How can female entrepreneurs break into international markets? Last Wednesday,the Female Founders Forum hosted a webinar on exporting. We had a very informative discussion, led by a panel of experts including Juliet Rogan, head of high growth and entrepreneurs at Barclays, and two entrepreneurs, Cécile Reinaud and Virginie Charles-Dear, the founders of Séraphine and toucanBox.
They had some helpful advice for the guests who tuned in. Here are their top tips.
Go for low hanging fruit
You should identify the markets which are going to be the easiest to enter. Séraphine makes maternity clothing, and founder Cécile Reinaud told us that they first targeted countries where the maternity fashion market was underdeveloped. She thinks you should only export to places where you know that you have some kind of competitive advantage over existing players. The costs for a foreign business will be higher so it would be difficult for a “me too” product to succeed.
Look at the regulation
toucanBox ships toys, which are tightly regulated. Their founder Virginie Charles-Dear explained that you have a product which is highly regulated, it helps to export to places with similar rules so that each additional market does not add too many onerous approvals or slight adjustments to the product.
Network with entrepreneurs who are doing the same thing
Cécile said she gained the confidence to enter new markets by talking to other entrepreneurs who had gone before her. She found that they could tell her what the specific hurdles for that country and that sector were. She has also received advice about which software to use and where to find a good tax adviser, which proved very helpful.
Ask for help from professionals
Juliet Rogan advised female founders to actively seek advice. Female founders are more likely to seek advice from people within their network, whereas male entrepreneurs are more likely to ask for advice from professionals. Women should continue to seek out networks of other entrepreneurs, but it is worth female entrepreneurs making an extra effort to find professionals too; like lawyers, accountants, or even specialist trade advisers.
Reach out to UK Trade and Investment for support
The Gov.uk website offers a lot of resources to British entrepreneurs who are interested in exporting. Beyond information about how exporting to different countries works, they will also offer some grants to entrepreneurs. Cécile says they helped her to export to Japan and the UAE, and gave her grants to travel to the countries first.
Know and understand the market
Understanding consumers in new markets is vital. In the early days for toucanBox, Virginie stood outside schools and asked parents and pupils to test out her products. She believes that when you export you should make sure to hire people who know the local market because you can learn a lot of unexpected things.
Make a financial plan
Cécile cautions that there are some markets which are difficult to break into. She said that marketing costs in the US are very high, and that in her sector, maternity fashion, there was already a very competitive market. She said they only launched Séraphine in the US when they were financially secure enough to sustain a loss making business for several years.
Do not wait for everything to be ready
Virginie says that you should be wary of over-preparing. There is no point in waiting for the perfect moment to export because it doesn’t exist.
It was a fruitful conversation with a lot of actionable advice. If you would like to be invited to future Female Founders Forum events please sign up on our website.