Founders Across Borders: When Is the Right Time to Go Global?
Part of the Founders Across Borders Globinar series — live sessions on what it actually takes to build companies that work beyond one market.
About the Event
Most founders who want to go global ask "where?" before they've answered "when?" And the cost of getting the timing wrong is higher than most realize. Go too early and you burn introductions, drain capital, and distract the core team before the business is ready to absorb it. Go too late and competitors lock up the best partners, incentive windows close, and your product becomes harder to take anywhere else.
This session gives founders a concrete way to assess where they actually are — and a clearer read on what "ready" means before committing to a new market.
What you'll learn:
The difference between planning for global (which should start at day one) and expanding globally (which should not happen until the business is ready).
What "ready" actually means: the traction, capital, and organizational signals that matter, and the ones founders mistake for readiness.
The wrong reasons that are hardest to see, including the ones that feel like good strategy.
What going too early actually costs, with Japan as the clearest worked example.
What going too late costs, and the windows that don't reopen.
How regulated industries face a different timing calculus, and what that means for companies in life sciences, biotech, and clean tech.
Who should attend:
Business leaders with initial traction who are starting to ask whether now is the right time to expand.
Founders who have been approached by a foreign contact or opportunity and aren't sure whether to act on it.
Anyone who has delayed international expansion and wants to know whether they are still on time, or what it is costing them.
Founders in regulated sectors (biotech, healthtech, agritech, clean tech) where the timing question has a different answer than in consumer or SaaS.
Speakers
Karen Onuma — Co-Founder & COO, GlobalDeal
Japanese-German by background, Karen works across founders, VCs, accelerators, and public organizations in Japan, the US, and Europe — bringing direct experience of what it takes to architect a company for more than one market from the outset.
Matt Ainsworth — Founder, Global Day Zero
Matt Ainsworth helps early-stage founders build global from day zero, designing their idea to travel from the start rather than retrofitting it later. Over 20+ years across product, sales, marketing and tech, much of it spanning Australia and Japan, he's helped founders get their idea clear, prove it's real, and design it to travel. He's the founder of Global Day Zero.
Timothy Connor — Founder & CEO, Synnovate — Japan Market Specialist (Guest Speaker)
30+ years helping foreign brands enter, launch, and grow in Japan. Timothy works with leadership teams navigating one of the most attractive — and most misread — markets in the world. His perspective on what happens when companies arrive in Japan before they are ready is built from three decades on the ground, not theory.
About GlobalDeal
GlobalDeal is an AI platform that executes cross-border market entry end to end — from strategy through partner identification, outreach, regulatory navigation, and ongoing operations. Built for deep-tech startups and SMBs in sectors like life sciences, renewable energy, advanced materials, and agritech, where ecosystem complexity makes expansion harder to get right. GlobalDeal works across the US, APAC, and Europe.
About Global Day Zero
Global Day Zero provides a sprint program for early-stage founders built around the same idea this session covers: that "global" is a design decision made early, not a retrofit done later. The 8-week Global Day Zero Sprint takes a home-shaped idea and makes it clear, validated, and built to travel.
Matt has spent 20+ years working with founders and VCs across Japan and Australia, mentored 150+ founders, and built a community of 13,000+ across the AU-JP corridor.
About Synnovate
Synnovate is Timothy Connor's Japan market strategy firm, built around one premise: that succeeding in Japan requires knowledge, the right skill set, and deep experience — not a generic playbook. Synnovate works with companies of all sizes, from startups to large firms, across market entry strategy, omnichannel design, SME and startup advisory, and interim strategic leadership. If Japan is on your roadmap, Synnovate is the on-the-ground partner that turns the plan into traction.