Make It Snow: From Zero to Billions

16Going Global

“Don’t go global until you hit $100 million in US annual revenue.”

—Chris Degnan

THE BIG CUSTOMERS who bet big on us during Snowflake’s startup phase were forward-thinking, desperate, or a combination of both. They saw that our product was in line with their technology and business visions, such as going all in on cloud computing. Or, their current technology was inhibiting the customer experience, stifling company growth and ruling the lives of their IT people. These were customers that wouldn’t normally bet on a startup, especially one that’s barely GA and offers an enterprise solution that would be at the center of their entire data strategy. Nearly all of them required enhancements to our product—new features and functionality that appeal to many customers, satisfy the product requirements of industries that we were not yet ready to sell to, and would not require unfathomable demands upon our engineering team. This deviation from our plan of selling to smaller companies in one or two specific industries was not constrained to our customers in the United States. There were plenty of big companies abroad that were already in our current target markets.

There was some interest in whether we should go into Europe at this point. Of course, that would start with the United Kingdom. Countries where English is spoken most often are the first targets of expansion for US-based growing startups. John McMahon recommended that we “hold (off) as long as you can,” because ...