Part 1: Going Global From Day One

Why New Zealand founders can’t afford to go local-first.

🚫 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.

Case Study — Virtual Medical Coaching: The Early Days

Founder: James Hayes

Company: Virtual Medical Coaching (VMC)

Sector: Healthcare simulation (VR SaaS)

Context & Setup

I trained and worked in medical imaging and education. My expertise was in medical imaging and clinical training, not in sales or SaaS.

The domestic New Zealand market was too small. Only a handful of institutions could use our VR software. To have any chance of sustainability, we had to sell overseas from the beginning.

We had very little capital, a very small team, and were based far from major markets. These constraints meant we had to reach customers without travel and without large marketing budgets.

Because there was no local market and limited budget for travel or trade shows, we built for global distribution immediately. That meant setting up payments, compliance, and communication processes to work with overseas institutions from the start.

First Customers & Channels

Who they were:

Heads of radiography programs at universities, academic hospitals, and medical training centers in Europe and South America.

What failed:

We expected trade shows, inbound leads, and ads to work. They didn’t. At RSNA, we gathered 50 leads and none converted.

What worked:

• Outbound outreach (LinkedIn, cold email)
• Introductions through academic networks
• Partnerships with distributors

First customer story:

• Found via LinkedIn + warm academic introduction
• Bought because of evidence base and measurable training improvements — they trusted data, not brand name
• Dean was a forward-thinking EdTech adopter
• Still one of our biggest customers today

Go-to-Market Approach

We managed sales, onboarding, and support remotely through email, Zoom calls, and recorded demo videos. Customers received structured onboarding packs, so they could get started without on-site presence.

Tools & workflows:

• Zoom and Loom for recorded demos
• HubSpot for pipeline tracking
• Async-first scheduling across US, EU, and Asia

Regional differences:

• Europe: fast once procurement approved; heavy on compliance/data reviews
• Asia: expected in-person presence; SaaS harder to explain in education context
• US: somewhere in between

Procurement/compliance hurdles:

GDPR and data security reviews slowed deals. We overcame this by building standard compliance packs to send early.

Mistakes Made Early

• Assumed low pricing would reduce friction → it undermined credibility
• Assumed universities would pay on time → wrong; needed invoices and purchase orders
• Assumed compliance was simple → wrong; delays without prep

Biggest wastes:

• Underpricing
• Being unprepared for compliance
• Broad, unfocused outbound
• Trade shows without warm leads

Lessons Learned

Signal Rules:

1. Direct beats broad — one email to the right academic chair converted; 50 trade show leads did not.
2. Proof beats pitch — product-market fit + evidence outweighed polished slide decks.
3. Async beats live — recorded demos kept deals moving across time zones.
4. Specific buyer beats generic persona — targeting heads of radiography worked; “universities” in general did not.
5. Compliance can be a sales tool — GDPR/security docs built trust faster than demos.

What I’d Do Differently

• Prepare compliance packs earlier
• Skip trade shows in the first year
• Set higher pricing from the start
• Be more selective about partnerships and trust

Tools & Resources

Essential

Stopgaps

• Google Drive (file sharing & onboarding)
• Email

External Resources

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Selling SaaS Overseas