These are things out of your control, but certainly should be central to your considerations.
Before expanding, analyze the demand for your product or service. For instance, Abritel (Expedia Group) studied travel trends and identified a global demand for unique accommodations. They adapted their platform to various cultures, offering diverse housing options suitable to each different market.
In order to do this, the now travel giant locally ran:
Algonomy’s global expansion strategy considers local competitors. In some markets, the team faced stiff competition from local recommendation and search engine software vendors. To counter this, they tailored marketing campaigns and pricing strategies to gain an edge, while also trying to be the first to enter the markets with less competition.
Examples of evaluation topics:
After being adopted in more than 40 currencies and 21 languages, Estonian-British’s Wise understands the power of adapting to local cultures. But, when it went to enter the U.S., the Wise team had to adapt messaging from how transactions work — something important to building trust with European customers — to the fact that these transactions really are instantaneous, allowing it to distinguish itself from American banks which can take up to three days. To attract customers in different markets, you may also need to provide regional support and adapt regularly to local HR and accounting laws.
Examples of evaluation topics:
When French BlaBlaCar expanded internationally, it encountered regulatory challenges in various countries. The carpooling company had to adapt its business model and comply with local transportation laws to operate legally in each new market. BlaBlaCar ended up applying different business models across dozens of countries.
Examples of evaluation topics:
All this adds up to whether you have the right go-to-market strategy in place to branch off and sell into Europe. Feel free to connect with me to discuss how your scale-up measures up.
Want your Europe-readiness score up? Since 2003, Sales Force Europe has worked with more than 600 tech scale-up founders and funders, helping them expand into and across 30 different European countries. We think we can help you, too.
