We work with contributors to develop guest posts that will help Ploonge+ readers solve real problems, so it’s always a pleasure to present a comprehensive “how to” article.
In this case, Barnabas Birmacher, CEO of platform-as-a-service company Bitrise, shared the lessons he learned as his team tried to break into Japan.
Launching a product in a foreign market where you’re unfamiliar with the language and culture is a necessary step for growing companies, “but the barriers to entry are high” in Japan, notes Birrmacher, which is why building community was instrumental in its expansion.
Rather than relying solely on strategic partners, his team visited Japan before preparing to host events and engage directly with early adopters.
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Leaving aside traditional media and marketing tactics, Bitrise hired a manga artist to create a comic with a mobile developer, developed “Japan-first” swag to distribute, and even created a life-size mascot costume for conferences. .
“We left the suit with one of our customers and now people wear it while drinking,” he writes.
If your startup is at or close to the point where you are considering international expansion, this post contains several tactics you can adapt and test.
“Whether or not these things make sense to you, the most important thing to do while you’re there is to show up and be a part of the community,” says Birmacher.
Thank you so much for reading Ploonge+ and I hope you have a great week.
Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, Ploonge+
@seuprotagonist
A CISO playbook for responding to zero-day exploits
Image credits: Kalawin (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
The exploit of Log4Shell, which gave criminals the ability to run malicious code on infiltrated servers, made global headlines and ruined the vacation of many cybersecurity professionals.
Despite a series of high-profile attacks, many companies still don’t have a response plan, writes Jonathan Trull, senior vice president of customer solutions, architecture and engineering at Qualys.
Based on his experience as a CISO, Trull outlines three steps companies can take to develop a playbook:
- Establish a standard operating procedure
- stock, stock, stock
- Collecting, sharing and analyzing information
For the first time in 4 years, profitability exceeds growth
Image credits: gabetcarlson (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Venture capitalists pin their hopes and expectations on revenue because it’s a clear sign of how quickly their investment can grow.
But lately, profitability has quietly outpaced revenue growth as the metric of choice, according to Jeremy Abelson and Jacob Sonnenberg of Irving Investors.
“In 2021, profitability – as measured by free cash flow (FCF) margins – rather than revenue growth, had the strongest correlation with positive equity returns in the software sector. This broke a four-year trend of revenue growth being the single most important driver of the software company’s stock performance.”
Abelson and Sonnenberg unravel the factors driving investors to sell high-growth stocks and share “some of our favorite metrics as profitability versus growth momentum continues to play out.”
Cryptocurrency Predictions for 2022 from Prime Trust CFO Rodrigo Vicuna
Image credits: Klaus Vedfelt (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
New York Mayor Eric Adams converted his first salary into Ether and Bitcoin; Burger King is putting QR codes on 6 million meal boxes that unlock NFTs.
Cryptocurrency is having a cultural moment, but we have yet to achieve mass adoption, despite what marketing campaigns might have you believe.
Rodrigo Vicuna, CFO of fintech-focused bank Prime Trust, shares his predictions for this year’s cryptocurrency market, suggesting that stricter rules could attract more consumers:
“It may seem counterintuitive, but more regulation provides more guidance, which ensures institutional and mass use.”
Will the latest liquidation finally shake up the way investors value startups?
Image credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
Public markets have fallen in recent weeks, but early-stage investments in startups are showing no signs of slowing down.
It could be that investors are taking off their hype hats and evaluating companies based on how profitable they are rather than how quickly they are increasing their revenue, wrote Alex Wilhelm at the Exchange.
“A shift towards a more P/E world for technology companies rather than a P/S posture would make profit more profitable for companies. More valuable, in other words. This, in turn, could change how companies – including startups – invest and what they prioritize.”
Does algorithmic venture capital investing support due diligence?
Image credits: Andy Roberts (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Increasingly, investors are spending more time crunching the numbers and less time analyzing founders’ personalities before paying a check.
“In practice, attempts to remove bias can create newer and harder-to-identify blind spots,” writes Natasha Mascarenhas, who interviewed people who use algorithmic investments to guide their decision making.
“Every now and then we hear more rumors that the industry will shift to lean in that direction, but frankly, it’s hard,” said Michele Romanow, co-founder of Clearco.
“It requires deep technical knowledge and a product to match, so while it looks good on the surface, people often go back to what they know, which is the traditional closed system with humans making decisions based on intangibles.”
3 Ways Investors Can Assess the Strength of an NFT Opportunity
Choose between orange fruit and peeled orange peel without fruit.
Non-fungible tokens are highly speculative, but Clara Bullrich, co-founder of TheVentureCity, says green flags are just as easy to spot as red ones — if investors know what to look for.
“Investors need to know the basics of NFTs and their potential, but they don’t need deep technical knowledge,” writes Bullrich.
“That’s because the real value of any NFT project is in the people who build it.”