Mollygraham: As a rapidly growing company, you have this trickyhi where you have a lot of really talented early employees. But as the company scales, what they have access to in their roles often change quite dramatically. So i'm just interested anything come to mind, or anything that you've figured out to create a system where those early folks can thrive,. while also keeping in mind that the span and scope of the business is off an scaling expedientially.
Today’s episode is with Max Rhodes, the co-founder and CEO of Faire, an online wholesale marketplace that connects independent retailers and brands.
Prior to starting Faire in 2017, Max spent several years at Square, where he was a founding member of Square Capital, the first product manager on Square Cash, and a Director of Consumer Product for Caviar.
In today’s conversation, we dive deep into how startups can get international expansion right. After launching in the U.K. and Netherlands in March 2021, Faire company expanded into countries like France, Germany, Italy and the Nordic region. They’re now in 15 markets, with over 700 employees in 10 offices around the world.
After sharing the company’s origin story and initial strategy, Max offers a helpful analogy that helped him decide when to go international, and details some lessons he learned from other companies like DoorDash and Airbnb.
Next, Max takes us through the nuts and bolts of how the Faire team approached their first international launch, from staffing and operations, to how they thought about local competitors. Max also walks us through the operating cadence and strategic planning process that powered Faire’s international growth. We also talk about the human side of scaling internationally, and the growing pains that come along with it.
To help mitigate the effects, Max shares how he’s implemented the concepts from the First Round Review article on “Giving away your Legos.” Read the article here: https://review.firstround.com/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups
You can follow Max on Twitter at @MaxRhodesOK. You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @firstround and @brettberson.