Munich Startup: Why did you choose Japan as a potential expansion market?
Rolf Illenberger, VRdirect: Virtual reality is currently experiencing a sharp increase in demand globally – driven not least by companies' experiences during the coronavirus crisis. Virtual reality technology is a key technology for digitizing training and development, marketing, and sales within companies. Asia, in particular, is already further ahead than the rest of the world in its use of virtual reality and is therefore a very interesting market for us as an expansion market.
Munich Startup: Why should German startups consider expanding to Asia?
Rolf Illenberger, VRdirect: Asia offers very interesting expansion markets, especially for technology startups. Asian customers, as well as companies, are generally very tech-savvy. Once convinced, projects can typically be implemented quite quickly.
Munich Startup: 3 tips for startups considering expanding to Japan?
Rolf Illenberger, VRdirect:
- Any international expansion requires the commitment of sufficient resources and cannot be accomplished casually. Therefore, startups should plan for the necessary (team) resources.
- In Japan—but generally in Asia—it's effective to approach partners with a proposal for collaboration that's as concrete as possible. It makes sense to prepare concrete proposals regarding timelines, budgets, and task allocation before the discussions begin.
- Recommendations are essential for reaching out to companies in Asia. Startups should consider early on which companies they want to approach and build and maintain relationships with relevant contacts.
Munich Startup: How have programs like German Accelerator Next Step, which allow startups to discover and explore a potential new market in a very short period of time, helped you achieve your expansion goals?
Rolf Illenberger, VRdirect: The German Accelerator Next Step Program not only helps startups understand the mindset of Asian business partners, but also provides concrete contacts with companies, mentors, and coaches. For us, the contacts with the mentors were particularly helpful because they helped us optimize our pitch for Asian companies and find and contact the right contacts at the companies.
Munich Startup: And what was your experience with participating in a completely virtual accelerator program without being able to spend time on site?
Rolf Illenberger, VRdirect: The virtual program was certainly very well implemented and the only viable option in times of COVID-19, but it will not be able to replace in-person meetings in the long run. Especially with international expansion, success depends heavily on the quality of the contacts and the mutual trust between the people involved. This can only be built to a very limited extent with virtual meetings. For us, the virtual program was a very important first step, but we hope to be able to establish in-person contacts again in 2021.
Munich Startup: What are the next steps regarding your internationalization plans?
Rolf Illenberger, VRdirect: Of course, this depends very much on the development of the pandemic. I remain optimistic and assume that we will be able to travel internationally and meet business partners in person again in 2021.
For VRdirect, internationalization and the acquisition of strategic partners in various regions of the world are key goals for 2021. Virtual reality has become a standard technology for companies in 2020, and we need to ensure that we can address this global market.
