Products and technology now spread across borders faster than companies can organizationally follow, forcing startups to go international much earlier in their lifecycle than they used to, rather than waiting until they have hundreds of millions in revenue.
Ragu explains that because great products spread globally almost instantly via APIs and word of mouth, startups today must pursue international expansion far sooner than companies did in the past. ✦ AI generated
Ragu · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-03 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 9:20
“How much of this is also accelerated by what's happening in AI and just the ability to push out software updates right just immediately.”
the reality is that products and technology travel faster than companies can. Because if you got a great product everybody learns about it very quickly, instantaneously you can access it through APIs wherever in the world you are, you can build on top of those things. So what happens is for startup companies, usually in the olden days, you didn't care about going international until you had a few hundred million dollars in revenue, etc. Now these companies have to go sooner and sooner internationally.
verbatim transcript · starts at 9:20
9:20this as well because portfolio companies are increasingly going international way sooner. They're multi-country multi-channel multi-product way sooner in the life cycle. How much of this is also accelerated by what's happening in AI and just the ability to push out software updates right just immediately. >> Yeah. I mean the reality is that products and technology travel faster than companies can >> right because if you got a great product
9:45everybody learns about it very quickly instantaneously you can access it through APIs wherever in the world you are you can build on top of those things so what happens is for startup companies usually in the olden days you didn't care about going international until you had a few hundred million dollars in revenue etc now these companies have to go sooner and sooner sooner internationally. So while um the products are being discovered
10:12internationally sooner, also to Ben's earlier point, it's easier to adapt these products for local markets much more easily thanks to AI or as wise becomes the interface to localize uh and internationalize these products, it's so much more easier. But in order to capitalize on the opportunity at scale, things don't change, right? I mean, you still have to be in region. You still have to understand the market structure of the
10:43region that you want to operate in. Um, you have to understand partnerships, you have to build relationships. Lots of other countries have very relationship- based economies, not transaction-based economies. So it's it's this interesting blend where you've got to the technology moves really fast but the way you do business hasn't changed that fast. Yeah. Actually so a really great example of uh what Ragu was talking about. So uh when
11:10we were in uh Mexico recently um we were meeting with uh the CEO of Tel Ava Univision which uh Alonso Angua who is a great friend of the firms who one of our global partners and we were asking about gee you know what are your struggles and one of his challenges is you know he's really faces uh you know heavy competition from some of the kind of