Australian Digital Intelligence Startup Seizes Opportunities
June 25, 2021 | By Sindy Yeh
Australian Digital Intelligence Startup Seizes Opportunities in Arlington
Fivecast, a world-leading provider of digital intelligence solutions, deploys advanced data collection and AI-enabled analytics to help government, national security, law enforcement and defense agencies solve intelligence challenges. Duane Rivett, VP of National Security and co-founder, shares his insight on establishing Fivecast’s first U.S. office in Arlington.
1. What makes Arlington a good location for international organizations?
Arlington is very accessible to decision-makers in Federal Government agencies who represent an important customer base for Fivecast as our digital intelligence solutions are built from the ground up to address challenges facing national security, defense, and law enforcement organizations. The business community in Arlington provides lots of great opportunities for networking across the public sector and sharing ideas, expertise, and connections which are invaluable for establishing a new business.
2. For the past 18 months, you were able to grow Fivecast to 10 people, many of them hired during the pandemic. Can you share how did you onboard staff and help them understand Fivecast’s products as well as the company culture?
We established a physical presence quickly and relocated an experienced founder to the region. This helped build the team culture and transfer corporate knowledge and history, accelerating growth opportunities. It is also important to quickly establish partnerships with experienced strategic partners and industry stakeholders.
We also established a Tradecraft and Business Development team in the US which has grown to 10 people in the space of 18 months and these team members are fully trained and are executing on the Fivecast business growth strategy. This execution focus has enabled us to launch the Fivecast Academy – an online training solution to help customers quickly learn and gain value from our solutions which will aid in customer retention and revenue growth objectives.
3. What advice would you give to an international company when it is considering expanding to the U.S.?
Building on our successes and solid customer base in law enforcement and defense and intelligence in Australia, a significant market opportunity was identified for Fivecast in the US market. As a start-up organization, Fivecast faced many challenges in scaling and expanding the business beyond Australia to take advantage of this growth opportunity.
Our advice would include taking the time to develop a very robust strategic plan which includes deep market research that identifies the market opportunity and enables prioritization of opportunities to apply investment dollars where it will have the most impact.
Executing on this strategic plan, we identified the key markets to which we could effectively penetrate, and then established channels and alliances with industry leaders.
It’s important to be realistic when embarking on an export initiative as things often take a lot longer than anticipated. Also, make sure to have a solid plan for cash flow as establishing an overseas presence is expensive!