How to Scale a Global Business Without Silicon Valley Money with Greg Moran

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today, we'll be breaking down how to scale a global business without Silicon Valley money. To draw these vibe bombs, I brought to Greg Moran and the EO Fire Studios. Greg is a multi-exit founder, author, and investor behind Scaling Across Borders, a docu-series uncovering how scrappy founders build world-class companies in overlooked markets with grit, creativity, and zero Silicon Valley backing. And today, we'll talk about scaling from the shadows, execution over funding, global team building, scarcity advantage, global talent magnet, and oh, so much more.

0:41And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Greg and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Greg, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, thanks for having me, John. Let's see. I think a lot of things about success that maybe most people don't, but I'll tell you, the biggest thing more than anything is probably to think globally from day one.

1:35And I I know a lot of the conventional wisdom that you hear is about like niche down, niche down. And I think that that's exactly right. But, you know, we're in a global world. I mean, we're in a global environment. And I think founders should be thinking about how do I start to expand my borders of what's possible in this business right out of the gate from day one. Well, I love that. And that's why today we're talking about how to scale a global business without Silicon Valley money. And I want to talk about scaling from the shadows, Greg. So share the real blueprint for scaling a business from scratch when no one's watching and no one's betting on you.

2:12Yeah. You know, John, I think what the playbook that is followed by the kind of the typical Silicon Valley company, not to take anything away from those companies, right? But the playbook that has to be followed when you're building in places that kind of the world isn't looking to as, as the sort of the primary startup ecosystem. Number one, you have to create your own talent. You're not, particularly in technology businesses and things like that, you're not necessarily surrounded by this experienced talent. So you've got to get really good at creating your own talent. And I'm not talking like HR or develop, you know, I mean, literally taking somebody with raw skills, good critical thinking skills, good ambition, and then really teaching them what it takes to succeed in that role, whether it's technology, sales, marketing, no matter what it is.

3:02You've got to be great at that. I think the other thing is you've got to be great at driving cash from day one. And that is very different than the Silicon Valley playbook, right? Which is, you know, it's okay to burn. Well, if you're in a place, if you're building a business in a place that the world isn't looking right, and there's not this wealth of capital around you, you've got to get great at building cash. And we've seen a lot of examples of that in the places that we, you know, that we look for both investments and we feature founders where they're starting, where they're doing things like starting services businesses to then fund, use the cash that comes out of the service business to fund a tech business and things like that.

3:45So those two things, build talent, drive cash. I think more than anything else are the biggest differences. Build talent, drive cash. And I think that really leads to our next topic I want to get into, which is execution over funding? Because I mean, founders in emerging markets, they're known for doing more with less. I mean, let's be honest, they kind of have to. So how do they consistently out execute companies that have 10 times the funding? And Greg, sometimes even 10 times the resources. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and, you know, funding, like you said, John, funding is one part of it. But looking beyond that, right, they've got 10 times the access to capital, they've got 10 times the market access.

4:26They've got 10 times the PR access, right? But what we find is that those constraints that are, that the founders that aren't building in that Silicon Valley model, those constraints are really what's driving creativity, right? That, that, that limited capital and that limited, those limited resources, what they'll often do is force those founders to do something in 12 months, what companies with a lot of access to capital might take three years to do because they have to do it, right? So they're iterating faster and they're moving fast. They don't have the luxury to go build a product for 18, 24 months and take it to market.

5:04So I think it's using those constraints to really drive creativity. I think the other thing is really around vertical integration, that they get really good at doing a lot of vertical integration because they need that for survival, right? So, you know, what you'll often find in a documentary, I know we'll talk about this, in the documentary that we recent released called Scaling Across Borders, we were, first season of it is in Kosovo, we feature a company called Giraffa. So think of Amazon for the Balkans, right? And this company actually ended up creating their own search engine, their own media company, their own logistics company, their own payment stack, because those things didn't exist.

