I Was Hired to Crack the U.S. Market. I Turned Down the Mission — and Doubled Down on the Market Hiding in Our Data

When I was hired arsenic CEO of Builderall, I inherited 1 mission: ace the U.S. market. The institution had primitively been built by a Brazilian team, and they believed an American CEO who said English without an accent was the missing portion to unlock the biggest marketplace successful the world. I took the job. Then I turned down the mission. Instead of pointing the institution astatine the United States, I doubled down connected Latin America.

That wasn’t a stake connected my instincts. It was a stake connected the data, and specifically connected the quality betwixt wherever the opportunity looked for illustration it was and wherever it really was. Every entrepreneur coming is moving immoderate type of that aforesaid decision: an manufacture is shifting nether you, AI is rewriting really your customers behave, and you’re being told to pursuit the marketplace everyone other is chasing. The winners successful this rhythm will beryllium the ones who look astatine the crushed they’re already opinionated on, spot the opening astir group miss and perpetrate to it while everyone other wanders.

If you’re looking to expand, standard into a caller market, aliases find the bluish water opportunity successful your industry, here’s really I’ve learned to find that opening successful mine. Four moves, successful the bid I’ve learned to tally them.

1. Read your ain information earlier you pursuit personification else’s story

You don’t request decades of manufacture acquisition to spot an opportunity. You request the willingness to look astatine your ain numbers and inquire what they’re really saying, not what you want them to say.

At Builderall, we had a increasing U.S. customer base and had ne'er spent a dollar to get those users. On the surface, that looked for illustration a greenish ray to put heavy successful the U.S. But erstwhile we studied who those American customers were, we recovered thing different. They almost each had Spanish surnames. They clustered successful South Florida, Texas and Southern California. They weren’t Americans discovering a Latin American product. They were Latin Americans who had moved northbound and stayed plugged into the ecosystem backmost home.

The motion flipped. What looked for illustration early U.S. traction was really impervious that Latin American marketing was already winning U.S. customers arsenic a downstream effect. The correct move wasn’t to participate the U.S. It was to spell deeper into Latin America, and fto the U.S. footprint compound arsenic a byproduct.

The musculus you’re building is asking what your information really says versus what you wish it would say. Most group task the communicative they want onto the numbers. The opening tends to beryllium hiding successful the communicative they didn’t expect.

2. Watch for the macro displacement that rewrites a market

The richest openings look correct aft thing basal changes. When the crushed moves, whoever notices first has a model earlier everyone other recalibrates.

Years earlier I joined Builderall, I worked successful a domiciled targeting Latin America and the region’s problems were structural. Most group didn’t person slope accounts. Credit cards were rare. Internet entree was unreliable. Then a compressed fewer years rewrote each of it.

According to a 2023 Mastercard study conducted pinch Americas Market Intelligence, the stock of Latin American consumers without an relationship astatine immoderate financial institution dropped from 45% successful 2019 to 21% successful 2023. The World Bank’s Global Findex recorded a 19% jump successful financial inclusion crossed the region betwixt 2017 and 2021, the largest summation anyplace successful the world during that window. Internet penetration climbed from 43% successful 2012 to 78% successful 2022.

It wasn’t the aforesaid marketplace anymore. It had softly go a caller one, and astir competitors were still moving strategies built for the aged one. That’s the shape to look for. Wherever quality behaviour changes dramatically and quickly, an opening is forming. AI is doing this correct now to astir each manufacture that touches content, coding aliases customer support. The occupation is to announcement the displacement earlier your competitors update their assumptions.

3. Refuse to conflict the strongest opponent

Once you’ve spotted the opening, the adjacent mobility is who other is already location and whether you tin hit them.

Going aft the U.S. marketplace meant going head-to-head pinch Wix and Squarespace. According to Wix’s 2024 yearly study revenge pinch the SEC, Wix unsocial spent $175.6 cardinal connected advertizing successful 2024. Roughly $14.6 cardinal each month, from 1 competitor, earlier you count Squarespace aliases anyone other pinch a trading fund aimed astatine the aforesaid buyer. Meeting that head-on pinch our resources was ne'er going to work.

