I watched an Oliver Roland’s video  and I learned good stuff.

It’s very interesting to be part of a group of entrepreneurs (mastermind or other) to see what they do in your country but also internationally. Being part of a group of entrepreneurs makes it possible to share good methods/techniques.

There is an extraordinary rewarding to be part of an entreprenarial group because there are people from all over the world. It’s true that often half of the people come from English speaking countries (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada ) but there are many people from different continents and that is a phenomenal force.

It’s a bit complicated when you start your company and you’re in an international business group, but it’s interesting to know what’s happening in your industry in another country. To start, you can be part of a entrepreneurs group who speak the same language as you but who live in others cities and other countries.

Once you master a foreign languange, you may be interested in seeing what is happenig in other countries.

Case study

Imagine that you have a turtle shop. You sell turtles, turtle accessories and you have a turtle blog. It’s interesting to see what happens in English speaking or Spanish speaking countries. Tu vas sur Google.com (United States verision) , Google.ca (Canada version), Google.co.uk (United Kingdom version ), Google.com.mx (Mexico version), Google.com.ar (Argentina version), Google.com.co (Colombia version). You write keywords related to your professional field and you look at websites,forums, social media. You look at what competitors are doing, but in others areas.

Language

Despite the incredible progress of Google Translate or other translation tools, markets are very isolated. The majority of people are interested only in their own market and their own language. This is a shame because it means that good methods will be used in one country and these good methods will be completely hallucinating and innovative for another country. And because of that, there is a loss of knowledge because there is no exchange between countries, there is no transfer of knowledge.

We entrepreneurs, we are not artists. There is no point in saying : « I’ll be the first to invent the wheel ! ». Once the wheel has been invented, it’s done and you can’t do anything. On the other hand, you can bring the wheel in your country and improve the wheel to find other use with. There is no shame in seeing good ideas in other countries and bringing them to your country. It allows you to create opportunities.

It’s true that the first interesting market to see is United States. Often this country is 4-5 years ahead of other countries in several different areas. But beware, new countries that are very dynamic have interesting innovation like Bresil (Google.com.br)  or several countries in Africa like Nigeria (https://www.google.com.ng ), Angola (https://www.google.pt ), Algeria, South Africa (https://www.google.co.za/ ) and Asia like China (a tool to translate Baidu in english => http://www.baiduinenglish.com ), Singapore (https://www.google.com.sg ), South Korea (https://www.google.co.kr ).

What I want to tell you is that there is a lot to learn from other countries in the world. You need do be curious and to meet entrepreneurs from other countries with an exchange of ideas or innovations to create opportunities.

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph