Joel is our Market Entry Manager and has had an extensive role in ResQ Club’s geographical expansion and the way we do new market research. If you’re wondering what it might look like to work in geographic expansion at a startup, this will give you some good insights.

Joel at the adventure park, during our company summer day.

What are your responsibilities as a Market Entry Manager?

I am basically responsible for our market research processes end-to-end on our new international markets. Unlike many other growth companies, ResQ Club puts a lot of emphasis on smart growth rather than rapid growth. This means that we put a lot of effort into market research with the aim to find the best possible markets for ResQ Club. Furthermore, we aim to understand if product-market fit exists on a new market prior to making any large investments. This is why our market research process consists of three different stages:

1) desktop research,

2) onsite research

3) product-market fit testing phase

In the first stage we try to get a good understanding of the market environment, in the second stage we interview potential partners and customers in order to get an understanding of the market demand for a service like ours. As it’s difficult to know if product-market fit actually exists on a market prior to being present on it, we also have a 3-4 month testing period where we operate on the market with a small team and continue to collect market specific insights. Once we feel confident that product-market fit exists or can be created, we start investing in growth. This practically means setting up a subsidiary and starting to build a local team as well as investing in other growth activities. My role in all of this is to participate and manage everything up until the point where we start investing in growth and our growth team takes over.

What main projects are you working on right now?

This summer I have been preparing the testing phase of our next international market. That means I’m involved in market research, recruitment, localizing the product, coordinating with external partners, preparing sales activities, preparing the onboarding for the new hires on the market and much more… Basically making sure everything is ready for the launch, which entails a lot of coordination and collaboration with our Marketing Strategist, and other teams in ResQ Club.

Do you work from the office/from home/ hybrid?

That depends a lot, usually half of the week I work from home and half of the week I work at the office. I’ve noticed that I start missing the social aspect of going to the office so I can't work from home for too long periods.

How do you start your day?

Usually I open Slack and go through all the messages, both on the public channels and DMs. Then usually take a look at my backlog and follow the weekly plan.

Do you have lots of meetings? To work on what? 

I have a few recurring meetings such as the Monday standup and Friday retrospective. Each Monday our team has a quick standup where each team member shares what tasks they have over the week and if they need any support. On Fridays we then have a longer debriefing session where we go over what everyone did during the week, what went well, what needs to be improved and so on. We also have company wide Demos every second week.

The amount of meetings and collaboration with others depends a lot on which stage of market research we are in. During the desktop study phase I do a lot of independent work, but I also engage in discussions with market experts such as Business Finland representatives or potential partners in order to get a better understanding of a specific market and understand if that market could be suitable for ResQ.

During the onsite research phase, I stay in close contact with our freelancers and try to support them and finally, in the product-market fit testing phase I’m managing the daily operations on the market which comes with a bit more daily meetings.

How do you organise your day? Is your day structured or not really?

This has changed quite a bit over the past 2 years. I was pretty confident that I could keep everything organized in my head as I’ve done in the past but this turned out to be impossible very fast. Especially when we are in the testing phase and more people are involved. Today, I’m much more organized and put more emphasis on planning and documentation. I have my own backlog and during the test phase we also have a shared backlog with the team.

What does a typical day look like for you?

A typical day doesn't really exist; again, it depends so much on what phase of the market we are in. Many times I might be looking at a few markets simultaneously and they might all be in different phases of the overall market research process so my days are very much influenced by that. The dynamic nature of my work is also something that I really enjoy.

What colleagues/roles/teams do you interact with the most and why?

Our market research efforts and especially the testing phase is a company wide effort and most of our teams are involved in them at least to some extent.

Our product & tech team is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in relation to the launch of a testing phase. They localize our product and also make sure our platform works on a new market.

HR helps with finding local talent and supports the onboarding process.

Our Finnish sales team often provides support and sparring and the marketing team helps out with activities such as content creation and lifecycle marketing.

Our customer service team also provides support for our market teams.

I also stay in close contact with the rest of the geographical growth team as well as our CEO and make sure that everyone is up to date with what is going on in market research.

What excites you the most about the job?

Working with different people in a multidisciplinary environment and learning a lot. It's also exciting to build something new on a new market, the international aspect, seeing how your efforts contribute to the growth of the company, coming up with new ideas and so on. The position itself is very versatile, and there are a lot of things that are exciting and motivating.

Any tips for people looking for a similar role (regardless of the company)?

I think expansion roles are quite broad and suitable for generalists. You need to be able to think strategically, but also work very hands-on. Everyone of course has their strengths and interests, but I believe that it’s important to at least have a basic understanding of market research and analysis, sales, marketing, operations management and corporate governance. These come to mind at least when thinking about my role at ResQ Club, which might of course differ depending on the company you work for. When entering new markets you need to be aware of many different things about the market environment such as regulations, tax and culture for instance so a natural curiosity and understanding of different things will be beneficial.

Any tips to keep a good work/ personal life balance?