A SaaS Case Study in Selling Software Overseas

How James Hayes, founder of Virtual Medical Coaching, bootstrapped a highly technical startup that sold globally from day one, transitioning from academic researcher to international SaaS founder and head of global sales.

When I launched Virtual Medical Coaching, I had no customers, no funding, and no real idea what it meant to ‘export software.’ I wasn’t thinking about a 'global go-to-market strategy.' I was thinking about how to close our first sale without leaving the country.

James Hayes

Founder, Virtual Medical Coaching

I'm James Hayes, founder of Virtual Medical Coaching. Before starting a SaaS business, I was an academic researcher. I didn’t plan to become a startup founder, and definitely not one selling globally from day one. But I saw a need for better allied health and medical education and knew it had to scale internationally to be sustainable.

I didn’t raise capital. I didn’t have a growth team. I skipped most trade shows, didn’t have customers in New Zealand, and didn’t follow a textbook playbook. I focused on closing real overseas sales from my home base in Christchurch. That meant solving pricing, onboarding, compliance, and support for international users, without ever meeting them in person.

This page reflects what that actually looked like: what worked, what didn’t, and how to sell overseas on an early-stage bootstrapped budget.

Connect: LinkedIn | Virtual Medical Coaching

1. How I Got Started (And What I Messed Up Early)

🚫 Don’t build for New Zealand unless your market is here.

🚫 Don’t rely on trade shows unless you’re post-PMF.

When I first started Virtual Medical Coaching, I thought selling overseas was just a matter of setting USD pricing and opening up the website. I underestimated how much compliance, tax, and support friction we’d hit, even before our first customer.

I didn’t talk to MFAT. I didn’t ask if my product was classified as dual-use. I assumed Stripe was “global enough.” I was wrong on all counts.

What saved us was that I didn’t try to go broad. From day one, I knew our buyer: clinical simulation leads at overseas teaching hospitals. That specificity let us go deep, even when we were small.

I didn’t raise funding. I didn’t hire salespeople. I built the product, handled outbound, rewrote onboarding, and managed every ticket. Most NZ SaaS founders will have to do the same, at least at the start.

Virtual Medical Coaching is a simulation-based software platform that helps allied health and medical students and professionals develop clinical skills in a risk-free, virtual environment. We serve universities, medical schools, and hospital-based training programs across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and beyond. Our platform blends interactive learning, assessment tools, and virtual reality simulation to make allied health education more accessible and measurable.

We knew from the start that our customers would be overseas. This page shares the operational decisions and hard lessons that helped us succeed as a global-first SaaS business built from New Zealand.

2. How I Exported My SaaS From NZ

How I structured my business operations and infrastructure for overseas sales from day one, including currency, servers, and support.

I structured the company to serve international customers from the beginning. That meant:

• Billing in USD and EUR, not NZD
• Hosting on US and EU servers for performance
• Support coverage across time zones (I’m a hopeless insomniac, so this bit was easy!)

We built for healthcare training providers outside of New Zealand because that’s where the scale was. We didn’t wait for domestic demand—we went straight to clinical simulation leads in the US, UK, and EU.

James’ 3 Things to Do Before You Export:

Check the MFAT Dual-Use list

Price in foreign currency

Use support tools with async workflows

3. Selling Software Internationally from NZ Requires a Global-First Stack

Your backend systems, how you bill, onboard, and support customers, determine how easily you can operate across borders. This section explains the core infrastructure decisions that made scaling possible.

Global from day one sounds good. But it’s mostly backend. What really matters:

• Billing and compliance: Stripe's tax tools were too immature at the time. Paddle lets us outsource sales tax, VAT, and invoicing globally.
• Onboarding: Our onboarding flows were localised for EN-US and DE markets. We used browser language detection to auto-suggest copy and tailored our medical terminology to local curriculum formats.
• Customer support: We avoided live chat. Instead, async ticketing and structured help docs worked across time zones. Here's how we structured support: https://www.intercom.com/help/articles/using-intercom-asynchronous-support. Many of our clients were academic or hospital-based and required documentation-based workflows.

I spent more time designing pricing pages for Spain and Germany than for New Zealand.

Stripe and Paddle are global payment platforms. Stripe gives you control, but requires setup. Paddle simplifies things by acting as the seller and handling global tax and invoicing for you.

