Case Study

How a world leading SaaS company conquered the german speaking markets to generate a staggering $50k MRR within just 14 months from scratch

Overview

Challenges

Fuel further growth by entering the german speaking DACH markets Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Build a local presence in Berlin without any knowledge of culture, legal and local SaaS market

Generate brand awareness, marketing sales & support

The Outcome

Successful foundation of European HQ in Berlin (full Ltd. “GmbH”)

Business unit for Germany, Austria, Switzerland achieved a MRR of US 50k within just 14 months

Worldwide lowest churn rate of 1.5%

Winning various world class customers

Customer Profile

Industry / Product: Software as a Service (SaaS), Project Management App

Business Size: 50+

The company is a world leading cloud-based collaboration platform with customers across all industries all around the globe. The SaaS (software as a service) is designed to facilitate project and task management, collaboration, delegation, communication, knowledge management, measure progress and provide performance metrics for evidence-based evaluations within teams. It allows team members to assign and receive tasks, add followers, record comments, share and store unlimited files and organize projects.

Customer Profile

Challenges

The business was a successful and ambitious startup growing month to month by 2-digits and to that date was mostly present in the english speaking world. To fuel further growth, create brand awareness, the senior management decided to open additional regional offices to penetrate new markets in Japan, Korea and Germany - Europe's biggest Software market with staggering growth rates.

Once they decided to expand their business into the german speaking countries, the team began to research company foundations within Germany as they planned to handle the expansion by themselves. Nevertheless, they soon realized that this would be a huge challenge.

Setting up a company, hiring a team and managing it remotely without any german language skills would be a huge challenge. The market was highly competitive, legal requirements for setting up a company, running it are tough, costly and time consuming not to forget further regulations like GDPR, local taxation and local culture and software ecosystem. The mountain of problems and challenges was huge and intimidating. The management estimated 6 - 12 months for only setting up everything meaning not even be able to start their software. Besides time, significant costs would be involved as the team would have to travel back and forth to Berlin several times to set up the company, meet with local lawyers, tax accountant etc.

Instead, the management decided to let a group of local experienced professionals in Germany handle everything so they could remain focused on their core markets, keeping important employees at the Asia HQ.

Challenges

Solutions

Co-Founder and CMO Patrick Wings and his team was tasked to build the european HQ represented by a local presence, in prestigious Berlin to lay foundations for further growth within the german speaking markets Germany, Austria and Switzerland known as DACH region.

Everything needed to be done from scratch - company foundation, marketing, pr, sales and support in german language, not to forget dealing with local tax authorities, regulations and much more.

Phase One - Laying the foundations & go-to-market preparations

Phase Two - Creation of brand awareness

Phase Three - Start of digital marketing

Phase Four - Start of sales and support

Phase Five - Customer care & after sales

"We wanted to bring our business to Germany as the biggest market in the European unit, but hurdles seemed very high and we were lacking the knowledge of local regulations - not to mention that we did not have a sufficient understanding of the German culture. That's why we tasked Patrick and his team to help us out."

Anri Digholm, former General Manager

Learn how Patrick and his team designed the process and set the foundation for the growth spurt.
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The Outcome

After 14 months, the team could present a true success story with impressing results in nearly every business area.

Handing over the whole process of founding a company in Germany, market and selling the solution in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by the local team had paid off heavily:

Founded fully flechted “GmbH” (Inc.) in the heart of Berlin including local address and mailbox, telephone number,
Boosted brand awareness and built trust within the german speaking markets Germany, Austria and Switzerland
Average deal size: EUR 10k
Achieved lowest churn of 1.5% per month
Generated US 50k MRR within 14 months of time
Won 100+ customers including world class customers
Saved months of time setting up the GmbH
$10,000s in savings every month to run the unit in Berlin