Lessons on market expansion from an international media business

This article is an excerpt from an episode of Startup Snapshot, a Tech in Asia podcast that features the leaders and innovators in the Asian startup scene, and discusses the highs and lows of their founder journeys. It is heavily revised from the original transcript. Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts.

Roshni Mahtani was sitting on the steps of New York’s South Street Seaport in 2009 when she realized that she wanted to start a company and “do something cool” with her life. Inspired by her frustrations with babysitting Asian kids and not having any resources to refer to on how to feed, discipline, and generally care for them, she started blogging about her experiences on what is now theAsianparent: a community and content platform for mothers that Mahtani helms as founder and group CEO.

The business monetized quickly, but during an attempted expansion into Malaysia, Mahtani came face-to-face with what she now regards as one of her biggest failures. The lessons Mahtani picked up from the experience helped in theAsianparent’s subsequent market expansion efforts. Today, the online publication has localized versions in major cities in India, Australia, and Africa, as well as several Asian markets.

On this episode of Startup Snapshot, Mahtani shares what she learned from that failed market expansion and how those lessons have influenced the way theAsianparent operates today. She also talks about what her journey as a founder has taught her about working with and hiring the right talent.

You started growing theAsianparent in Singapore and then you went into Malaysia. How did that go?

It was terrible. Very early on, I realized we don’t have a big enough market in Singapore for this business, so [I thought,] ”Let’s go into Malaysia because we share a border, so we must be really really similar.” I had visited Kuala Lumpur quite a few times, and I felt that it was quite like Singapore, very cosmopolitan, made up of the three races – Malays, Indians, Chinese. We eat the same type of food; we fight over who invented nasi lemak. So very similar, right?

Photo credit: theAsianparent

Boy, was I wrong. That was the biggest learning curve of my life and also one of my biggest failures. We expanded into Malaysia and I thought I would just take the Singapore strategy, export it to Malaysia, and it would be a slam-dunk success, but I was wrong.

One of the big problems that we had in Malaysia was our content was in English. We produced English content, we copied the same exact philosophy, and we failed – we failed dramatically. After about a year and a half of trying, I had to shut down the business.

Was the situation so bad that you had to close the business?

Absolutely. It was just the wrong strategy. Even with regards to hiring a team, I think at that point in time, I was trying to work with the [Malaysia] team the same way I was working with the Singapore team. But Malaysians are very different from Singaporeans. What motivates them and what motivates Singaporeans is also very different. So Malaysia was a great learning opportunity and my first experience with real failure with a business.

The good thing was that this was pre-VC funding for us, so [we were] still bootstrapped. I went home with my tail between my legs like, “Oh, my God, I totally failed here.” That forced me to really introspect and figure out whether we just want to be a Singapore-only company, but go into more verticals and niches besides just moms, or [if we] want to try going again into this global expansion of just the parenting domain.

We tried a little bit of both. We experimented with a lot of things, and [decided to try again], but this time in Thailand. Within six months, it was crazy. Thailand was doing amazing. We had so much traffic, we had so many users, and we built a great team. Thailand is now our second-largest market and it’s been amazing.

Before that move into Malaysia, you also faced a situation in which your whole team resigned while you were away on your first vacation since starting theAsianparent. How did you feel about that?

It was like a mixture of different emotions. The first thing that I felt was, “It’s not me, it’s them.” It’s like the stages of grief so first denial like, “This is not happening to me, it cannot be me,” and then after that, it goes into acceptance and into introspection, and you ask yourself, “What am I doing that’s repelling people?”

I started this company because I genuinely want to help the lives of Asian families. I want to help them go through happy, healthy, confident pregnancies and to raise happy, healthy, confident kids. So I didn’t understand why [my team] was not as motivated by that cause as myself. More importantly, if they were so motivated by this cause, then however I act as a boss or a leader shouldn’t have affected them: it’s inconsequential how I behave because the bigger purpose is the mission and the cause.

What drove your team to resign on you?