basic-guide-to-exporting_Latest_eg_main_086196

Success StoryDownloading NewInternational MarketsUrban Planet MobileWith the largest library of Englishlanguage lessons available formobile, we reach up to 85% of theworld's English learning population.The CompanyUrban Planet Mobile specializes in “mobileeducation” software that teaches English audiolessons to users after they download it to theirwireless device. The company started in 2008 andnow has customers in 38 countries served by 26employees. As such, the company is an outlier,since the majority of U.S. exporters export toonly one international market. The company’slargest selling product is Urban English, and it alsoproduces a writing product that helps people learnto write in English.The ChallengeAccording to founder and CEO Brian Oliversmith,the company started in 2008. “That was a reallytough time to start a company, because this littlerecession happened about 5 months later,” herecalled. Money was very tight and great carehad to be taken when deciding where to spendon marketing and other business developmentstrategies. From the beginning, the largestmarket for the product was outside the UnitedStates. How would Oliversmith find reliablebuyers without spending a fortune on traveland advertising?The SolutionOliversmith made the first investment in a flightto a conference at the University of SouthernCalifornia in Los Angeles, co-sponsored by theU.S. Commercial Service. At the conference, whichtakes place annually in the spring, he met seniorU.S. Commercial Service officers from all over Asia,a region where he’d never been. He said: “Withtheir help, I started to narrow down where wewere going to first jump into the market, where wewould start to spend our real resources. It was anamazing 3 days. I learned more in that conferencethan I could have learned in 2 years flying aroundon airplanes. Since then we now invest in thosecountries and are up and operational in manyof them.”Officers he met at the conference helped himfind partners in Asian countries with high growthpotential. “Before we knew it, we were in awonderful university they found for us in Myanmar28U.S. Commercial Service • A Basic Guide to Exporting