In soccer, you don’t effort to break the protect statement wherever it’s thickest. You look for the seam. The extremity connected the different extremity is the aforesaid sloppy of wherever you transverse through. Business is the same. There’s nary prize for beating the strongest defender. There’s only a punishment for trying.

4. Protect your core, and defy adjacency hubris

This is the move astir operators get wrong, and the 1 that softly undid the U.S. scheme for me.

Being fantabulous astatine 1 point doesn’t guarantee that each adjacent move will work. And the existent costs of the caller stake is seldom conscionable the money spent pursuing it. It’s the attention, finance and organizational power pulled distant from what made the institution fantabulous successful the first place.

Nike is simply a lawsuit study playing retired successful existent time. The institution remains the world leader successful diversion footwear, but complete respective years it aggressively prioritized direct-to-consumer income while reducing its dependence connected the wholesale partners that had helped build its scope and taste relevance. The strategy didn’t neglect successful isolation. Nike besides faced product, competitory and location challenges during the aforesaid period. But the transmission displacement proved costly. According to Nike’s fiscal 2025 yearly report, gross fell 10% twelvemonth complete year, from $51.4 cardinal to $46.3 billion, while Nike Direct gross declined 13%. By mid-2026, the banal had fallen to its lowest level successful much than 11 years.

Nike is now moving to reconstruct balance. In fiscal 2026, wholesale gross grew 6% to $27.5 billion, while Nike Direct declined different 6% to $17.7 billion. The institution is rebuilding retailer relationships and reinvesting successful the broader marketplace it had antecedently deemphasized.

Even a institution arsenic ascendant arsenic Nike can’t redirect attraction from a halfway spot without consequences. When evaluating a caller opportunity, the honorable mobility isn’t “can we triumph complete there?” It’s “what will pursuing it origin america to neglect here?” When “here” is wherever much than 90% of your customers, gross aliases competitory advantage presently lives, the load of impervious for the adjacent stake should beryllium highly high.

That was precisely the prime astatine Builderall. A parallel vertical (the U.S.) versus going deeper into a halfway (Latin America) wherever much than 90% of our customer guidelines already lived and wherever the crushed was yet coagulated capable to compound. I chose depth. Then I chose circumstantial countries wrong that continent arsenic beachheads alternatively of blanketing each of it astatine once.

Making it real: trial wide, perpetrate narrow, fto the numbers decide

We didn’t commencement pinch Mexico, Colombia and Peru specifically. We blanketed Spanish-speaking Latin America, ran mini system tests crossed the committee and fto the strongest markets bubble up from the data.

The mechanics that made this activity are simple. Set your guardrails earlier you participate anything. Define your KPIs. Run mini focus-grouped tests. Put a clip sky connected the research up beforehand truthful you don’t descent into testing forever.

That past 1 is wherever astir entrepreneurs get stuck. Between the ages of 18 and 27, I started astir 22 businesses. Not each of them were serious, but capable of them were that I learned the instruction the difficult way: astatine immoderate constituent you person to extremity ideating and commencement operating. Testing is simply a phase, not a lifestyle. If your trial is moving past its ain deadline, either the trial is surgery aliases you’re avoiding the determination the trial was expected to make for you.

The measurement retired is to fto the numbers beryllium the boss. Set your triumph metric from your portion economics: what it costs to get a customer, what it costs to deliver, what you make. Decide the nonstop number a marketplace has to deed to count arsenic a win. The infinitesimal it hits, the determination is made for you. You’re not the boss. The numbers are.

Macro disruption isn’t going away. The operators who thrive successful this rhythm will beryllium the ones who publication their ain information honestly, announcement the displacement earlier their competitors do, garbage the fights they can’t win, protect the halfway they’ve already built, and perpetrate while everyone other is still wandering.

I was hired to pursuit the crowded market. I went the different direction. That determination has shaped really I deliberation astir maturation strategy ever since. Find the seam successful the line, thrust difficult into it, and the aforesaid logic will activity for you.