0/ Thread: 11 tips on international expansion for growing startups 🌎 based on last night's conversation with @scott_sage & @daedalium at @_TheFamily

1/ Mindset: Someone from NYC won't think about it twice before taking a 6h flight to the Valley for business. Why do Europeans perceive a 2-hour flight / train ride as such a big deal? Travel more, there's plenty of opportunities around the corner you know nothing about ✈️
2/ If you spent more than a month considering whether to expand abroad or not, just try. What’s the worst that can happen? You can always do a big international launch, fail, try again and communicate it as a big thing every time - no one will care / remember the previous time :)
3/ Europeans perceive int'l expansion as a massive cost and therefore spend 1/10th of what US startups spend on it every year. Invest more, but keep a startup mentality: launch from home first, assess the market & then save costs as you go in, e.g. stay at a friend's; not a hotel
4/ Whilst not excessively risky / costly, expanding internationally is HARD. It's like starting up all over again, finding Product Market Fit all over again & building your team all over again. PMF will have to be your #1 priority, and an indicator of whether to keep going or not
5/ When should you launch abroad? The ideal scenario would be when you don't have a choice because you are pulled into new markets by demand. Otherwise, launch when you have repeatable sales execution at home, early international customers & a good understanding of local culture
6/ Where should you start your int'l expansion? Choose the best available market for your business, not necessarily the one you’re closest to. Of course, it is imperative that you have access to intimate knowledge of local markets that enables you to check your assumptions 🕵🏻
7/ Because launching internationally means 'starting up again', you cannot rely on a 'traditional employee' to do it for you. The person responsible for your expansion will need to be either a founder or someone with skin in the game / equity in your company 🗝
8/ Regardless of how many people will help you, expanding internationally will be incredibly demanding for founders. It means spending 2 days a week in a country that has 4 employees and generates 1% of your revenue
when you have 100 employees at home doing 99% 💪🏻
9/ Selection bias: When building a team abroad, you'll be inclined to think the target country lacks great talent. It's because - at an early stage - the best candidates will be more attracted by local startups. Spend more time on finding them & convince them you're better 😎
10/ While you will need a global / int'l brand, don't expect every country's customers to have the same needs. Sell a single product, but adapt its quality to local demands. Think of McDonald's: Big Mac is sold everywhere, but quality, ingredients & recipes vary between countries
11/ Founders realise how hard it is to scale a company's culture as soon as their office has 2 floors. This can only get more complex as you go from 2 floors to 2 countries. Allow each office to build their own culture while retaining the core pillars of the company’s culture 🙏🏼
...Would love to hear more lessons coming from your experience @dettaarese @WillShu203 @tobysun @collinmathilde @pieterjan @RossySheil @annewoj23 @Suhail @AgnesBazin 🙌🏼

More from All

कुंडली में 12 भाव होते हैं। कैसे ज्योतिष द्वारा रोग के आंकलन करते समय कुंडली के विभिन्न भावों से गणना करते हैं आज इस पर चर्चा करेंगे।
कुण्डली को कालपुरुष की संज्ञा देकर इसमें शरीर के अंगों को स्थापित कर उनसे रोग, रोगेश, रोग को बढ़ाने घटाने वाले ग्रह


रोग की स्थिति में उत्प्रेरक का कार्य करने वाले ग्रह, आयुर्वेदिक/ऐलोपैथी/होमियोपैथी में से कौन कारगर होगा इसका आँकलन, रक्त विकार, रक्त और आपरेशन की स्थिति, कौन सा आंतरिक या बाहरी अंग प्रभावित होगा इत्यादि गणना करने में कुंडली का प्रयोग किया जाता है।


मेडिकल ज्योतिष में आज के समय में Dr. K. S. Charak का नाम निर्विवाद रूप से प्रथम स्थान रखता है। उनकी लिखी कई पुस्तकें आज इस क्षेत्र में नए ज्योतिषों का मार्गदर्शन कर रही हैं।
प्रथम भाव -
इस भाव से हम व्यक्ति की रोगप्रतिरोधक क्षमता, सिर, मष्तिस्क का विचार करते हैं।


द्वितीय भाव-
दाहिना नेत्र, मुख, वाणी, नाक, गर्दन व गले के ऊपरी भाग का विचार होता है।
तृतीय भाव-
अस्थि, गला,कान, हाथ, कंधे व छाती के आंतरिक अंगों का शुरुआती भाग इत्यादि।

चतुर्थ भाव- छाती व इसके आंतरिक अंग, जातक की मानसिक स्थिति/प्रकृति, स्तन आदि की गणना की जाती है


पंचम भाव-
जातक की बुद्धि व उसकी तीव्रता,पीठ, पसलियां,पेट, हृदय की स्थिति आंकलन में प्रयोग होता है।

षष्ठ भाव-
रोग भाव कहा जाता है। कुंडली मे इसके तत्कालिक भाव स्वामी, कालपुरुष कुंडली के स्वामी, दृष्टि संबंध, रोगेश की स्थिति, रोगेश के नक्षत्र औऱ रोगेश व भाव की डिग्री इत्यादि।
How can we use language supervision to learn better visual representations for robotics?

Introducing Voltron: Language-Driven Representation Learning for Robotics!

Paper: https://t.co/gIsRPtSjKz
Models: https://t.co/NOB3cpATYG
Evaluation: https://t.co/aOzQu95J8z

🧵👇(1 / 12)


Videos of humans performing everyday tasks (Something-Something-v2, Ego4D) offer a rich and diverse resource for learning representations for robotic manipulation.

Yet, an underused part of these datasets are the rich, natural language annotations accompanying each video. (2/12)

The Voltron framework offers a simple way to use language supervision to shape representation learning, building off of prior work in representations for robotics like MVP (
https://t.co/Pb0mk9hb4i) and R3M (https://t.co/o2Fkc3fP0e).

The secret is *balance* (3/12)

Starting with a masked autoencoder over frames from these video clips, make a choice:

1) Condition on language and improve our ability to reconstruct the scene.

2) Generate language given the visual representation and improve our ability to describe what's happening. (4/12)

By trading off *conditioning* and *generation* we show that we can learn 1) better representations than prior methods, and 2) explicitly shape the balance of low and high-level features captured.

Why is the ability to shape this balance important? (5/12)

You May Also Like

https://t.co/6cRR2B3jBE
Viruses and other pathogens are often studied as stand-alone entities, despite that, in nature, they mostly live in multispecies associations called biofilms—both externally and within the host.

https://t.co/FBfXhUrH5d


Microorganisms in biofilms are enclosed by an extracellular matrix that confers protection and improves survival. Previous studies have shown that viruses can secondarily colonize preexisting biofilms, and viral biofilms have also been described.


...we raise the perspective that CoVs can persistently infect bats due to their association with biofilm structures. This phenomenon potentially provides an optimal environment for nonpathogenic & well-adapted viruses to interact with the host, as well as for viral recombination.


Biofilms can also enhance virion viability in extracellular environments, such as on fomites and in aquatic sediments, allowing viral persistence and dissemination.