Agility, Ambition & Audacity: Lessons From Taking StudyStash Stateside

Ben Ward, CEO - StudyStash INC
 
Since my last article in The Business Influencer, my business partner Jonathan Graham and I have graduated from the University of Birmingham. We hit the ground running after our last exam and, since then, StudyStash has secured its first funding round, launched paid pilots in the UK and Europe, achieved ISO27001 certification and welcomed its first full-time team members. However, rather than being satisfied with progress, we decided to accelerate by taking on the biggest market of them all - the United States.
For most British startups, the playbook is to conquer the UK before expanding across the pond. We chose to rip the rulebook up and go our own way. After consulting widely with peers, and hearing plenty of cautionary tales along the way, the approach was clear: Go Big or Go Home.
With our business in its infancy this might seem an unorthodox move, and indeed it is, but the potential of the US market was too compelling to ignore: it’s huge, ve...