Looking into the possibility of expanding your business internationally you need to take a step back and ask yourself. Am I open to changing how I do business? To learning from my failures along the way? If you answered yes to both then you have my blessings into your journey of expanding your business abroad. Doing business in country 'X' signifies that you'll need to not try to understand but analyze the country, culture, environment, and market. Trust me trying to understand is probably the biggest mistake anybody can make when expanding into a different country even if the culture is very similar. You'll need to know the flexibility of your current business plan in order to understand the advantages and disadvantages in doing business in country X. The idea that your business model works fine in your country doesn't mean it will work great in another country. So the solution here is to take your service/product and go through the following questions and rate 1 - 10 (1-low/Small, 5-average, 10-High/Big).
1) Is this a big idea or a small idea?
2) Is this a large market or a small market?
3) Is this market highly fragmented or low fragmentation?
4) Are barriers to entry high or low?
5) Is it difficult of doing business in this country?
6) What is the significant value of doing business in the country?
7) Problem or lack of service highly known or not known?
Once you rated all do the same for the current country and compare notes. You'll be able to quickly view these differences and provide you some insight into where your business plan might need to be changed.
