Geography matters
Most open source companies I know of have remote-first teams, and indeed, open source communities were probably among the first examples of teams working asynchronously together across different timezones to build something amazing. But I wanted to talk about geography today. Does it matter, when you’re building a company? Does the physical location of your team matter? What about the physical location of your users and your customers?
Yes, yes it does. Even if your company is an open source company. Even if everyone is working in their pajamas in a spare bedroom. Though I’m about to argue that at some point seeing people in person is a good idea, and getting dressed to do so is probably a good idea, too.
Face Time
When you’re just getting a project off the ground, or just trying to close your first paying customer, meeting in person with potential users / customers can be critical. Is it possible to avoid? Sure, but people tend to like and trust people they’ve met in person more than those they haven’t, and especially at the beginning, when you’re really asking people to take a leap of faith just by using your project, talking to them in person is a good idea.
This is why, at the absolute beginning of a company/project, I think focusing your growth efforts on the geography where you happen to live is a very good idea. It’s also a simple way to narrow down your outbound marketing: to companies within a 200 mile radius of where you live, for example. People are also universally tribal, and you will get points for being located close by. *This is not rational, but humans do not make rational decisions, even when looking for Kubernetes runtime security platforms.
Different place, different value
Sometimes it can also make sense to specifically market to a certain geography because that companies in a certain country/area are more likely to care about the differentiated value you provide. For example:
A solution that gives companies granular control over data locality is probably going to be more successful in Europe than anywhere else in the world, because companies there have to care about that more.
Even more specifically, Gael Duval from Murena said their sales numbers show not just that Europeans, but specifically Northern Europeans are most paranoid place the most value on privacy. On the other hand, he also said the company has customers in the US, but they seems to be customers for other reasons — they are more worried about things like escaping government surveillance than European customers.
Putting the first point on its head a bit, the geography where your project or product provides the most value is not necessarily where you live. So while at the beginning it might be smart to market in your backyard, as you grow it’s smart to consider if there are specific geographic locations that are going to care more about the outcomes/values you provide than others, and then focus your marketing efforts there.
The bottom line: Geography still matters, not because we can’t communicate or work with someone halfway across the world, but because human cultures are still different, and so boring but expensive stuff like regulatory environments.