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Ludmila Nikitina is the Latvia country manager for Estonia-based fintech Wallester — a company on our Sifted 30: Eastern Europe & Baltics Leaderboard, which ranks the fastest-growing startups in the region by revenue growth over the past three years.
Ludmila worked in wealth management and banking before joining Wallester, where she opened its Riga office in early October.
Here are her top tips for opening an office in a new market.
Assess whether there’s a local demand for you
Before you start thinking about how to open an office, you need to know why you’re doing it. Do a thorough analysis of the local market:
- How will your product meet the needs in your location?
- How much value add is there if you’re in the location in person?
- Is there a commercial reason for this?
- What does competition look like?
For example, we saw that Latvia has a strong financial background and a clear demand for innovative financial solutions. This made us make the jump. Taking swift action is often the best way to learn and grow when expanding into a new market.
Stay connected
Look for a location that makes sense for your industry. You want to be at the centre of the action and able to collaborate with others easily. Where are your key partners based? Can you be close to them? Being local will allow you to offer quicker and more tailored support to partners. We chose a location right in the centre of Latvia’s financial scene — key fintech players, banks and our partners surround us.
Join local industry groups and communities to build a network and gain market insights. Attend industry events and be part of the community to solidify your reputation. You might want to sponsor local industry events or host meet-ups to establish your company’s presence early on.
Ensure there’s talent for hire
Find a location where there is skilled talent available — especially with experience in your industry and a good reputation for having moved the needle. You also want a good balance between cost and quality. Research average salaries and benefits to ensure your compensation packages are competitive in the local market.
Hire locally
Don’t fly in everyone from other offices. You’ve joined a local market so ensure you hire local people. This will help cement your reputation as a local company by bringing valuable insights, proven results and community. Local hires will help build trust with the local market. Having a diverse team also helps the wider company in terms of processes, ideas and insights. To find talent:
- Use local job boards and LinkedIn. For niche roles, consider working with local recruiters who understand the market.
- Engage with local universities.
- Offer internships or partnerships to build a pipeline of local talent.
Pull in HQ
The local team can’t — and shouldn’t — do everything alone. Lean on the established processes, expertise and experience that you have across the company. You need strong backing to get moving quickly and efficiently — not siloed teams trying to figure out a new office on their own like a brand new startup. Our experience from other expansions meant that we could plan better and minimise logistical challenges. You’ll want clear communication channels and regular check-ins for the most effective support.
Budget time to comply with local regulations
You will need to spend time completing due diligence work, signing agreements and being onboarded to local services. Collaborate with local legal experts — they’re already on the ground and know how to ensure you’re doing everything correctly. You also want to stay in close contact with regulators to build rapport and jump on any changes needed as quickly as possible.
If your company has never done it before, lean on peers. Ask them what they did, what surprised them, timelines and anything that you should be mindful of in a particular geography.
Document key processes
Create a playbook from everything you learn. This can help streamline future expansions and will make it easier to share learnings across the company.
On the subject of…expanding to new locations
1. Do you really need to open a new office? Often businesses can sell their products or services in international markets from home. So why are you doing it?
2. International expansion 101.
3. How to run a modern office.4. How do you get it right? Max Rhodes, cofounder and CEO of wholesale marketplace Faire, discusses how the company grew to five markets, 10 offices and over 700 employees in this podcast episode.
This article first appeared in Sifted’s Startup Life newsletter. Want more stories like this? Sign up here.
