Every SaaS founder wants to go global. But scaling across borders is rarely a straight path.
New markets look attractive on paper – until you hit cultural friction, hiring missteps, and unpredictable timing. Expansion eats resources. Margins shrink. And just when you think you’ve mastered one market, another behaves entirely differently.
At CM.com, a Dutch-born company that began as a text-messaging tool for nightclubs and now operates across 15 countries, this tension became very real.
As founder and CEO, Jeroen van Glabbeek explains, “You can’t copy-paste success from one market to the next. You have to build it, lose it, and rebuild it—over and over again.”
After 25 years of operating globally—and now leading CM.com through an AI-first transformation—Jeroen has distilled what it really takes to scale efficiently, survive market misfires, and adapt in an era where technology moves faster than people do.
Building a system for sustainable scale
Jeroen’s approach to global expansion—and now AI adoption—can be applied by any SaaS company between €2 million and €200 million ARR.
It rests on a few key principles: start small and learn fast, hire founder-types not employees, adapt before you standardize, and automate before you add people.
1. Learn fast and move faster
Scaling isn’t linear. It’s iterative.
CM.com’s first expansion target was Belgium—a natural next step for a Dutch company. “We thought it would be easy,” Jeroen admits. “But Belgium turned out to be one of the hardest markets to sell anything.”
Germany was harder. The UK is equally complex. Success finally came in the Middle East, where growth mindsets and high trust in foreign technology opened doors.
The lesson: don’t assume proximity equals simplicity.
Each country has its own rhythm of trust, speed, and adoption. It took 25 launches—and 10 closures—for CM.com to discover where its business model fit best.
“Failing in 10 countries taught us more than succeeding in 15,” Jeroen reflects. “Every exit gave us insight we used somewhere else.”
2. Hire founders, not employees
The first hire in any new market often makes or breaks momentum.
“You need someone who can sell, market, recruit, and operate,” Jeroen says. “Basically, a mini-founder. That person is rare.”
His advice is refreshingly candid: expect your first hire to be a mis-hire.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s an iteration. Finding the kind of entrepreneurial DNA that can adapt without structure, represent the brand locally, and build the first few customer relationships from scratch.
Once traction appears, formalize around that person’s strengths, then professionalize the rest.
3. Adapt before you standardize
Early-stage expansion demands cultural flexibility.
In Europe, CM.com’s sales process followed a predictable flow: proposal → negotiation → signature → delivery. In China, that logic was reversed.
“There, people start using your product before signing a contract,” Jeroen explains. “If they like it, they’ll sign. Then they’ll negotiate the price.”
Rather than resist, CM.com adapted. Local agility became a survival tactic.
But as the company matured, that same flexibility began to slow global scale. “Once you reach a certain size, consistency becomes your strength,” Jeroen says. “We learned to keep cultural sensitivity, but standardize the core.”
Start adaptable, end predictable. That’s how you scale without chaos.
4. Time markets, not spreadsheets
Forecasting international sales looks tidy in a budget, and impossible in reality.
Jeroen recalls launching CM.com Japan: “For five years, almost nothing happened. No brand, no trust, no traction. Every year, we ask if we should give up.”
Then, in year six, growth exploded and revenue jumped to €1 million within months.
The takeaway: market readiness matters as much as product readiness.
Budgets don’t predict adoption. Patience does.
5. Build your automation muscle before your headcount
When ChatGPT arrived, Jeroen recognized another turning point, one as big as the iPhone moment in 2007.
“Before, every time we had a problem, we asked, ‘Who can we hire?’ Now, we ask, ‘Can AI solve this?’”
That mindset redefined CM.com’s structure. Instead of scaling by people, they scaled by process automation. The company now operates with roughly one-third fewer employees than before, yet delivers more output and faster iteration.
For Jeroen, an AI-first company means every challenge starts with the question: How can technology take the first draft?
“Headcount is no longer a measure of success,” he says. “Automation is.”
6. Co-create with customers
In the Netherlands, CM.com leverages something Jeroen calls a “co-creation advantage.”
“Here, you can walk into a client meeting with half an idea and half a product, and say, ‘Let’s finish it together.’”
This openness doesn’t work everywhere; Germany and Belgium, for example, expect fully polished solutions – but where it does, it fuels innovation and customer loyalty.
One recent project with Comfort Partners used voice AI to handle real-time service calls for home heating issues. “We learned and built every day with the client,” Jeroen says. “That’s when innovation becomes mutual.”
7. Redefine success in 2025
In today’s SaaS landscape, success isn’t measured by the number of tools or people you manage. It’s about how seamlessly everything connects.
During the SaaS boom, companies stacked hundreds of apps. Now, many are overwhelmed.
“The future of SaaS,” Jeroen argues, “is collaboration, not accumulation.”
He envisions a near future where CEOs lead teams of human employees and AI agents, each trained, measured, and evaluated. Where integration replaces silos. Where automation fuels, not replaces, human creativity.
What happens when you get this right
When global scale meets intelligent automation, growth becomes sustainable.
Markets expand faster because playbooks improve. Teams stay smaller but more capable. Products evolve continuously, guided by real-time data and AI-driven insights.
And customers experience consistency—whether they’re in Amsterdam or Tokyo.
Final takeaway
For Jeroen van Glabbeek, scaling globally and becoming AI-first aren’t separate journeys—they’re the same one. Both require experimentation, resilience, and a willingness to rebuild what works.
“As long as you have a great product and customers who love it,” he says, “you’re in business. Everything else is just how you get there.”
Watch Jeroen’s full keynote from SaaSiest Amsterdam 2025 here: https://saasiest.com/how-to-efficiently-scale-up-in-different-regions/
