Propel take New York…

“New York is one of the most dynamic cities in the world, for its diverse market, huge concentration of customers, international exposure and talent pool. We see so much opportunity for growing a tech company there…”

We were invited by London & Partners to join them on the Retail Tech Mission, where they proudly hosted 12 tech companies that have their eye on the prize: the world’s biggest retailers and advisors, where? New York City of course!

The Grow London programme was designed and launched this year to encourage trade and foreign direct investment into and through London. It’s been magic to be part of the work the different sector teams have been doing to give companies the platform to learn and be successful, through co-hort workshops, international trade missions and partner schemes to help them achieve international success.

We’ve been a partner of London & Partners for 12 whole years, working with the ‘home-grown’ business of London and the international businesses landing here, with all their recruitment needs. Propel has curated its own narrative and specialism around the work we’ve done together, advising then placing ‘first boots on the ground’ then populating these businesses in London.

More recently, we’ve been doing some seriously interesting work with UK companies that are now extending themselves to the US, and naturally we’ve grown with them to support them with their needs there. That’s why this mission was a really exciting thing for Propel, all 12 companies varied in size, funding and product but they were all ambitious enough to see what appetite they had for the U.S., or more so what appetite the U.S. had for them! We were able to learn a lot through meeting everyone, and attending a few of the sessions.

Main points for entering concluded:

• Be bold, don’t ‘dip your toe in’ go straight for it
• Understand the nuances, and mould for your new American audience, written and verbal
• Hire and find someone that can has more market knowledge and insight than you do, take the risk but hire right
• Be succinct and ask directly for what you need when you feel like it’s right

All this made sense and helped us in the advice we give our clients.

Secondly, over the years Mel has built amazing relationships with the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and together we visited people from different departments to hatch a plan on how we can work together. Then we visited clients that we helped land in the UK, and ones that we only just started working with! It was amazing how a bit of face time can spur creativity and rapport.

After all, New York is one of the most dynamic cities in the world, for its diverse market, huge concentration of customers, international exposure and talent pool. We see so much opportunity for growing a tech company there.

It was brilliant! We are so excited about the welcoming nature of the NYC business ecosystem, and what we’ve planned to do amongst it. I hope we all can go more, meet more and learn more there soon!

– Scarlett Chorley, Partnerships Manager