Ready. Steady. Go! Oxagile is going to the USA.

Our CEO Dmitry was going to the States anyway, to meet his friends. So we sat and thought: “Hey, 50% of our clients are from the US already. Why don’t we give Dmitry a hard time: 5 meetings a day to introduce our web application expertise and discuss software development partnership?”

And so we started picking and contacting. Our customers, and their friends; our friends and their customers, old buddies, and virtual strangers. (I really love my team, I should say.)

You never know where you will find your new customer. We are a software outsourcing provider for a number of spheres, but beside our regular audience we got positive reply from companies who we never thought would pay attention to application development at all.

With so much passion we actually underestimated our efforts. We got replies from one third of the US states, and to make Dmitry meet all those nice people during one week we had to clone him! Well, Dmitry had another opinion on that, and since we had most responses from Washington D.C, New York City, and Boston, we have come up with this schedule:

Novermber 2 – 6: Washington D.C, New York City (NY), Wilton (CT), Boston (MA)

Novermber 9 – 13: Dallas (TX), Houston (TX), Austin (TX)

November 16 – 20: San Francisco (CA), Los Angeles (CA)

The other day Dmitry calls me into hi office:

(Dmitry): Darya, how are my meetings doing?

(Darya): Fine, we already have two dedicated offshore project team requests, for Java and for .NET. We are yet to work on PHP and Flash side too. However, most potential customers you are going to meet just stated the date and time. They are too busy to confirm the agenda.

(Dmitry): That’s great. Those people know what they want. The goal of the talks is to discuss their current software situation and future project plans, and see how we can help. They may not start with a offshore development center, but at least they will know what benefits such an option may lead to. Now, make sure that the clients from other states get equal attention as those I am going to meet personally.

(Darya): Sure! Most our clients have seen us only via Skype or ooVoo, and are still buying. However in preparation to this business trip we got negative responses as well. There are so many reasons why people do not believe in offshore outsourcing. Some have had negative experience: they got the project out of control, failed in communications, or were even ripped off. And others just don’t care about a possibility to trust software application development to someone else and concentrate on core strategy.

(Dmitry): But you know what to do. It is the personal approach that breaks the Mighty Wall of Mistrust, not the processes, certified resources or standards. Besides, customers speak louder than words.

If companies like JumpTV, ooVoo, Computoria, and others have appreciated software partnership with us, it is much easier to explain the benefits of outsourcing to new customers.

(Darya): Absolutely, and you know what? Location played into our hands. Julia was talking to a company from New York, and the CEO asked, where we are located. She says, Minsk, Belarus, Eastern Europe. And he says: wow, our CTO is from Belarus, sure let’s meet Dmitry!

(Dmitry): Nice, but you also have to concentrate on those potential clients who are not ready to outsource their software projects for some reasons. Those sales will be most valuable for you.

(Darya): Yes, Sir!

Now we are starting Adwords campaign too, to make sure Dmitry IS busy in the States. We are all excited here. Our customers are used to our remote work and great results. However, a personal meeting is a much better start for productive development partnership.

To be continued… (Where I will share our trip results with you!)