Episode 39: Utsav Agarwal- How to enter new markets
About Utsav Agarwal:
My next guest on The One Percent Project is Utsav Agarwal. Utsav is an entrepreneur, a networker and a hustler. He kicked off his career in the music industry, managing Indian rock bands and went on to build a music app. Post his entrepreneurial stint, he joined Uber and launched it in eight Indian cities and Dhaka in Bangladesh, breaking all growth records. After Uber, he joined Glovo and launched it in nine Eastern European markets and built a team of 250+ people. Delivery Hero acquired Glovo for $2.6 billion. Utsav is now back to entrepreneurship, building Evenflow, a roll-up platform acquiring and scaling e-commerce businesses.
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In this conversation, he talks about:
His entrepreneurial journey and his learnings?
His experience launching Uber in Dhaka;
How did he land his Glovo offer and his framework for launching new markets?
The power and technique of cold emailing
Why is he building Evenflow?
Some Key Highlights:
My framework for launching in a new market is to enable a network of people who help me get local market insights, initial hires, word of mouth for the product and much more. Therefore, before I even go into any new country, I do a simple Google search "top startups in Ukraine, top startups in Romania, top startups in Georgia", and you'll always find a list of 15-20 startups. Find the details of the CEOs and tell them you are coming to the market and ask if they are available for a coffee or a beer. You will be surprised how many respond positively and are willing to help.
When you're in the new market launch mode, you must determine whether the market will be demand or supply-constrained, and then you start with solving for the constrained side.
While building a startup, have a balanced focus. For example, with my first startup, we focused heavily on the app's design and user experience. As a result, we lost track of retention and monetisation, one of the key reasons for the startup's failure.
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