5:46and each one of those things have subsequently become businesses. So they get really good. You know, that execution turns into vertical integration. And that's the other part. And I think the third part of it around execution is, this is really cliche, but the mission becomes often deeper than the company. And what I mean by that is like, again, I'll use the example of Kosovo, right? Which is where we just released this documentary. documentary, great example that they're building for something different. What they're trying to do, they're not, when you're in Silicon Valley and you're building, you're trying to be the next AI player, the next workflow player, the next whatever it is, what they're trying to do at the same time as build companies is they're trying to build, they're trying to build countries and they're trying to define what that country is going to be when they're building in these sort of misunderstood or unknown places.

6:41And that's a really powerful mission that just drives execution at every level of the business. I mean, I love this. And to me, when I hear like this process and what happens when you do this the right way, I think about team building as well. So I want to talk to you, Greg, about global team building because I want to know what you think most US founders completely miss when it comes to hiring, when it comes to leading, and specifically when it comes to building high-performance global teams. Everybody's heard of outsourcing. It's been around for decades. And I think when, unfortunately, when founders, here's the thing about building in the US, right, especially building in Silicon Valley or New York, and again, not taking away anything from these places, but therefore probably 0.5 % of companies is that model going to work for.

7:36For the rest of the companies that can build strong businesses, but they don't have the capital that they need, even within the U.S., they've got to be looking globally to attract talent. And there's a particular skill set there, right? You can't just sort of dump work overseas and then say, oh, you know, it's not performing the way I want to. Of course it's not. You're not actually managing it. I think a few things that we see that really separate companies that make them really effective at building global teams to really get the cost under control, but at the same time still drive the company and the quality and things like that.

8:11You've got to, when you're building remote teams, you're building them globally, you've got to attach them to that core onshore team. They need to be part of the team. If you separate them from that onshore team and you treat them as different as other than what you have internally, that's where the culture of this is going to break down. This works exactly the same way as you treat your team. If they were sitting on shore, you want to attach them to the culture of the business. You don't want to you don't want to separate them. I think the second biggest mistake that we see is companies will expect less.

8:48They kind of say, well, you know, the quality is not there or whatever. Well, that's BS, right? That's not the case. You've got to expect the same from that talent if you're building global teams that you would expect in the U.S. because the talent is there, but you have to be able to manage it. And part of that management is how you set the expectations. And then the third part, I think the third thing that we, that the biggest mistake that we see with building global teams is that there's no, they don't develop that sense of ownership. And this sort of attaches back to the culture issue I mentioned before.

9:22This is your team. It's your global team. And you need to be able to attach them to that, you know, give them that same sense of ownership, whether that's stock options or whether it's profit sharing or whether it's just being part of the core mission. If you treat them separately, that's where you're going to get less. See, I love this. And to me, it kind of leads into this next point because a lot of people within Fire Nation right now are in this place. I mean, they're having to do more with less and that's the scarcity advantage. So when resources are tight and every move counts, which again, is most of our listeners right now, because that's what it is when you become an entrepreneur, when you start a business.

10:02Talk about, Greg, the system that separates the startups that thrive from the ones that just flatline. Cash, cash, cash, cash, cash. I can't say it enough, right? And I think, you know, we get, it's easy when you have access to capital, particularly like we have in the U.S., whether that's angel investment or seed investment or, you know, VC access and things like that. We've had this kind of, this wealth of capital that's been around in the startup world for a long time. And I think the thing that ultimately separates survivors from, you know, kind of startups that just sort of trail off is the ability to generate cash.

10:41There's a VC playbook. And look, I say this, John, I'm a VC. I run a VC fund. But there are parts of it I hate and there are parts of it that I really think destroy companies. And this is the biggest thing. There's this VC playbook that says, you know, just burn. It's OK. You can continue to burn. Well, that's great until they say, we're not going to fund your next round. Then you're screwed, right? What great founders do is they're just myopically focusing on cash. They're forgetting the VC playbook and they're trying to monetize services or whatever they can up front to put their destiny in their own hands.

