Jeff (Startup Whisperer)

Going Global from Day One

“In AI, geography is optional—​but timing isn’t.”

If you’ve just closed your pre-seed, seed or Series A and the roadmap on your wall still shows “U.S. first → rest-of-world later,” grab a fresh marker. The ground under American AI startups is shifting fast, and the winners will be the teams that treat international expansion as a Day-1 feature, not a post-IPO nice-to-have.

1. The Home-Turf Reality Check

• 57 % of global AI VC dollars already land in the U.S.—but deal count is at a five-year low.

• Big Tech’s GPU budgets make nine-figure raises look tiny.

• Talent demand is on track to outstrip supply by up to 700 k jobs in two years.

Translation: More money is chasing fewer startups, and the bar to stand out keeps rising.

2. Across the Pond (and Pacific) Lies the Growth

APAC alone could add 10× more new AI dollars than the U.S. over the next five to eight years. That’s green-field demand waiting for the first mover who shows up with a localized product.

3. Cost & Talent: The Secret Weapons Abroad

• Senior AI engineer: ~$150/hr in SF vs. ~$70/hr in Bangalore or Ho Chi Minh City.

• Benefits load: 30-40 % in the U.S.; often half that in Southeast Asia.

• Cloud/energy: Singapore and certain Gulf states offer AI-friendly power prices + GPU credits to attract R&D hubs.

Lower burn unlocks longer runway—and the chance to reinvest savings into GTM.

4. Regulation Doesn’t Have to Be a Roadblock

U.S. → uncertain federal AI bill
EU → AI Act (18 mo compliance; $$$)
Singapore → “light-touch” sandbox (≈3 mo; <$ 100k)
UAE/KSA → “green-lane” visas + cash rebates for AI labs

Smart founders pick one high-value, low-red-tape jurisdiction as their international beachhead, then expand outward once playbooks are repeatable.

5. Founder Checklist: Launching Global Earlier

1. Heat-map your inbound sign-ups by country—users may be telling you where to go first.

2. Hire a fractional local operator (or advisor) before you sign leases or incorporate.

3. Localize pricing & support with AI-powered translation; don’t over-engineer the product.

4. Open a dev or data-labeling pod in a talent-rich, cost-effective city—think Toronto, Warsaw, Manila.

5. Time your fundraising narrative around “international traction” to stand out in crowded U.S. pitch rooms.

6. Quick Case Snippets

• OpenAI: London → Dublin → Singapore offices within 12 months to capture talent & government partnerships.

• Cohere: CEO splits weeks between Toronto and London; London team expected to double in 2025.

• Recursive (Stealth LLM): APAC + Gulf build-outs before even launching a U.S. sales team.

Proof that even well-funded players see global presence as a moat, not a capstone.

7. Parting Thought

Domestic-first made sense when cloud costs were low, Series B rounds were plentiful, and regulatory headwinds were mild. In 2025, the calculus flipped. International expansion is now cheaper, talent-richer, and strategically safer than waiting for the U.S. market to settle.

So redraw that roadmap. Because in AI, the map is the moat.