A few days ago I was watching a YouTube podcast when a comment caught my eye. It advised aiming for a Red Ocean rather than a Blue Ocean, and it had racked up a massive number of likes. The logic was this: grabbing 0.1% of a ten million dollar market in a Red Ocean is far easier than fighting for 10% of a hundred thousand dollar market in a Blue Ocean.
But as I read that, a different thought crossed my mind. If you simply expand into the global market, regardless of whether it is red or blue, doesn't the market size grow many times over?
Some of you might be thinking, "Going global is easier said than done." But here is my take. Whenever you start something, no matter how difficult or exhausting it gets, playing in the ocean is always better than playing in a puddle. Even if you fail, the lessons learned in the vast ocean are infinitely more valuable than a tiny success inside a well.
And the truth is, we are living in the absolute best era in human history to go global. There is simply no reason not to.
Today I want to talk about how I am preparing to enter the global market, and exactly how you can do the same. But before we get into the how, let's first talk about why it has become so unbelievably easy.
Reverse Engineering the Barriers
This is actually easier to understand if we think in reverse. Let's look at why going global used to be so incredibly difficult, and work our way up from there.
First, before the internet, physical barriers dictated everything. To sell to a global market, you literally had to go there. But with the internet, people all over the world became connected in a digital universe. Platforms now use algorithms to automatically deliver your videos or services to the people most likely to need them.
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| Algorithms automatically delivering your content to the world without physical barriers |
If you just upload a video on YouTube, the platform automatically spreads it to people who are likely to enjoy it. As long as you have a computer and the internet, physical barriers simply no longer exist.
The second barrier was language. Thanks to AI, that wall has also been completely shattered. I recently read a fascinating article stating that AI now translates better than actual human translators. As a result, book translators, interpreters, tour guides, and even language proficiency exams like TOEIC and TOEFL have taken a massive hit.
With the language barrier gone, you can take your marketing campaigns or your services global just by using AI. For my own app service, I added a language selection feature. If a user switches the language in settings, all the content instantly appears in that native language. And this feature was incredibly easy to build using AI.
It is not just language. The walls that used to block us, technology, design, PR, have all come down. Saying "I won't go global because it's too complicated" is nothing more than an excuse.
All you have to do is launch. Take the trends or methods that are working in your home country, use AI to translate them into English, and your product is now a global service.
Principles Over Methodology
The biggest reason people still think going global is difficult is their obsession with methodology. But if you understand the core principles of business, it does not matter if you are doing business in Japan or the United States. It is all exactly the same. Just like the laws of physics apply equally no matter where you are on Earth.
As I previously explored in 4 Business Principles That Have Survived 100 Years, the core principles of business are remarkably simple.
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| Three simple principles of business that never change |
Find a problem people have that you are best equipped to solve. Find the people who have that problem. Give them absolute certainty that your service can solve it. Actually solve that problem and get paid in return.
Of course, I have condensed the process quite a bit here. But no matter how you slice it, the big picture never changes.
The Three Stages of Persuasion
Let me use myself as an example to make this concrete.
When it came to deciding what problem to solve, a process I detailed in How to Find a Winning Business Idea as a Solo Founder With AI, I realized there are countless solo entrepreneurs out there who are completely lost, with no idea what kind of product to build or how to sell it.
Because I spend my days relentlessly listening to business podcasts and reading business books, I was confident I could solve this problem better than anyone else. So my service provides concrete solutions on how to define a problem, how to build a product, and how to sell it.
Next is finding the people with these problems. I find them through social media, whether that is Instagram, YouTube, or even this very article you are reading right now. The platform itself does not actually matter. What matters is knowing exactly where the highest concentration of people with your problem is hanging out, and figuring out how to reach them most effectively.
Then you have to persuade those people. Persuasion breaks down into three stages. Awareness, Trust, and Conversion.
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| An exceptional product needs no ads |
In the Awareness stage, you need to make people realize that you and your service exist. The absolute best method is simply having an exceptional service. If you invented a teleportation machine, you would not even need to run ads. The product itself would command the world's attention. But for individuals, building something like that is next to impossible. That is why people usually ride massive trends or borrow someone else's authority, just like how most beauty brands use celebrities in their ads. In my own case, the article that borrowed a quote from Elon Musk recorded the highest number of views.
The methods may vary, but the goal is singular. You must capture the attention of the people facing the problem you want to solve.
The second stage is Trust. How you build it shifts slightly depending on whether you are running a subscription service or a knowledge service. A subscription service can build trust through the product itself by offering a free trial or unlocking a portion of the service, making them feel that it can actually solve their problem. A knowledge service requires you to freely share your expertise to evoke that same feeling, which is exactly what I am doing by writing this article right now.
There are many ways to build trust. What matters is not which method you use, but that you build it no matter what.
Once trust is established, you use it to drive the Conversion. This is where psychological nudges come in to trigger a purchasing decision.
And if your service is genuinely great, customers will spread the word on their own. Once your customers become your personal sales team through word of mouth, you will not even need to market your product anymore. Just as a tiny spark catches the wind and spreads into a forest fire, you want to build something that makes your customers spread your service for you. That is why, at the end of the day, an exceptional product is the most crucial element of any business.
The Universal Law of Business
The ultimate point I want to drive home is this. What matters is not the method, but the principle.
Whether you automate everything with AI, whether you show your face on camera, or whether you run your business in Japan, the macro principles remain completely unchanged.
If taking that leap into the global market still feels too difficult or daunting, I would love for you to keep checking in on this blog. Because I plan to document and share every single challenge and experience I encounter along the way.
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