A founder told me last week they’re expanding to three new markets in Q1.
They had market research. Revenue projections. Customer validation.
What they didn’t have: anyone with bandwidth to actually run it.
These are among the challenges that hypergrowth companies face when scaling.
It’s not due to a lack of demand. It’s falling in love with the vision and failing to build a strong enough foundation to succeed.
People: Empowering the Leaders Who Drive Growth
Here’s what kills expansion: wrong leader, zero bandwidth, no backup plan.
Your VP of Sales is fully committed, focused on meeting this year’s targets. You convince yourself they can “also handle” the upmarket push. They can’t. Six months later, both efforts suffer.
Or you choose someone senior simply because they’re available—not because they know how to execute this specific expansion. Geographic moves demand different skills than new product launches. Moving upmarket requires experience distinct from market penetration.
One team I worked with recognized its leadership gap after a tough first attempt. They promoted a director who had shadowed previous launches and gave her a cross-functional team. By focusing on local hiring and sharing decision-making, they hit their first-year targets ahead of plan. The companies that expand successfully use a proven tool: The Expansion Readiness Test. This repeatable checklist ensures everyone is aligned and ready before entering new markets:
- Who specifically leads this effort, and what are they dropping to make room?
- Do they have real experience with this type of expansion?
- Who’s their strong second when day-to-day fires pull them back?
If your best person is already at 75% capacity, adding expansion responsibility guarantees failure on both fronts.
Try this week: Identify the leader for your biggest 2026 expansion. If their current capacity is above 70%, take immediate action to find an alternative leader or reschedule the launch. Decide now.
Process:Unlocking Local Advantage
I’ve watched companies burn serious cash entering markets where demand existed, but execution costs killed the model.
They validated customer interest and ran the market sizing. However, they overlooked the fact that local transportation costs, regulatory timelines, or payment infrastructure rendered their unit economics unviable.
You can’t execute geographic expansion without local knowledge. You can’t launch new products without understanding actual buying processes. You can’t move upmarket using your mid-market sales motion.
What actually works: One company entering an emerging market mapped local workflows instead of copying their home playbook. By empowering local teams to redesign onboarding, they halved their setup time. Find someone who deeply understands where you’re going, not a consultant, but someone who operates in that space. Ask them what you’re missing. Build your process around their reality, not your assumptions.
Try this week: For your next expansion target, find one person with deep expertise in that market. Book 30 minutes. Ask: “What operational reality could derail us?” Take notes and update your plan accordingly on the insight, not just the answer.
Data: Powering Expansion with Smart Metrics
The hardest part isn’t starting the expansion. It’s knowing when to stop.
Before you expand, answer:
- What numbers at 3, 6, and 12 months mean that this is working?
- What metric triggers a kill decision?
- What’s the real cost if we’re wrong?
I’ve seen teams celebrate user acquisition while ignoring that CAC made every customer unprofitable. They focused on market penetration while operational costs broke the model. They kept pouring money in, hoping “eventually it catches up.” However, I’ve also seen teams succeed: one fintech scale-up noticed that retention was lagging in a new segment. Instead of chasing volume, they doubled down on analyzing early signals, adjusted onboarding, and saw retention jump by 40% in a single quarter. Companies that succeed regularly reassess their metrics and adjust their strategies, focusing on both profitability and growth. Acting on measurable insights is crucial to achieving lasting growth.
Try this week: For every 2026 expansion, set the kill threshold: “We stop if [metric] misses [number] by [date].” If you can’t set this, pause the project until you can.
Tonio’s Corner: The Infrastructure Test That Builds Winners
Most expansion conversations focus on opportunity. They should focus on readiness.
Before you commit to any 2026 expansion, complete these three sentences:
- “[Name] leads this, and they’re stopping [specific responsibility] to make space.”
- “Success means [metric] hits [number] by [date].”
- “We kill this if [condition] happens.”
Vague answers? Your expansion isn’t ready.
Companies that scale successfully don’t just find better opportunities; they build the right infrastructure before they start. With clear leadership, tailored processes, and measurable milestones, they turn ambition into durable growth. When you invest in readiness, you set the stage for real wins, not just survival, but sustainable leadership in every new market. The next success story could be yours if you build for it.
The gap compounds fast.