Moving into new markets: 5 lessons we learned taking Rippling global

Expanding into new markets, no matter where you’re headquartered, can be tricky. For most companies, the path forward is wrought with first-time decisions and unknown territory. 

Rippling has been “global” from the early days, as we were making hires across San Francisco and Bangalore, India in 2017, 2018, and 2019. However, our India office was only the first step in our international expansion journey—today, we have offices in the UK, Ireland, India, Australia, Canada, and China, a fully distributed global workforce, and a product that supports customers across 185+ countries. 

And now, we’re sharing some of our learnings to help other companies looking to tap into new markets get it right. 

1. Consider your business objectives

Why do companies go global, anyway? According to our global hiring report, companies’ motivations are split pretty equally between these two triggers:

1. Tap into a new, wider talent pool. With the rise of remote work—and as companies continue to compete for top talent—people are joining teams from all over the world.
2. Access new markets to sell your product in. Some companies may start selling internationally to add new revenue streams, diversify their customer base, and get an edge over the competition.

Consider your reasons for expanding globally—what goals are you hoping to achieve? At first, Rippling was motivated by talent—we wanted to hire more engineers and other roles from markets with deep talent pools and attractive cost dynamics. We also wanted to cover different timezones so we could support customers 24/7. In 2017, we opened our India office, which continues to be one of our major talent hubs, with around 800 people working there today. 

But that’s a story for another day. We’ll focus this one on our journey expanding to new markets and serving customers around the world.

2. Determine if it’s the right time to expand globally

Many venture-backed companies feel pressure to scale into new markets before they’re set up to succeed internationally. Others expand too late and lag behind competitors. Timing is everything—but how do you know when the time is right?

At Rippling, we made the intentional decision to get our US engine set up and humming before taking it to new international markets. While serving global customers was our vision from day one, we wanted to iron out our core products, go-to-market messaging, and growth engine first. More importantly, we didn’t want to divert our resources or attention away from our HQ market (the US) until we had built a solid product and go-to-market foundation. By 2021, we were ready.

3. Make sure you choose the right market

Once you decide to take your startup to a new market, how do you choose the right one?

We considered four key factors in our decision:

1. Existing demand: When our US-based customers would expand into new markets, they’d ask us if Rippling could support them there. We recognized the massive opportunity in front of us to not only meet the demand of our existing customers but also our future ones.
2. Competitive landscape: We looked at the competition—both the legacy providers and the newer startups—in the markets we were exploring. Was there a clear and identifiable opportunity for Rippling to do it better? 
3. Market size: A top-down analysis told us how large a market was but it didn’t tell us if it was a good fit for Rippling. A bottom-up approach, however, showed us the number of companies that fit our ideal customer profile (ICP) in a market.
4. Market complexity: Every country handles employment, wages, payroll taxes, and employee benefits differently. We had to evaluate the lift to localize our product and navigate complex new regulatory environments. The markets that are least similar to your HQ market are the hardest to take on. For our many target countries where English was not the primary language, we needed to not only consider our product but also how our team would interact with locals. 

Once we ticked the boxes for the first three, we zeroed in on market complexity. Often, there are two options: pursue the markets most similar to the US or venture into the unknown. Expanding into similar markets is easier, but there’s one issue: our competitors think the same way. That’s why we decided to not only go after similar markets, but pour more into complex markets, like India. This is where we saw a bigger opportunity and less copycat competition.

In India, it’s very difficult to move money into the country due to exchange control and other rules from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It’s also complex to correctly calculate, pay, and manage accounting for monthly payroll and taxes. All of this made India an unusually complicated market to navigate, and most payroll providers, big or small, shied away from this challenge. 

But we saw a massive opportunity to do business in India, so we did the hard work and built a payroll product that allows businesses to pay full-time employees in India. We didn’t just solve for contractor payroll in India and Employer of Record (EOR) arrangements, which we also offer, but also for paying full-time employees under local Indian entities.

4. Decide if you need a local team in your new market

Depending on the market you choose, you may need to build a local team there. If you have a small SaaS startup and the majority of your sales come from growth marketing, you might be able to get away with running your operations from home. 

But if you’re selling to larger enterprises, being near them in the local market is crucial to your success. You’ll likely need a local go-to-market team that speaks the language, can price and position your product strategically, and understands all the competitive nuances of the market.

5. Operate like a global team, not a siloed one

Expanding into new markets involves more than localizing your product and hiring a local team; it requires a cultural shift, too. We had to find a way to keep thousands of global Rippling employees connected to each other. 

This mindset shift needs to come from the top down. Our CEO Parker Conrad launched an internal operation—which we framed as a “global blitz”—where we rallied a team of Rippling leaders to get employees excited about driving globalization. We needed our employees to start thinking about Rippling as a global business and make every decision going forward with that lens in mind. We also needed everyone to understand how serious going global is and the weight of getting it right; once you decide to go global and start landing in new markets, you can’t easily take it back. 

Our Dublin, Ireland office (Rippling’s EMEA HQ), for example, started with just two people and has grown to 125 over the last year and a half. From the get-go, we not only hired local talent but also brought over experienced Rippling employees from our US HQ. I personally moved to Dublin for over a year with my family, joined by our VP of Sales and a few go-to-market leads. This decision to populate the Dublin office with people who knew Rippling inside and out helped us maintain a cohesive culture and employee experience across borders. It also helped new local hires ramp up more quickly, learn about the product, and understand how to tell our unique story.

Ready to take your company global?

Expanding into new markets is exciting, but it’s also one of the most daunting things you can do as a business with a lot of potential pitfalls. 

As a startup, you need to test new markets and get things off the ground quickly. But for long-term global success, you need systems in place that will support this rapid growth as you double down on investments into new markets. You may not need every tool in Rippling’s suite of HR, payroll, spend, and IT products now, but in the future, you will. And when the time comes, ripping and replacing your systems will create messy, unusable data and a logistical nightmare.

Rippling has taken all the painful learnings from our own global expansion and poured that knowledge into our products. Now, we’re helping other companies take their first steps into international markets. With Rippling, you can onboard global employees in minutes, pay them accurately and on time, and automate compliance with complicated foreign labor and tax laws. 

So join Rippling and come on in, the international waters are nice and warm! 

Disclaimer: Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.