The Fuel50 team.
In October last year the folks behind Kiwi company Fuel50 won big in Las Vegas - but the source of their winnings wasn't the roulette or blackjack tables.
Instead the company's offering was awarded as one of the best new human resources technologies at the HR Technology Conference, which is held annually at the desert resort mecca.
Fuel50 creates career path software, typically aimed at companies with a high concentration of knowledge workers and with 1000 or more employees, and its CEO Anne Fulton says the win opened the door to coverage in the Wall St Journal and other US publications.
It all helps when you're a tiny Kiwi company targeting major US-based customers in a competitive landscape that includes the likes of technology giants Oracle and SAP.
"In the US there are 11,000 companies in our target market versus 100 in New Zealand and 444 in Australia. So there's no question that's the market we want to be in," says Fulton.
"We're trying to build a really big business brand, so our marketing has been critical to us acting like a bigger company. We talk about being David and Goliath; we're a micro business down here in New Zealand, but we market like we're a large enterprise."
Like Fulton, many New Zealand small business owners making inroads into the US cite the scale of opportunity as a reason for their focus on the market, but the sheer size of the US also means small Kiwi companies need to direct their efforts carefully.
"We're such generalists and in the US you really need to narrow your focus, and even as you keep narrowing it you find you're still dealing with opportunities far greater than you could ever get here," says Ben Ridler, CEO of business management software firm Results.com, which has a San Francisco office with around a dozen staff.
Ridler says hiring Americans is helping mould the company's thinking.
"I think they're the most advanced society when it comes to sales and marketing. Both our head of US sales and our head of marketing are American, so they've knocked the Kiwi thinking out of us a bit. But I think Kiwis have a lot to offer too. We're very good at delivering a product or service to a client need and we innovate really well, so I think between us it's a really nice mix."
Hiring locally has also been important for Spotlight Reporting, a software as a service (SaaS) company that produces business intelligence add-ons to online accounting software platforms Xero and QuickBooks Online.
The firm has one US-based staff member - sales director Leslie Riggs, a Californian - who Spotlight's CEO Richard Francis says "already has great knowledge of different ecosystems in the US".
But it's still crucial for Kiwi company leaders to regularly get on a plane to the US, he says, and that all efforts in the market are adequately resourced.
"The main thing that's distinguishing the companies who make it in the US and the ones who aren't is investment," says Francis. "If you're going to go there, you've got to do it seriously, and for investors, particularly in the SaaS world, you have to have a US market play."
Anne Fulton is the CEO of Fuel50 / Career Engagement Group, which creates career path software and has offices in Auckland and New York.
When did Fuel50 first start engaging with the US market?
We took on our first angel investment at the end of December 2013, started looking at establishing our US operation in January 2014 and had appointed and trained staff by April that year. So we've been going for about 15 months in the US. We've learnt a lot.
Why is the US market such a focus for the company?
The US market for HR tech is the most sophisticated in the world; it's valued at $14 billion a year and it's still growing. We work with enterprise clients who have a high concentration of knowledge workers and typically with 1000 or more employees - so banking, finance, health care, higher education, technology companies. In the US there are 11,000 companies in our target market versus 100 in New Zealand and 444 in Australia. So there's no question that's the market we want to be in.
The US really leads the way when it comes to thinking around HR technology. The companies are so sophisticated and they use multiple HR technologies to support their people strategies, plus the HR technology landscape up there is super exciting. Our product fits a niche in the market - currently there's very little dedicated technology to support career pathing - so that's our opportunity, to become the leading career pathing technology in the US and globally.
What's the current state of your business in the US, and some of your goals for growth there?
We have a goal to have 100 US clients by the end of next year; we have five now, but that includes some big names and some Fortune 100 companies and 100 best places to work in the US. At the moment everything is trending in the right direction. Last year we doubled our recurring revenue, and we've doubled that again in the past six months.
What do you think has helped you get your foot in the door of that market?
We're trying to build a really big business brand, so our marketing has been critical to us acting like a bigger company. We talk about being David and Goliath; we're a micro business down here in New Zealand, but we market like we're a large enterprise. In our competitive landscape we've got Oracle and SAP, so we're playing into that space and we look carefully at their marketing and try to emulate or do better than anything they're doing, particularly in the career pathing research and thought leadership space.
Underpinning our marketing is a foundation of research. We're aiming to be thought leaders and providing research and insight into what best practice 'career enablement' looks like. We're regularly invited on to the conference speaking circuit, particularly in the employee engagement industry. We were fortunate enough to also get noticed by picking up the award for being one of the best new technologies at the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas last year, and that opened us up to coverage in the Wall St Journal and other publications, which all helps credibility.
The other thing is engaging with the HR community in the US, so really having quality conversations and building strong relationships with our prospects. We work really hard on what we call our 'Fuellie' culture - to be fast, fun and fantastic as a team - so everyone has fun together but they also have aspirational performance objectives. Our US team have some big goals, but they're incredibly high performing.
How about things that haven't worked as well? What have been some of your major learnings so far in the US?
Because we're about the people proposition we really have to live our business values. What's been interesting in the US is people are more prepared to come and go quickly, so you've got to be really focused on engaging them, keeping them motivated and have a good pipeline of talent.
How have you grown that pipeline?
The same way we've found our clients - through contacts, relationships and attending events within the HR industry. Having a strong board has also helped us attract great talent and the angel investment community behind us has been outstanding. We wouldn't be doing what we're doing, or have achieved what we've been achieving without their backing. Being able to tap into people like the ex-chair of Xero, Sam Knowles - who's one of our investors - has been incredible.
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