11:19As soon as you can drive your own cash, as soon as you can start to get to profitability, now you're not at the mercy of outside investors. you're actually driving your own destiny. And I think that's the biggest thing that when you're in the scarcity mindset, you don't have a choice. You have to do that, right? And, but if you're in a place, you can sort of relax. If you're in a place that there's, you're surrounded by capital, you can relax and say, nah, we'll just go raise a second round. That's not a strategy. Driving cash, driving profitability, that's a strategy. And I think the great founders do this unbelievably well, they just figure out a way to get their destiny in their own hands, get out of that sort of that situation where, you know, somebody else is going to determine the length of their business.

12:13I mean, Fire Nation, at the end of the day, we want our destiny in our own hands. And we're going to talk about global talent management starting from zero and of course, scaling across borders when we get back from thanking our sponsors. It's January and that That means new goals for your business. And because I know you actually want to hit those goals, it's time to stop messing around and start knowing exactly what's happening with your money. It's simple. Without visibility and control over your cashflow, decisions get delayed, bills pile up, and opportunities slip through the cracks. That's why you need Intuit QuickBooks.

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13:16Again, that's quickbooks.com slash money. Terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments, Inc., licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business, and they are also our featured partner, HighLevel. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or a course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack. Seriously, think ClickFunnels, Calendly, MailChimp, Kajabi, and even your CRM, all rolled up into one powerful white-label solution.

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14:25Seriously, every question that pops up, they will have your answer waiting. And if you visit my special partnership link, you'll get a free trial. So visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial and see why thousands of businesses are switching. That's highlevelfire.com, where marketing, sales, and automation finally come together. High level, join the revolution. Greg, we're back. And I want to talk about global talent magnets. I mean, the best people aren't always in Silicon Valley. That's just a reality. So how do you both find and keep, we're talking A plus level talent when the rest of the world assumes they're already taken?

15:04It depends how you define A plus level talent, right? So there is no doubt that if you go to Silicon Valley today, you are going to encounter the world's best engineers with deep domain experience in, you know, some of the technologies that are going to lead the future, right? Whether you're talking about, you know, AI, whether you're talking about, you know, any kind of deep tech play or crypto play or anything like that, it's going to be there. The reality is, like I said, you know, like I mentioned earlier, 0.5 % of startups are ever going to be able to afford that talent. Had a situation recently, like this was just a crazy example, right?

15:44Had a situation recently, a company I was doing work for, doing work with, and I'm also invested in, and they're trying to hire AI engineers. And the AI engineers that they talked to said, look, we'll, you know, these guys, these, they were making, they're making seven figures and said, look, we'll come work for you. We'll reduce our salary, but here's the deal. You got to go raise, you got to go raise a minimum of$20 million from a tier one venture firm. Now, just think about that for a second. You've got engineers dictating the dilution for that founder. That doesn't work, right? So it's just in this, that sort of that very top.

16:23So if you're not in that area where you're going to be able to compete for that talent in the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority, you're not going to, you've got to be able that that's where going out after global talent becomes a really, really key. So, you know, you've got to, number one, you got to avoid the high cost markets. You cannot be trying to just forget it, right? It's going to be a fool's game to try to go out and try to recruit that talent from Silicon Valley. Unless what you're doing is so wildly different, not going to happen. So avoid those markets. Second, you've got to start to build, like I said before, that culture of ownership.

17:01or that culture of ownership. If you're going to recruit the best talent globally, they're still going to, this is not cheap, right? They're still going to want ownership. They're still going to want a sense of ownership. They're going to want to share in the rewards and you've got to be prepared to deliver that. If you think you're going to go out and get AI engineers, or you're going to get, you know, any kind of like deep tech, you know, talent or anything like that globally, and you're going to do it on the cheap, it's not going to happen, but you may have access to talent that you wouldn't.

