Beyond Exporting: You Don’t Know a Market Until You Live It

When companies expand internationally, the conversation usually starts with the product, market opportunity, financing, logistics, and regulation. All of that matters.

But after more than a decade living and working between Mexico and the United States, I’ve come to believe companies often overlook something less obvious: someone has to be willing to experience the new market from the inside.

In October 2015, at 23, I moved to Texas to build the US operation of Galdisa, a Mexican family-owned food manufacturing company.

I wasn’t stepping into completely unfamiliar territory. I had visited the United States since childhood and worked with American teams early in my career. I spoke the language and thought I understood the country.

I was wrong. Knowing a country is different from building a life and a business in it.

My first reality check didn’t come during a tough negotiation or a meeting with a bank. It came on a regular weekend.

I was alone, watching TV, eating a pizza because I didn’t have anyone to call or anywhere to go. One weekend turned into another. That’s when I realized the hardest part wouldn’t necessarily be opening bank accounts, dealing with regulations, or eventually building a plant.

The harder part was learning to belong.

From Exporting to Operating

The decision to establish a US presence didn’t come from a carefully designed international strategy.

Years earlier, an American customer told us they needed a product manufactured and delivered locally in a format our Mexican operation couldn’t provide. Unless we built manufacturing capacity in the United States, they would stop buying from us.

Eventually, they did.

That left us with a question: Did we want to keep treating the United States as an export market, or were we ready to operate inside it?

The idea resurfaced during a family vacation. I overheard my father, then CEO, discussing equipment to expand capacity in Mexico. I asked why we had abandoned the possibility of making that investment in the United States. 

His concerns were valid. The project required significant capital, greater risk, and added complexity.

I told him that if someone needed to move, I was willing to go.

I had just graduated and had a promising career at KPMG. But I was also 23, curious, and eager to do something meaningful for my family. I saw the opportunity and adventure more clearly than the personal sacrifice. That part came later.

I moved in October 2015 and opened a small sales office. We bought land that December. The following year was spent developing the project, preparing plans, and securing financing, which closed in October 2016.

Then came the US presidential election and uncertainty around trade with Mexico. For a while, it wasn’t clear whether the investment would move forward. Construction began in March 2017, and the plant opened in July 2018.

Almost three years passed between my arrival and the plant’s opening. Most of the work happened before anything was built.

That period taught me the difference between exporting to a country and operating within it.

A company can sell into a foreign market for years without truly understanding it. Real understanding starts when decisions, risks, and consequences become local; when you hire your first employee, rely on a local bank, solve a customer’s problem immediately, or realize that what worked back home doesn’t translate as expected.

Presence Matters

The early months were far less polished than the final project might suggest.

I bought a plastic table, set up my computer, and later added a printer and a few used desks. For a while, I handled accounting, purchase orders, sales orders; whatever needed to get done. We didn’t hire our first employee until about six months later.

A multinational can arrive with established departments, systems, advisers, and management. Most midsized Mexican companies can’t. They begin with limited resources, an incomplete organization, and situations that don’t fit neatly into a manual.

That’s why I don’t believe this kind of expansion can be managed effectively from a distance.

Video calls and frequent trips help, but they show only part of the picture. A three-day visit might reveal what’s happening in the office. It won’t show what motivates employees to stay, how customers decide when you’re not in the room, or how the company is perceived locally.

You begin to understand a country when you have to get a driver’s license, find a doctor, navigate unfamiliar systems, or ask for help and realize you don’t yet have anyone to call. In business, it’s the same: you understand a market when you must solve problems using local relationships, resources, and judgment.

An international operation needs someone with the authority and accountability to live that experience. Trying to run it from afar often creates a company that exists on paper but never truly becomes part of the market.

Protecting Focus

One surprise was the level of specialization in the United States.

From a Mexican perspective, it can look like inflexibility, as though people are unwilling to step outside a narrowly defined role. At times, I wondered whether that limited their ability to solve problems.

Over time, I saw it differently.

It wasn’t unwillingness; it was focus.

