US GTM Best Practices For Founders Starting-up in India

I am experimenting with a new format in this episode. To surface truly helpful operating tips and insights for India-based founders looking to expand in the US, this discussion goes in-depth into case studies across a startup’s lifecycle and based on real scenarios I frequently encounter as a US-India VC investor.

This episode covers everything from how an idea stage founder starting up in India should approach entering the US market, hard pivots from India to US customers, to US sales hiring and eventually, creating an exit event. We also discuss various approaches to US-India GTM through mini-cases on SuperOps, Rocketlane, and Spendflo.

Joining me for this discussion is Vinod Muthukrishnan, Chief Customer Officer at Uniphore, one of the top US-India startup success stories. Prior to this, Vinod founded CloudCherry (customer experience management), which was acquired by Cisco. He then went on to become the COO of Cisco’s contact center business. Vinod is also an active volunteer and member of the Governing Council at SaaSBoomi, the world’s largest SaaS founder community, as well as Venture Advisor to March Capital.

TIME STAMPS:

(01:49) [Case Study #1] How should an idea-stage founder starting up in India approach learning and validating in the US market?

(11:29) The "right" way to ask for help

(13:05) [Case Study #2] How should a $100k-$1Mn ARR startup think about hard-pivoting from India to US customers?

(25:53) How to have hard conversations with your Board/ investors while doing a hard pivot

(34:10) Various approaches to US-India GTM - SuperOps, Rocketlane, Spendflo

(45:31) [Case Study #3] How to think about hiring US sales leaders and org. design as a post-Series A startup

(55:41) [Case Study #4] How to work towards creating an exit event as a late-stage startup

Connect with Vinod - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinodmkrishnan/ and follow him on X - @vinod_cc

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I am a venture investor focused on the US-India corridor. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumitrasharma5/) and follow me on X (@soumitra_sharma).