growth.market-entry·version 1.0.0·draft8 to verify
Evaluate entering a new country
The owner has a written go / no-go for one named country, with demand, competition, legal form and cost of entry quantified.
When to use
The company is considering selling in a country where it has no presence yet. Not for a single foreign customer who approached the company — that is sales.check-new-customer and, if it proceeds, sales.sign-customer-contract. Not for expanding the product line at home — that is growth.annual-plan. Not for registering the entity once the decision is made — that is company.register-sia-lv (or the target country's equivalent; this playbook ends at the decision).
Before you start
- The product and the reason for the ask are written down (which customer, which competitor, which hunch).
- The owner has named a budget for the study — agent time is the main cost, keep it visible.
- The company's own registration, VAT and beneficial-owner data are current in the register; stale data
What a run requires2
- Approval · S2 · ownerthe run stops until a named person records the decision
- Approval · S7 · ownerthe run stops until a named person records the decision
Any step can wait until a date and reopens by itself; every closed step leaves evidence (a note, a link, a number).
The trail8 steps
Frame the questionagent
Write one page: product, candidate countries, what "entry" means here (sell remotely, local entity, local partner) and by when the decision is needed.
Done when the owner confirms the frame in writing.
Approve scope and budgetownerneeds approval · owner
Approval · S2 · owner — the run stops until a named person records the decision
Confirm countries, entry mode and deadline.
Done when the owner has approved the one-pager.
Size the demandagent
Use company-intel: market size signals for the product category in each country, existing inbound enquiries and current foreign revenue by country (from the books, not memory).
Done when each country has a demand estimate with its source written next to it.
⛔ "It feels big" is not an estimate — every number names where it came from.
Map the competitionagent
For each country: the three most visible competitors, their price level, and whether they sell the same way (online, tender, reseller).
Done when the comparison table has a competitor column per country.
Check the legal and tax cost of entryagent
Using legal-corpus and official sources: does selling require a local entity, or can the company sell cross-border; VAT registration requirement and threshold (⚠ verify national tax authority of the target country); licences or notifications for the product (⚠ verify national regulator); consumer-contract and language requirements if selling to consumers (⚠ verify eur-lex.europa.eu for the EU-level rules, national law for the rest).
Done when each country lists: entity needed yes/no, tax registrations, licences, and estimated first-year compliance cost as a range.
⛔ No legal figure goes in the table without a named source and country; unknowns stay marked ⚠ verify.
Estimate the cost to start and the path to first revenueagent
Per country: one-off setup cost (registration, translations, legal advice — quote ranges), monthly running cost, and the realistic steps to the first sale.
Done when each country has a cost row and a first-revenue estimate with assumptions written out.
Decideownerneeds approval · owner
Approval · S7 · owner — the run stops until a named person records the decision
Present the comparison, a recommendation (go / no-go / wait, and for which country) and the three biggest risks.
Done when the decision is recorded with the owner's name, date and reason.
Record and hand overagent
If go: create the goal and the entry task list (first tasks usually: VAT registration, localized offer, pricing check) and link them. If no-go: record what would change the answer, so the question can be reopened deliberately.
Done when the decision, the comparison and the next step all live in Brain Club.
Checks — how we know it worked
- Every number in the comparison has a source and a date; unknowns are marked, not guessed.
- The legal section names the target country for every requirement and flags every ⚠ verify item.
- The decision record quotes the recommendation and the risks, not just "go".
- If go: the first three entry tasks exist and are linked to the goal.
If it goes wrong
| Symptom | Response |
|---|---|
| Demand data is contradictory between sources | Use the conservative figure, state the spread in the table, and note it as a risk in S7. |
| A licence requirement appears late | Stop the cost estimate, mark the entry mode as blocked pending the licence, re-present in S7. |
| Owner wants to skip to "just try it" | Record the decision as an explicit no-go on the study with reasons — a conscious skip is a decision, not an omission. |
| VAT registration turns out to need a local representative | Add the representative cost to S6, re-check the margin, and re-present; do not register anything yet. |
| Study passes the deadline with no decision | Force S7 with what exists; a decision on partial data beats an open question. |
What each step leaves behind
- S1the owner confirms the frame in writing.
- S2the owner has approved the one-pager.
- S3each country has a demand estimate with its source written next to it.
- S4the comparison table has a competitor column per country.
- S5each country lists: entity needed yes/no, tax registrations, licences, and estimated first-year compliance cost as a range.
- S6each country has a cost row and a first-revenue estimate with assumptions written out.
- S7the decision is recorded with the owner's name, date and reason.
- S8the decision, the comparison and the next step all live in Brain Club.
Evidence to keep
The approved one-pager from S2 · the comparison table with sources and dates · the ⚠ verify list and what was later verified · the decision record (who, when, reason) · the goal and task links if go.
How this playbook improves
After every 3 runs ask: how long from ask to decision, and which step (usually S5) was slowest? Did any "go" country fail on a legal or cost fact the study missed? Did any "no-go" get reopened within a year, and was the recorded reason right? A new version changes the step that caused the wait or the miss, and says so in its change note.
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