The order you enter markets in changes what the whole programme costs and how long it takes. Most companies never choose it — the order arrives on its own, out of trade shows, inbound approaches and whoever asked most recently.
A distributor introduces themselves at a trade show and is enthusiastic about their country. A customer's parent company asks for the product somewhere you do not sell. Someone senior has a view about a market they know. Each is a real opportunity, and taken one at a time each is a reasonable yes.
The result is a sequence chosen by who asked, not by what makes the next market easier. That is worth changing, because in this industry the markets are not independent of one another.
Sometimes the right first market is not the most attractive one commercially — it is the one whose approval or reference sites make three others easier. That is a real trade-off: you are accepting slower revenue now for a cheaper programme later, and it should be a decision rather than a side effect.
Early markets teach you things — about pricing, about what the product needs locally, about how you support a partner. It is better to learn them somewhere a mistake is recoverable than in the market you most need to win.
Tender cycles, a competitor's expiring exclusivity, a partner who is available now and will not be in a year, a regulatory transition with a deadline. Genuine timing pressure justifies reordering. "They asked first" does not.
Competitor analysis and regulatory pathways for the region you are considering, starting at $5,000, so the order is a decision rather than an accident.
Request a demo →If you sell both, resist the urge to run one sequence. The classification rules diverge in most markets, the evidence expected is different, and the buyer inside the hospital is a different person — a laboratory director rather than a surgeon or a procurement lead. A market that is straightforward for your device line can be slow for your assays, and the partner who is excellent at one may have no route to the other. Plan them as two related programmes that share a company, not as one list.
A sequence is a decision made with the information available in one particular quarter. Markets change, partners appear and disappear, and a regulatory route that was closed becomes open. The point of writing it down is not that it is fixed — it is that when something changes you can see what else it affects, instead of adding another unrelated project to the pile.
We build the plan with clients and then keep it current as part of the engagement. Most of the value is in the revisions rather than the original document.
Most companies come to us with one of these four questions. Each one is a conversation, not a form.
Tell us who you're evaluating and where, and we'll show you what we can find. Ask us for a demo.