
Ask HN: 10% WoW growth. Moving to the US. Who should we call? - flibble
We&#x27;re based in Ireland and provide a &#x27;white label&#x27; &#x2F; custom branded online ordering system for restaurants.<p>Our growth rate has been around 10% week on week recently. Here is a graph showing weekly food sales and revenue in more detail: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.getflipdish.com&#x2F;flipdish-images&#x2F;sales-201612.jpg<p>We plan to raise a further round of funding and relocate to the US in 2017.<p>We would like feedback on which investors and VCs would be a good match for us, when we&#x27;re doing about €60k - €100k&#x2F;mth revenue. We&#x27;re at €12k&#x2F;mth now.<p>We will probably be too small at that point to talk to a lot of the big name VCs that we hear about over here, but aren&#x27;t familiar with investors who seek to work with companies at this stage.<p>Any advice from our US HNers would be very welcome!<p>conor@getflipdish.com
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zer00eyz
Why the hell are you moving to the US?

Are you looking for capital? You can get that in Europe. Are you looking for a
larger market? You should be looking in Europe.

By moving to the US your going to create an amazingly complex tax and business
situation that will just make things harder for you not easier. Hell most US
companies want to MOVE some or part of their operations TO Europe for tax
reasons.

After you capture DE, FR, the whole of the UK, AUS, and ZA then think about
the US and think about going to Canada first.

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flibble
The perception is that if we can our sales process work in the US then it will
be much easier to scale out than in the EU, where most every country comes
with its own language.

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zer00eyz
Your sales process is the last reason you should do that.

Market size might be interesting but between tax, labor and business laws your
going to find yourself on very alien ground. Language is a lower barrier than
you think and solving the problem now (at your size) is a much easier goal
that after you have done the US.

What does your current sales process look like that the american market looks
appealing?

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ronankenny
The Digital Irish events are a great way to pitch your business ideas to
Irish-American investors in New York. Check out
[http://digital.irish](http://digital.irish) \- Good Luck!

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eb0la
Use that cash in hand to develop the product for the Germany/Austria region.

Same currency, (almost) same timezone, same taxes, and a 85 Million people
market; plus you can also make a dent in the Swiss market later.

For the US market, you won't have language problems; buy will havo to localize
for (local) sales taxes, etc.

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brudgers
I'd recommend an immigration lawyer to make sure that moving to the US is a
practical option for your business.

Good luck.

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bsvalley
Beside the number of restaurants, did you guys look at the competition in the
US? What would make you guys successful here? Who are the big players in that
space in the US? Seems like a lot of companies have already covered that
space.

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flibble
Yes, of course. It's a very active space and there are a number of US based
companies making moves in the US. No one with quite as nice a platform (from
the consumer's POV) as us exists - we're confident in our ability to make it
work there.

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sharemywin
why wouldn't you stay where your at and saturate your initial market. Seems
like a lot of trouble to start practically from scratch.

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flibble
Our local market is 2,000 restaurants, vs 200,000 or so in the US. It's a
great market to learn and improve, but we want a place with a larger customer
base. We aren't abandoning our local market, far from it, but want to be in a
place with space for us to grow.

~~~
brudgers
The United States is also much much bigger. It's ~130 times the land area of
the Republic of Ireland. The distance between New York and San Francisco is
~4200 km. That's ~1700 km further than the distance from Dublin to Moscow.
More like Dublin to Uralsk, Kazakhstan.

I suppose my point is that the US is not a local market in the same way
Ireland is. You can get up in the morning, drive all day, and still not be at
the other side of Texas even if you don't stop to talk to restaurant owners.

