Expanding to a new market is a logistical nightmare— especially when that new market is in a foreign country. You have to find an office, hire local employees, open a bank account, figure out local tax laws and insurance requirements, and those are just a few items on quite a daunting list.
But, what if there was a service that did all that for you?
"We want to be the leading market expansion platform in the world,” Lemonsqueeze founder and CEO Mik Stroyberg said. "Kind of like the McKinsey for market expansion”
When a foreign startup wants to enter the United States, there is a long list of tasks that need to be checked off before they can do business here. Further complicating matters, due to bureaucratic red tape many of those tasks need to be completed in a certain order. You can't open a bank account without a tax identification number, and you can't hire local employees without a bank to pay them from. Figuring all that out requires sending a high level employee to the United States and dedicating their talents full time to the job. That creates a problem for lean startups who need to continue to thrive in their home markets.
Lemonsqueeze is like a turn-key solution to U.S. market expansion. They will walk a company through every step of U.S. expansion — things like managing and executing all of the legal, financial and administrative tasks associated with setting up here. Then, they'll take care of things like setting up a local bank account, and performing the necessary accounting and payroll duties, as well as fulfilling a company's insurance requirements and creating a local, U.S. online presence. After all, U.S. consumers are notoriously skeptical of any website not in native English.
The idea for Lemonsqueeze came about five years ago when Stroyberg was tasked with bringing the company he was working for at the time, the popular Copenhagen-based publishing platform Issuu, to the United States.
In many ways they are the quintessential American immigrant story — just told from the perspective of a company. They came to New York from Denmark, figured out how to thrive here, and are now helping other immigrants thrive here.
“I’d never done it before, so it took me awhile,” Stroyberg said. “It took a year and a half, and it was annoying, because I made a lot of mistakes. I did things in the wrong order, and it took a lot longer than it should have. I probably spent 80 percent of my time doing things I didn’t have to."
Following that experience Stroyberg found himself inundated with offers from companies looking to hire someone who could help them launch in the United States.
"I started Lemonsqueeze in 2013 to let companies enter the U.S. market fast — in under 90 days,” Stroyberg said. “I wanted to make it so that companies could come to the U.S. without losing time, money or focus on their home market."
Since, Lemonsqueeze has assisted in the launch and scale of over 50 companies in the U.S., and plans on opening the door the other way. Later this year, the company intends on opening spaces in Northern Europe and Australia that will allow companies to expand there. Their Northern European offices are scheduled to open later this year, while their Australian offices should open early in 2017.
In addition to their own international expansion, Lemonsqueeze has seen interest from U.S.-based companies looking to take advantage of their expertise in scaling companies, and has opened a coworking space called Lemonsqueeze Space in Williamsburg.
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