BACKGROUND
YouDo is a customised software solution company that has a team of
business performance software engineers, fluent in the language of energy
and finance industries. They empower their clients by developing software
as their client’s intellectual property, providing them with valuable and
tangible asset(s) that belongs solely to their businesses.
OBJECTIVE
YouDo’s chief executive, Kari Reiterer, approached Katabolt to accelerate
their export journey after attending a two-day New Zealand Trade and
Enterprise Export Essentials workshop delivered by Katabolt.
Reiterer had attended the workshop to understand how he could achieve
his Board’s mandate for growth. YouDo had a good position in the New
Zealand market and therefore a good option for growth was to go
offshore.
Kari says, “The workshop revealed two things, firstly, here was a huge
amount we didn’t know about export, with overwhelming evidence that
the road to many markets was littered with case studies of companies
that had failed badly, and secondly, we needed a partner with the right
capability who could design and de-risk an entry into an export market”.
The YouDo team approached Katabolt with request – they needed
support – capability and a clear framework to understand the company’s
opportunity for growth and they had a hunch that Australia’s electricity
market was similar to New Zealand’s and they wanted to explore this
market.
THE KATABOLT JOURNEY
Armed with a clear mandate from the board for growth and a hypothesis
about a first market, YouDo needed to prepare an export business plan
to achieve new customers in their new market in less than 12 months. The
catch? Their existing sales cycle was 12-18 months.
The first step with Katabolt was a Discovery workshop, an opportunity
to build clarity about the export direction and a chance to redefine the
YouDo value proposition for the Australian market. This included a series
of tasks that would help understand the complexity of the electricity
chain, identifying the competitor landscape, gaining clarity on the
regulatory barriers for technology products for the Australian market and
clearly identifying key customer personas.
The initial research phase began with Katabolt and YouDo modeling the
value chain and researching initial competitors, establishing a criteria for
prospective companies and identifying the hypothetical challenges they
may have. These scenarios were then tested with customer interviews
which resulted in the identification of 100 companies that were filtered
down to 50 potential targets for YouDo to technically validate in Australia.
After this initial validation cycle of about 100 days, YouDo returned to
Katabolt seeking support to reposition their proposition and develop
marketing and sales material.
With Katabolt’s support, YouDo were able to drill down and articulate the
brand’s purpose, a critical piece of the jigsaw to be able to communicate
value to export markets. This gave their sales team a clear differentiator to
be able to cut through the noise when talking in the marketplace.
In just 60 days, YouDo went from planning how to get to market to having
a very clear purpose of why they exist, and a target list of the top 100
ideal customers in Australia.
RESULTS
Within 12 months of the engagement with Katabolt, YouDo had several
new opportunities in their pipeline and had closed on/new customer
engagement. In New Zealand the sales cycle had been 12-18 months and
the process in Australia happened in just six months – a strong lead to
conversion rate.
One of YouDo’s strengths was their internal capability to be able to
complete market validation of the target customers in the Australian
market. With the list in hand, the YouDo sales team and their sales
manager were able to narrow down which leads to chase using a filtering
tool built by Katabolt.
The process was one of a solid partnership; YouDo had a clear mandate
from their board for growth and a management team that were open,
focused and had and a strong desire to grow their export skillset. Katabolt
had a clear understanding of the requirements and the export experience
to challenge the status quo and guide the YouDo team to great success.
“We gained clarification of our own business in New Zealand – our value proposition and the gaps that needed to be strengthened in the business model to be successful in an export market.” YouDo, CEO, Kari Reiterer
