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Amjad Masad announced Replit’s London office the other day. It’s the company’s first international office. Replit was founded in 2016. It has more than 50 million users and is on track for $1 billion in run-rate revenue by the end of this year. The $400M round at $9B was earmarked in part for expansion in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. So: ten years, 50 million users, a billion in run-rate, and the first office outside the US opens now. It’s the normal pattern, of maybe waiting … just a bit too long ;). And we pulled the numbers on a dozen public B2B companies: Eight of twelve are at 40% or higher. But many of them got to 20%+ international before they put a single person on the ground, because the product was available everywhere and someone in Berlin or São Paulo found it. But if you put a great team there, you grow even faster. 85% of Figma’s users are outside the US. 53% of the revenue is. Figma has now opened a Bengaluru office, added local data hosting and governance for India, and localized for Brazil. India is its second-largest market by monthly active users. All of that is recent. But the gap it’s addressing was visible in the data for years before anyone acted on it. MongoDB 45%-46% international for 3+ years, Datadog 28%-30% - Cloudflare, sitting near the top of this table at 49%, grew US revenue 41% last quarter against EMEA at 30% and APAC at 32%. - Okta’s US revenue grew 12.6% while non-US grew 9.1%. - Klaviyo: international up 33% versus 22% in the US - HubSpot: international up 23% versus 17% domestic - Snowflake: non-US up 39% versus 34% US - Figma: international up 48% versus 46% total Klaviyo added regional hubs in Dublin and Singapore, and international went from 39.5% to 42% in a year Klaviyo’s US revenue was $215.8M of $370.6M last quarter. A year earlier the international share was 39.5%. International revenue grew 33% against 22% in the US, and the mix moved almost three points in four quarters. Two hubs. Not a global rollout. And it moved a number that had been flat for most of the companies on this list. Snowflake at 26% and Okta at 20% are the direct version of the same problem For self-serve products, underinvestment means leaving free demand unconverted. For enterprise sales-led products, it’s more literal: revenue only appears in a country after you’ve staffed it, so the international share is a direct readout of headcount decisions made two years ago. Snowflake and Okta aren’t at 26% and 20% because international demand is weak. They’re there because the deal requires people on the ground and the people aren’t there yet. Snowflake’s non-US revenue is now growing faster than its US revenue, which is what happens once you start hiring. The SaaStr AI rule: once one country is 5% of revenue, lean in Here’s the threshold I’d use. Not 20%. Not “when it’s material enough to justify the cost.” 5%. At 5% with zero local investment, that country has already proven the three hard things: people there can find you, the product works for them, and they’ll pay through a buying process you never designed for them. You cleared the hard part by accident. What’s left is the cheap part. Lean in at 5% does not mean a lease and twenty headcount. It means: - Local currency and local payment methods, not just a translated pricing page - Support hours that cover their business day - Pricing tiers set for that market - One person on the ground in that timezone, whatever their title is - Data residency if you sell to anyone regulated That list costs a fraction of what founders assume, and it’s the difference between Klaviyo moving three points in a year and MongoDB printing the same number three years running. The mistake is treating 5% as too small to warrant investment. 5% with no investment is the strongest signal you will ever get about a market. It’s demand that survived your neglect.
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