17:32So you've got to build that culture of ownership. And third, the mission is going to be critical. You've got to continue to build on the mission of the organization and how what you're building is fundamentally different. The same rules are going to apply to what you would see in Silicon Valley, except you're moving out of that really, really tight market and you're playing a different game by just expanding the borders or expanding the borders on your thinking, right? In terms of where you're going to recruit. Such a great mindset. And it's out there, Fire Nation, for you to find. But I want to take some time right now to talk about scaling across borders.

18:12I mean, this is a docu-series that's uncovering how scrappy founders build world-class companies in overlooked markets. And they use grit, they use creativity in zero Silicon Valley backing. So give us a quick overview of why Fire Nation should be fired up about this docu-series? Yeah, you know, one of the things I became really passionate about, John, you know, I've built businesses myself. Oh, yeah. You know, Exitum, I've, you know, sort of done a lot of stuff and invested in a number of companies globally. And one of the things that I really started to see is nobody was telling these stories.

18:46Everybody hears the story about, you know, the Palo Alto startup or the New York startup or the London startup. But I became really passionate about these stories of founders building in these places where, you know, the perception was that, you know, they're corrupt or we don't know what that is. Places like, you know, Colombia, it's like, why would you ever build a company in Colombia? There's, you know, Pablo Escobar and all this stuff. Well, that's not what these countries are. They have incredible founders with unbelievable grit, unbelievable resilience. Nobody was sharing these stories. And that's what we wanted to do, because what was interesting about these founders is that, and I kind of mentioned this earlier, what was interesting about these founders is that they're not only trying to build businesses, they're trying to rebuild their countries.

19:35And that passion and that drive become, just make this such a compelling thing to watch, right? That you want to root these companies on, you want to cheer for them, and you want to see them succeed. And I just think there's an awful lot that most U.S. companies can really learn from them because there's a different level of grit. There's a different type of global mindset. There's a different type of resilience. So we wanted to tell those stories about founders and these places in the world that are doing really incredible things, but they're doing it in a totally different playbook without the resources that we're sort of blessed with here.

20:18And they're succeeding. And, you know, that's that's the story we wanted to tell. So we just launched episode or season one in in Kosovo, which is a really incredible place. I think it's it's one of those places that like, you know, if people even know what it is, they associate it with a war that ended 25 years ago and forgot that it existed today. It's actually one of the kind of the entrepreneurial hotbeds developing in Europe. It's got the youngest population, one of the youngest populations in the world. and the youngest population in Europe. Average age there is under 30. Wow. I mean, oh, it's wild.

20:54And what they're doing, the entrepreneurial culture there is unbelievable. Season two, we're going to be launching in next spring and that's going to be in Colombia and very similar set of circumstances there. But yeah, we just launched season one, episode one, each season, six episodes. We're deep diving on Kosovo. Episode one is out now. and episode two will come out this week and once a week for the next five weeks. And once again, just give us that call to action, that URL where Fire Edition can go to learn more. Yeah, just go to YouTube, type in Skelling Across Borders, you'll find us. We're, you know, we're getting tens of thousands of viewers a day.

21:35It's really been unbelievable to see how these stories have been received. So yeah, just go to YouTube and type in Skelling Across Borders, you'll find us. or go to scalingacrossborders.com, which is the website, and you can find us there too, and that'll link you over there. Well, consider it 10 ,001 because I just subscribed in Fire Nation. I recommend you do as well because you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you've been hanging out with GM and JLD today, so keep up that heat. For links to everything that we talked about, visit eofire.com. Just type Greg in the search bar, and the show notes page will pop right up.

22:11And again, just type Scaling Across Borders into the YouTube search engine. it comes right up. And Greg, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, brother, and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, likewise. I really appreciate it. Awesome to be part of it. Thrilled to a big fan and thrilled to be actually on the show and obviously a huge listener as well. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Greg for sparsing today's episode. And Fire Nation, don't let another 90 days slip by. Inside my community, the Freedom Circle, entrepreneurs are building real freedom with proven playbooks and community support.

22:50Claim your spot now at freedom-circle.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software, say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.