Growing your company: rivals, investment and going abroad

Once your shop finds its feet, the story changes. A rival opens next door, investors start to call, and overseas markets catch your eye. Here are the four things you'll meet as you grow, in order.

Rivals: a named opponent tails you

A few months after you open, a rival that fits your industry shows up. You can face up to two at once, and each has a name, a boss and a personality. The types are Low-price attacker, Big corp with deep pockets, Copycat latecomer, High-end big name, Platform giant, Entrenched old hand and Foreign entrant. The bosses differ too, like a Price Hawk, a Talent Collector or a Friendly Acquirer.

Rivals try to pressure you with moves like price cuts, copying you, poaching your staff, nasty reviews, opening a shop right next to yours, an ad blitz, exclusive deals and buyout offers. If your Hype and Quality are low, the rival grows. If they are high, the rival shrinks back. When a rival gets stronger, you lose customers and churn goes up.

The Rivals box on the company screen shows each rival's strength, an estimate of its market share and its latest moves. If you use Scout the rivals, you see the tendency of its next move and its weak spot, and the pressure eases for a while. Once a rival has dropped to strength 38 or below, you can try Offer to buy a rival. It succeeds 75% of the time. Your relationship with a rival ranges from hostile to friendly, and it gets worse the more they pressure you. Sometimes a head-to-head sign-off also arrives, like a joint bid or a talent grab.

As the company grows, the office picture grows

The office picture on the company screen grows along with your company. Office-type industries go from a desk at home to a coworking space, a first office of your own, a full floor, a company building and a global HQ. Shop-type industries go from a home kitchen to a market stall, a first store, a flagship store and a central kitchen and HQ. Manufacturing goes from a garage workbench to a smart factory.

The stage goes up with headcount and monthly revenue, scaled to the country's price level. It also goes up when you take investment or go public, and going abroad takes it to the top stage. If cash goes negative, the monitor turns off and the bills pile up. If morale hits rock bottom, the potted plant wilts.

When you pass a milestone, a celebration sign-off arrives and the milestone is recorded in 📜 Company history. Milestones include your first hire, your first profit, monthly revenue of ₩100M, ₩1B and ₩10B, your first overseas branch, and 10 and 50 employees.

Investment and exits

Use Raise money (investor pitch) to take funding rounds, from Pre-seed to Seed, Series A through D, and Pre-IPO. You need a gap of about 9 months between rounds (6 months in Speed mode), and some industries don't interest VCs at all. Your odds depend on the market mood, how many investors the country has, revenue growth, Hype, and your talk skill and reputation. If you're in a country with few investors, expanding into overseas markets may be the answer.

If it works, a term sheet arrives. You can sign, bluff that you have another VC, ask to remove the poison clauses, or refuse. The poison clauses are a 3x liquidation preference and the CEO's personal guarantee. The more investment you take, the smaller your stake gets. When you pull money out of the company, your share shrinks by your stake too.

There are two exits. With monthly revenue of ₩50M or more, you can use Test the sale market and wait for buyout offers. There may be no interest. If you sell, you get the sale price times your stake. That is an exit. Push for an IPO needs Series B or later and annual revenue of ₩30B. It doesn't work during a financial crisis.

Going abroad: each country has its own rules

After launch, once monthly revenue reaches about ₩30M (scaled to the country's price level), Expand overseas opens up. You keep your HQ where it is, and you can open one local company or shop in each country, up to 5 places. Each one costs 2 action points, and you can't enter a country at war.

The Overseas expansion plan shows each country's market size, price level, entry cost and local operating cost. Shop and on-site industries have to open a new store, so they cost more and capture less of the market at first. Local revenue grows over several months as localization moves along. After about four months, the local reaction shows as Good, Average or Poor. If it's Poor, you can Pull out.

Money is calculated in won, and the screen converts it to the currency of the country you play in. Exchange rates are rough numbers made for the game. You can also use the currency button on your bank book to switch to your own currency and others. Move abroad / relocate operations is different from expanding. It moves your HQ to another country entirely. After you move, you see that country's currency, and the investor names and the Korean-style company names in the text change to fit that country. The price is that shop-type industries must be sold off cheap.

Price and moving money

The Spend per customer bar moves from 50% to 200%. If you charge more, each customer brings in more, but new customers drop, churn rises and Hype falls each month. If you charge less, it's the other way around. The text under the bar shows how much will change ahead of time.

Put personal money into the company happens right away. When you take money out with Dividends & withdrawals, you receive only your stake's share, and 20% dividend tax comes off. The corporate loan amount must stay in the company.

Summary

• Rivals each have their own style. Scout them to learn their weak spots, and aim to buy out the weak ones.
• The office picture grows with staff, monthly revenue, investment and going abroad. Milestones are kept in Company history.
• Investment is a trade of stake for money. Always check the term sheet for poison clauses.
• Each country has its own market size and costs, so read the plan and choose within 5 places.