Many American companies create value by solving a specific problem exceptionally well. Roles, responsibilities, and value propositions are clear because the organization is protecting its purpose.

Mexican companies bring different strengths. We’re flexible, resourceful, and comfortable operating under imperfect conditions. We step outside formal roles and find creative ways to keep things moving. That’s valuable when building something from scratch.

But flexibility has a downside.

We sometimes try to serve every customer, chase every product, and respond to every opportunity. We’re not always comfortable saying no, and can lose sight of what truly differentiates us.

International expansion can’t begin as a search for anything that might work. A company needs a defined market, a clear customer need, and a compelling reason customers should choose it over competitors who already understand the environment.

Belonging Looks Different

Adapting to a new market doesn’t mean losing your identity. It means recognizing that societies organize work, relationships, and community life differently.

I kept many habits I value from Mexico. I still believe in knowing people beyond their job titles, sharing meals, visiting customers and suppliers, and making time for conversations without a strict agenda. Some of the most valuable discussions happen during a drive after a plant visit, over dinner, or while walking through an operation.

Americans value those relationships too, but they express them differently.

Another difference is the public role of a company. In Mexico, many family-owned businesses keep a low profile, whether for cultural reasons, security, or discretion.

In the United States, visibility can be a source of pride and belonging. Companies sponsor local events, join chambers of commerce, support sports teams, and openly display their names. Business networking, community involvement, and social life often overlap.

At first, that visibility felt promotional. Over time, I realized it also signals commitment: the company isn’t just operating in a town; it’s becoming part of it.

People, Not Processes

At 23, I expected the hardest challenges to be legal, financial, or operational. In many ways, those were more straightforward than I thought. There were clear rules and systems you could learn.

The more complex challenges involved people.

What does an American employee expect from an employer? What motivates someone to stay? What makes a customer trust a new supplier? How do you lead an organization where ownership is in one country and employees are in another?

Those answers don’t come from a handbook. You have to observe, test, and adjust over time.

For me, trust became simple: do what you say you’re going to do. When you can’t, communicate it clearly and early.

That’s especially true in the food industry. Customers aren’t just buying a product or a price. They’re buying continuity of supply, food safety, traceability, consistency, and confidence that someone will respond when something goes wrong.

Problems happen in every company. A well-managed issue can strengthen a relationship because it reveals how the company behaves under pressure. Transparency, responsiveness, and accountability matter more than pretending mistakes won’t happen.

Cultural Adaptation

Most of my experience has been between Mexico and the United States, but more recently I’ve also worked with people and organizations in Asia and Europe.

Once you learn to step outside your assumptions, it begins to feel like muscle memory. You become more comfortable observing before judging. You stop expecting others to interpret meetings, commitments, or relationships the way you do. Instead, you ask what matters to them and why they approach things differently.

The skill isn’t memorizing every country’s customs. It’s developing the humility to recognize that your way of working is only one of many.

That humility may be the most important quality in someone leading an international expansion: the willingness to live differently, listen carefully, and adapt without losing the strengths of the company’s original culture.

Crossing the Border

Today, many Mexican companies are expanding abroad. Some are drawn by opportunity; others seek diversification in an uncertain political and economic environment.

International expansion shouldn’t be driven by fear alone. It requires a solid business case, a defined niche, sufficient resources, and a long-term commitment.

But it also shouldn’t be seen as something only large multinationals can do.

Mexican companies have strong products, talented people, adaptability, and a proven ability to solve complex problems. What they sometimes lack is a leader willing to fully commit; someone who will move, listen, build relationships, translate the new market back to the organization at home, and gradually create a local identity.

There will always be reasons to wait for more information. Research and preparation are essential, but certainty has limits. At some point, too much analysis becomes another way of avoiding the decision.

I would make the same decision again.

Not because it was easy, but because it showed me that international expansion is ultimately a human process.

International expansion doesn’t begin when products cross a border. It begins when people are willing to belong on the other side of it.

Victor Galindo is CEO of Galdisa, where he leads the company's operations and growth strategy across Mexico and the United States.