How to test international market demand: run a month of outreach before you incorporate

Sunny Ray · Mar 22, 2026 · 5 min read

The cheapest way to test demand in a new country is to start conversations there before you spend anything on being there. Build a list of the exact buyers you'd sell to in that market, reach out for a month, and count who replies and who takes a meeting. If nobody bites, you've saved yourself an entity, a hire and a year. If they do, you walk in with a pipeline instead of a hunch.

Incorporating somewhere to find out if anyone there wants you is the most expensive survey in business.

99% of growth in one market

I had a call with a climate-tech founder whose business is a strong one in its home country. Ninety-nine percent of the growth had come from that one market, through property developers and individual solar companies. The team sold through networking and consultative sales. They knew every solar company in the country.

That's the good news and the trap. When you know everybody, growth comes from knowing everybody. Then you look at a second country and realize you know nobody.

The founder's instinct was right. In his words: "before I even incorporate there or launch there or spend any money there, it'd be nice to see if there's any demand."

He just didn't think he could test it from a distance.

"No way to sell this digitally" is half true

His objection was a fair one:

"There's no ways to digitally sell this."

The product changes how installers design systems. That takes time on site, trust and a consultative process. You don't close that from an email.

He's right about the sale. He's wrong about the first conversation. The close might need a site visit and three months of working together. The first conversation needs one person in the new market to say "sure, let's talk". That part can absolutely start digitally.

Most founders in consultative businesses merge those two things. Because the sale can't be digital, they assume nothing can, so they wait until they can fly in. Then they fly in and spend weeks finding out what a month of outreach would have told them.

Demand test before entity

The plan I suggested was simple. Before incorporating, turn on outreach in the new country and see who replies.

• Build the list the same way you know your home market: property developers and solar installers, by name and role.
• Run it for a few weeks with a message that's about them, not about you.
• Count replies, meetings and the questions people ask. The questions tell you as much as the yeses.
• Decide on the entity after you see the numbers, not before.

A month of outreach costs a rounding error next to a new entity. Even a weak result is useful. If installers in that market reply with "we already do this" or "the regulations don't allow it", you've learned that cheaply.

Two kinds of customers, nothing in the middle

There was another thing in his numbers worth paying attention to. His customers came in two sizes. Small ones around ten units a month, about 5,000 a year in revenue. The biggest one, around 300,000 a year. Very little in between.

That matters for a market test. If you only count replies, a handful of small installers can make a market look healthy when what you need are the big ones. So when you test a new country, separate the two. Are the large players replying? Or only the small ones? One big account can justify an expansion. Fifty small ones might not, if serving them needs people on the ground.

I'd make the test answer that question directly: build one list of the largest developers and installers in the new market and one list of the long tail, and run them separately.

The invite that opens a consultative sale

For a business that runs on relationships, the opening message matters more than the volume. A pitch from a foreign company nobody's heard of goes nowhere. So I suggested a different opener: invite solar company owners in the new market onto a show as guests.

That works for a consultative sale because it starts the relationship the way he already sells at home, as a conversation between people in the same industry. The owner talks about their business, the market, what's hard. You learn how that market works from the people running it. And by the end, you know whether there's a fit, and so do they.

The invite can be short:

Hi [first name], I host a show for people building the solar business in [region]. You've [specific project or growth they've had], and I'd love to hear how you see the market there. Would you come on as a guest for half an hour?

No mention of the product, no request for a demo. If there's a fit, it shows up in the conversation.

It also solves the "we know nobody" problem. Ten interviews with installers in a new country and you know ten installers. That's a start of a network, built from a distance, before you've spent a dollar on being local.

Decide with evidence, not with hope

Expansion decisions usually get made on a feeling: the market's big, a competitor is there, someone at a conference was enthusiastic. Then the money goes out and the learning starts.

Flip it. Learn first, cheaply, from the buyers themselves. If the replies come, incorporate with a pipeline already waiting. If they don't, you just saved a year.

If your sale is consultative and you think outreach can't open it, see how founders use a show to land enterprise buyers.

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