Stripe vs Paddle: What I Chose and Why

Stripe is a powerful payments platform, but it wasn’t built for global tax handling out of the box. Unless you’re ready to build your own compliance layer and handle VAT and sales tax registration manually, it’s not the right fit for early-stage SaaS exports. I wasn’t.

Paddle acted as a merchant of record. That meant:

Learn more: https://www.paddle.com/solutions/saas-billing

• No need to register in every VAT country
• Fully managed receipts, tax rates, and invoicing
• Cleaner reporting at month-end

Do you need Paddle or Stripe?

• Use Paddle if you don’t want to register for VAT in every country.
• Use Stripe if you need full control and have compliance resources.

In healthcare education, where invoices are often reviewed by procurement teams, having compliant, localised documentation built in was essential.

If I had to do it again, I’d still start with Paddle. Stripe only becomes viable if you're running multiple products and need control.

4. The Tax, FX, and Compliance Problems I Didn’t See Coming

When exporting software, founders often underestimate how taxes, currency exchange (FX), and legal classification can impact their bottom line. This section shows the traps I ran into.

I assumed I could just charge customers in USD and deal with conversions later. I was wrong. Here’s what hit us:

• FX Losses: Stripe’s conversion fees ate into margins fast. Wise helped us cut costs on payouts and treasury handling. Learn more: https://wise.com/business/
• GST Confusion: Some advisors told us NZ GST didn’t apply. Others said it did. It depends on customer location, delivery model, and classification.
• Dual-use controls: We came close to violating export rules for analytics software used in simulation assessment. I now always check MFAT's dual-use lists. You can find them here: https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/trade-rules-and-agreements/export-controls/dual-use-and-strategic-goods-list/

What I Learned About Dual-Use Export Controls

Some software is considered 'dual-use', meaning it has civilian and military applications, and may be subject to export restrictions. Here’s how I handled those issues.

Most founders think export compliance is for people shipping drones. But if you’re building software with analytics, encryption, or sensitive sectors, like medical diagnostics or training, you might be caught too

Here’s what I do now:

• Review MFAT's [Dual-Use Goods List]
• If unsure, I email MFAT before signing new deals
• I keep a record of tech classifications internally

It’s easier to do this before you're exporting at scale.

5. Why I Skipped Trade Shows and Built Direct Sales Instead

Trade shows can be expensive and time-consuming. For early-stage SaaS, they don’t always deliver results. This section shares what worked better for lead generation and sales.

I attended the RSNA once as part of an early outbound campaign. We generated around 50 leads, but none of them converted to customers, highlighting just how misaligned general trade shows can be for niche B2B SaaS.

What worked better:

• Cold outbound to heads of simulation at universities and hospitals
• Webinars and async demos tailored to education cycles
• Partnering with related tools (LMS integrations, EdTech marketplaces)

Trade shows are a distraction pre-PMF. They're helpful for partnerships, not early sales.

We got 50 leads from a trade show, and none converted. That taught me everything I needed to know.

6. Localisation Is Not Translation

Localising your SaaS means more than converting text. It includes pricing, support hours, cultural signals, and compliance. Here's how I approached it.

We localised onboarding, emails, and pricing. For example, we created separate onboarding paths that reflected different medical credentialing requirements in Spain vs. the US. We also rewrote automated emails with terminology used by local clinical education bodies, rather than just translating our original English copy. But what mattered more was:

• Currency symbols
• Cultural buying triggers (e.g., Germany = invoice compliance, US = credit card convenience - and reminding them that we don’t accept checks - ever)
• Data hosting and support hours aligned to academic calendars

For example, our German customers cared deeply about invoice structure and data protection. US buyers didn't. Our UK NHS-aligned clients required data security briefings as part of onboarding.

7. What I Would Do Differently- The Three Big Ticket Items

Reflecting on our export journey, these are the three things I would change if I were starting again.

1. Get legal input on export classification earlier
2. Build global-first pricing and support pages before launch
3. Skip vanity events and focus on channel fit

8. Execution Guide to Successfully Exporting Your SaaS from New Zealand (Checklist)

A practical, step-by-step checklist for early-stage founders selling software overseas from day one. No NZ traction required. No investor capital needed.

• Designed for global-first SaaS founders building on a lean budget
• Covers payments, compliance, onboarding, and async support
• Created and tested by a real NZ founder selling B2B SaaS overseas

9. Master List: Global SaaS Export Tools, Links & Resources