Today, we're launching the most extensive guide to help founders expand successfully to the US. Here are a few things that stood out for me (thread) #DestinationUSA

All startups we analysed retained their R&D in Europe. In fact only 18% of startups that have expanded to the US have any developers in the US.

Founders don't always have to move (in fact only 36% of European founders do) but landing teams from HQ are crucial as culture carriers and to ramp up new US hires as fast as possible.

78% of European startups picked access to customers as the most important factor in US expansion. Strategic partnerships and land grab come next.

Companies found hiring to be more difficult than anticipated (31%), citing the competitive talent market and high salaries. Following hiring, 'culture and communication' was the next biggest challenge where timezone difference, splitting management teams can have a high cost.

The proportion of founders choosing the West Coast is shrinking (37% to 28%). The most popular city for European startups is New York, increasing its market share from 37% to 44%. Developer tech is best done from the Valley, but anything else can be done from elsewhere.

There are dangers to expanding too early as well as expanding too late. Trends show that more companies are delaying US expansion to after Series A. European B2C companies often expand 'via London' proving their proposition before making the leap (eg. Spotify, King, TransferWise)

If you need licenses to operate in the US, it can take 12-18 months. You may need to travel to each state and pitch in person for regulatory approval. Lemonade and Transferwise have some great stories on this, you'll find them in the handbook!

European founders often find it difficult to assess US hiring candidates! Americans retain an edge in 'selling themselves' sometimes scoring themselves 11 or 12 out of 10! (Anecdotal but we've heard this many times...)

US executives of European companies often have some sort of cultural ties to Europe. This can be family, having done semesters abroad or something else. Ditto for successful relocations of executives from the US to Europe.

There are 300 pages of insights in our handbook, based on an analysis of 353 VC backed startups who have expanded to the US + in depth research into 33 outlier successes including @spotify @adyen @unity3d @transferwise @uipath @king @criteo and many more. https://indexventures.com/destinationUSA