June 10, 2020

Chris Andrew, Chief Product Officer for Hearsay Systems on: How to Expand Internationally if Your Product Depends on Regulation; Biggest Mistakes Companies Make When Expanding

Chris Andrew, Chief Product Officer for Hearsay Systems on: How to Expand Internationally if Your Product Depends on Regulation; Biggest Mistakes Companies Make When Expanding

This episode is a little different. It focuses on a vertically-focused Silicon Valley Fintech company, Hearsay Systems, that expanded to Europe. In this episode, Chris Andrew, Hearsay’s Chief Product Officer, talks to me about how and when they decided t

Show Notes:

  • [1:15] - How Chris went from being the #1 employee at Hearsay to now being Chief Product Officer at Hearsay 
  • [4:22] - What does Hearsay do?
  • [6:16] - How has the current pandemic affected Hearsay's business.
  • [7:51] - What criteria did Hearsay consider when it decided to expand into Europe.
  • [10:47] - How to prioritize different markets in Europe. How did you pick where to go?
  • [12:40] - Was your strategy to go country by country or to all of Europe?
  • [14:43] - How did you personally prepare before going to Europe?
  • [18:36] - Given your product had a compliance element to it, how did you build awareness with the compliance community across different countries and different regulators?
  • [26:33] - What do you wish you had known before moving to Europe/ What are some of the biggest mistakes companies people make when they move internationally?
  • [29:19] - Is there a hiring plan you would recommend for businesses looking to expand into Europe?
  • [30:44] - What did you personally learn from your time in Europe?


Recommendation and Links:

Business book: 7 powers by Hamilton Helmer

Jazz concert: Delfeayo Marsalis 

Fiction: Mislaid by Nell Zink