Setting Up in the US

At the end of February, I spent a week in Los Angeles with John Beer, my UK-based Pingar partner.

With the help of Calvin Cheong and the team based at the NZTE offices in Santa Monica, we visited local technology parks including The Girvan Institute of Technology and The Pasadena Technology Business Centre. Speaking to their respective Executive Directors, we began to learn about the opportunities and the realities of setting up a sales and technical support office in the region. We spoke to tenants of both these facilities to learn at first hand their experiences, both practical and technical.

This morning, I spent an hour on a telephone conference call with two legal attorneys based in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley. They were, and will be able to advice, on the many other realities of setting up a presence in the United States: Corporate structures, employment law, immigration, taxation, IP law etc. More conference calls will take place in the next few days and weeks. And then there will be the follow-up visits.

Setting up an effective presence in the US will require significant assistance to ensure that we not only match, but also personally understand, the business and cultural differences that working in the US entail.

I believe the market opportunity there is great. So are the pitfalls if we are not careful. Research and cost is therefore a necessary pre-cursor to any actual commitment to invest in this region.