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In focus
- Why global expansion has no playbook
- From the archive: how AI agents could reshape online retail
- OpenClaw takes on China with ByteDance support
Hello reader,
There are not a lot of Philippine companies that have expanded outside the archipelago, but a number of startups I’ve spoken with say they’ve given the idea serious thought.
When I ask what the main barrier is, the unpredictable variable that is a new audience always comes up. After crossing borders, there are entirely different regulatory compliance matters and consumer behavior they have to consider.
And as highlighted in Mind the Gap: Scaling Businesses Across Cultures, a new book by Golden Gate Ventures’ Vincent Lauria and international lawyer Stefano Pellegrino, there are also different definitions of ownership, loyalty, and risk.
You can learn more about this from an excerpt of the book that we’ve posted with permission from Wiley, publisher of Lauria and Pellegrino’s book.
Meanwhile, not everyone is expanding in the same direction. OpenAI is looking to kill its Instant Checkout feature, but that doesn’t mean agentic ecommerce is dead.
In this region, Shopee and Lazada are responding to the AI threat with features of their own. Lazada recently said its AI assistant contributed US$3 million in GMV during a campaign, a sign of how these tools are starting to matter.
Miguel Cordon, journalist
Top Story
What companies miss when scaling across cultures
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Strategy gets you in the door, but it’s people who close the deal. This book excerpt shows how misreading values can derail global expansion.
From our archives
Add to bot: how AI agents could reshape online retail
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