Introduction

All my life, I've heard about the American Dream. In fact, I'm a product of it. My ancestors emigrated from Eastern Europe in the early 1900s. When they got to the United States, they struggled to find menial jobs and start families. My grandfather, Louis Needleman, joked about wearing plaid pants made from his sister's dresses until he went into the Army.

Later Louis worked as a traveling salesperson, but eventually he and his wife, Tillie, moved to Newport, Vermont, near the Canadian border and opened their own business: the American Clothing Company. They did so well that soon they moved to a bigger location in a newly constructed block of buildings. Eventually, Louis was able to buy the whole block, and he also became a director at the local bank.

Louis became a good citizen, too, sharing what he had and what he'd learned with the people around him. When he died in 1964, his obituary in the local newspaper read: "He was always interested in the betterment of the community in which he and his family made their home. Many of his kindnesses and thoughtful deeds have not been known as he chose to do good for its sake alone and not for personal praise."1

Louis Needleman's success had far exceeded anything his parents had imagined when they landed in the United States, and his life has served as an inspiration to his descendants, including me. It seemed only fitting, then, that I write a book that might help other people achieve their American Dream.

If you're an executive or entrepreneur who wishes to bring your business into the United States, Make It in America will show you how to profitably enter and scale your company on our shores. Additionally, this book is also useful for Americans who are working with international businesspeople. It will help you create fruitful alliances by making you more aware of the challenges and issues that non-U.S. nationals face.

Make It in America is not a "How To" manual in the conventional sense. Although there are several strategic frameworks and checklists, there are no recipes or instructions. Rather, this book provides an overview of the practices, external factors, and cultural characteristics found across the U.S. business landscape, including explanations on how and why they developed. Each chapter focuses on a question that international entrepreneurs have asked me that they considered most critical for their business journey. There are sections that introduce legal, financing, managing people, and visa issues, as well as lessons from international companies to help you identify potential difficulties and pitfalls.

At the end of each chapter, you will find case study examples that offer a close-up view of how international businesspeople have managed the complexity and challenges they faced in U.S. markets. The case studies represent companies and entrepreneurs from countries including Australia, Colombia, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and more. Some were successful, others not so successful. Nonetheless, there are lessons to be learned that can be applied to your company and situation. In other words, my aim is for you to enter U.S. markets with eyes wide open.

In this introduction, I will outline my research and methodology, and I'll provide a chapter-by-chapter overview of what's to come in the book. Let's begin first by looking at the kinds of knowledge gaps I've typically seen among businesspeople when they first attempt to enter U.S. markets.

What International Entrants Need to Know

I first recognized a need for this book in 2016, when I was helping a French technology company, LumApps, enter the United States. It had sent a sales team, which had won dozens of European customers, to expand its U.S., Google-endorsed, software business. After 10 months, the team had secured only a few customers, and it was frustrated with the difficulty and expense of doing business here.

What the French company needed was help understanding U.S. market dynamics and business practices. Its problems weren't insurmountable. With some insight into the U.S. competitive environment and customers' purchase behavior, LumApps would be ready to craft and implement effective marketing and sales strategies. During a six-month consulting project, I worked with Rob Goldberg, a market research and new products expert, to interview dozens of potential customers and to map the competitive and market landscape. After we delivered our research and recommendations for marketing strategies, LumApps proceeded to penetrate the U.S. market with new customers and distribution partners. Its success was recognized by securing $70 million investment funds led by Goldman Sachs in 2020.2

In addition to consulting, I teach graduate courses in marketing and business strategy at Columbia University and New York University (NYU). Several years ago, I was asked to mentor members and give talks at two business-growth "accelerators," which nurture early-stage, pre-IPO companies and help international companies enter new U.S. markets. Both the Canadian Technology Accelerator and the WEVE Acceleration in New York City (which has more than 750 alumni from two decades helping international companies enter and scale in the United States) include in its membership startup and scale-up companies that had at least one immigrant founder or senior executive. These international executives and entrepreneurs struggled with marketing, sales, funding, legal issues, and managing U.S. employees.

My experience at these business accelerators further pointed to the need for a book on how to enter and scale businesses in U.S. markets-something that might offer a kind of "soft landing." As Frances Simowitz, chief executive officer (CEO) of WEVE Acceleration, said, "One of our jobs is to help foreign entrepreneurs to know what they don't know." The international students in my courses and the businesspeople I interviewed from around the globe confirmed a genuine interest in a practical book about what happens inside U.S. markets and enterprises.

Then in 2018, I worked as a strategy consultant on a rebranding project for the European American Chamber of Commerce in the United States (EACC-US), where several European chamber leaders encouraged me to write a book about doing business here. The organization, which we renamed as Leaders of European American Partnerships (LEAP), had been founded in 1990 to collaborate in providing education, resources, and local connections to European companies for bilateral business with U.S. organizations. The collective of 20 countries' chambers of commerce represents more than 25,000 companies, which account for the majority of business between the United States and Europe.

The European chamber leaders who helped inspire the writing of this book felt their organizations could be even more helpful, particularly in making connections, if foreign businesspeople were better prepared and informed. As Dietmar Rieg, CEO and president of the German American Chamber of Commerce, told me: International businesspeople need to "do their homework" because conducting business in the United States is so different than other countries.

More confirmation for the need for a book like this came my way. Federico Tozzi, executive director of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce, told me one problem was that American news media focuses mainly on Washington, D.C., and New York, which makes it difficult for people overseas to learn about other areas in this vast country, particularly regarding U.S. consumers and market practices. And Fernanda Soza, executive director of Chile Massachusetts Alliance (ChileMass), said that foreign businesses desperately need more guides and cases studies. She noted that because the United States is so culturally different, people arriving from South America and other regions need guidance in areas such as cultural norms and explaining their products and solutions. Business in the United States, she said, is "very, very nuanced."

My Methodology

My first step was to investigate the areas that non-U.S. nationals wanted to learn about doing business in U.S. markets. In December 2020, I sent a questionnaire to several hundred international business executives and entrepreneurs using WEVE's database and several LinkedIn groups. The questionnaire asked people about their aspirations and needs, including the following:

• Why is your company looking to expand to the U.S. market?
• What are the most important competencies to enter the U.S. market?
• What obstacles must a company overcome when trying to enter the U.S. market?
• What are the greatest knowledge gaps for companies entering the U.S. market?

Within a few weeks, I received about 65 responses to the questionnaire. The respondents were from companies that were distributed fairly equally between 1-10 employees, 11-49 employees, 50-250 employees, and more than 250 employees. While the sample size of this research was small, it did provide insights and direction to get me started. I discovered people most wanted to know about the following:

• Understanding U.S. consumers and clients
• Developing a marketing strategy for the United States
• Hiring and managing local talent
• Securing money to fund startups and U.S. expansions

What did they believe were their biggest obstacles to enter and scale in the U.S. market?

• Building trust and credibility with U.S....