When we were building IJK in its early years, we considered moving me from Singapore to Shanghai. It was a reasonable question. China offered opportunities that we wanted to understand more closely, while much of my existing network and experience sat in Southeast Asia.
I stayed based in Singapore and spent the following years travelling frequently, including to Shanghai and other Chinese cities. The experience taught me a useful lesson about cross-border business: being there is an input. Building a business there is the outcome.
A full calendar can make those two things look deceptively similar.
Activity has a cost, even when it looks promising
Travel brings introductions, conversations and possibilities. It also consumes money and time before anyone agrees to pay for anything. In my original reflection on a life spent travelling for work, I wrote about the gap between an interesting network and a business that earns fees. Many trips produced expenses without an accompanying commercial return.
That experience matters when considering expansion. The relevant question is what the next visit is supposed to establish. It might be whether a customer has a problem worth solving, whether a proposed partner can deliver, or whether the economics work after local costs. A trip can be valuable without producing an immediate sale, provided it resolves something that informs a decision.
Without that discipline, momentum becomes difficult to distinguish from repetition.
Start with a customer, then work backwards
A large market is a useful starting point for research. It is a poor substitute for a clear proposition. A company still needs to know which customer it can serve, why that customer would switch, and what it would take to win and retain the work.
Consider a hypothetical business bringing a successful product into a new country. Its presentation may describe millions of potential users. The first practical test is much smaller: can it identify a customer with the budget, authority and willingness to try it?
A pilot should help answer that question. Agree what success means, who will review it and what happens afterwards. A trial that attracts compliments but has no route to a purchasing decision can become an expensive demonstration.
Understand what the relationship actually provides
A local introduction can open a conversation. The work that follows requires a different set of capabilities: understanding the requirement, agreeing terms, delivering reliably and collecting payment.
Before relying on a partner, I would want to understand its role in each of those steps. Does it have relevant customer relationships? Can it support implementation? Who handles problems when the original contact is unavailable? What does each party contribute, and how will each be paid?
These questions respect the value of relationships by giving them a workable commercial structure. Friendship, access and operating capability are valuable in different ways. An expansion plan should be clear about which of them it needs.
Build a local learning loop
Distance can hide small misunderstandings until they become expensive ones. A proposal may be translated correctly yet miss the customer's priorities. A pricing model may make sense at headquarters but leave insufficient margin for a local distributor or service team.
A business needs people who can notice these gaps, explain them and act on them. That could mean a local colleague, a carefully chosen partner or a founder spending sustained time with customers. The arrangement should fit the business; opening an office alone does not solve the problem.
The useful test is whether information from the market changes decisions. If every customer conversation produces the same presentation and the same plan, the company may be travelling widely while learning very little.
Fund the learning in stages
Expansion deserves a budget and a set of decision points. What evidence would justify the next commitment? What would make the team change its approach? How much can it afford to spend before reaching either conclusion?
Those questions make it easier to support a promising opportunity patiently. They also give management a way to stop an approach that is failing, before sunk costs and personal commitment make the decision harder.
For IJK, this is an important way to think about connecting businesses across markets. Capital and introductions can create an opening. Understanding the customer, assembling the right capabilities and following through determine what the business can make of it.
I still believe in the value of going out into the world. The lesson from the suitcase is to know what we are trying to build when we arrive, and what evidence we should bring home.
Adapted and expanded for IJK Capital Partners from The perils of a suitcase life on Kenny Ng’s personal blog.