Validate before you commit
Ninety days of demand testing costs less than the first quarter of a wrong country manager hire. Discovery comes before headcount.
Pressure-test the move
Seventy percent of expansions fail. Yours doesn't have to.
UK to EU, US to UK, EU to MENA, ANZ to APAC. A six-figure bet on a market nobody in your room has actually sold in. Geography or segment, same problem.
why market expansion
Why Market Expansion
Most expansion plans are a country manager and a prayer.
Tesco lost $1.6bn on Fresh & Easy in the US. Casper retreated from Europe inside four years. Walmart bought into Germany and burned a decade. None lacked capital, brand or ambition. They lacked a validated market and a plan that survived contact with it. McKinsey puts the failure rate at 70%. Most expansions do not fail loudly. They drift.
Get in touchPlan, partners, proof
A written entry plan, pre-vetted local partners, and live pilots inside the quarter. Not a 60-slide deck followed by a goodbye email.
Built where you're going
London, Dubai, Auckland. UK and EU, MENA and the Gulf, ANZ and APAC. No single-HQ competitor credibly serves all three.
our approach
Our Approach
Validate first. Hire later.
Three months in, you will know whether to commit, pivot or pull. That is the deal. We compress the discovery a country manager would otherwise take a year to do, on a quarter of the payroll.
We audit the demand signal, the regulatory shape (GDPR, PDPL, post-QFI rules, free zone choice), the channel routes and the competitive set. You leave with an honest read on whether the move is worth making, and what would have to be true.
You get a written entry plan with named accounts, a sequenced channel mix, free zone or entity guidance where relevant, and a 90-day shipping schedule. It is not a strategy deck. It is a plan your team could execute on Monday.
We run paid pilots, ABM to the first twenty accounts, localised landing pages and partner intros, all live inside the quarter. This is the demand signal a country manager would otherwise spend six months trying to find.
On Day 90 we share the read. That covers pipeline movement, conversion economics, regulatory blockers and partner traction. The board gets an evidenced go/no-go, not a hopeful update. We will tell you not to spend.
Our Expansion
Services
Geographic moves and segment moves share the same shape of problem: new ICP, new messaging, new channels, new evidence. We cover all four.
Market Entry Diagnostic
A fixed-scope, paid diagnostic covering demand validation, regulatory mapping, partner shortlist and channel routes. You get a defensible answer for the board in 30 days.
GTM Build & Launch
Localised messaging in the right register (US outbound does not land in EU), ICP refit, paid pilots, ABM, partner activations. The market is warmed before the first hire.
MENA & Gulf Activation
We run DIFC, ADGM and DMCC routes. Saudi entry under Vision 2030 rules and the post-QFI capital regime. PDPL-aware data handling, run from our Dubai office.
Segment & Vertical Expansion
Upmarket, downmarket or horizontal-to-vertical. A new ICP needs new messaging, new channels and new evidence. The discipline matches a new country.
The 30% who win do this.
They validate before they commit. They hire the country manager into a market they have already warmed. They use the inward-investment desks (IDA Ireland, Singapore EDB, Dubai DET, Saudi MISA, NZTE) for the introductions those bodies are good at, and an operator for the rest. A quarter of evidence comes before a year of payroll.
why MxD
Why MxD for Expansion
Three regions. One accountable team.
London covers UK and EU routes, including the post-Brexit cost-of-trade reset. Dubai covers MENA, Vision 2030 and the GCC, run out of a DIFC-aware office. Auckland covers ANZ, with NZ as the low-risk test market before APAC. Strategy houses sell a deck. Single-country boutiques sell execution in one market. We sell both, inside one team, across the three regions you actually need.
Common
Questions
We're going to hire a country manager. Why do we need you?
Hire them. Just not yet. A country manager parachuted in before demand is validated spends six to twelve months doing discovery on 150,000–250,000 pounds of payroll. Compress that into 90 days, then hire into a market with a named pipeline and signed partners. It is cheaper, faster and less risky, and it gives you a better job spec to recruit against.
How is this different from the McKinsey or Bain pitch we already had?
The strategy houses sell a market-entry deck for 250,000 pounds and above. We sell a plan plus the team that ships it. Inside the quarter they would still be doing primary research, you will have paid pilots live, the first twenty accounts contacted, and a defensible read on whether to commit. The evidence base is the same. The deliverable is not.
How long until we know whether the market is real?
Ninety days. That is not a marketing line. It is the engagement structure. Day 90 is a formal pipeline review with the board. If the signal is not there, we say so and recommend you do not spend the year. Most agencies will not make that call.
What does this cost?
We use engagement-tier framing rather than a price list. A fixed-scope entry diagnostic sits at the low end. A full GTM build-and-launch programme, including diagnostic, plan, pilots and partner activation, sits considerably above that. Pricing is published in the proposal, fixed for the engagement, and quoted against scope. Expansion engagements vary too much for a public range to be honest.