Southeast Asia is eleven countries with different regulatory frameworks, commercial cultures, and competitive landscapes. Companies that enter it as one market spend two to three years correcting the assumption. These are the 12 questions I want answered before a single dollar of capital moves.
1. Is your business model permitted in this market in the corporate structure you plan to use?
Foreign ownership restrictions vary significantly by market and sector. Confirm with a local corporate lawyer before committing capital.
2. What licences or permits are required before you can generate revenue?
Approval timelines can run 3–18 months depending on sector. Missing this means discovering mid-entry you can’t legally transact yet.
3. What are the data localisation and privacy requirements?
Requirements differ significantly across ASEAN — from Singapore’s permissive framework to Indonesia’s stricter rules.
4. Can you name your first five customers by company and decision-maker?
If you cannot name them, you have a market sizing exercise, not a commercial model.
5. Is your price point built from this market up, or translated from home down?
Price for the value in this market. Early discounting creates a market price that’s impossible to raise.
6. What revenue will you have generated by day 90, and what has to be true?
Not an ARR projection — a specific number with the explicit assumptions behind it.
7. Which three or four people, if they recommend you, open every door?
ASEAN is a relationship market. Identify your referral network before you land.
8. Is your GTM direct, partner-led, or hybrid — and does that match how your ICP buys?
A direct model in a partner-led buying market means competing against the channel, not with it.
9. Do you have commercial leadership that has operated in this market?
A fractional CCO with specific market experience is the right bridge if a full-time hire isn’t justified yet.
10. When will you make your first full-time local hire — and what does the pipeline need to look like first?
Hire after the model is proven, not before. Define the milestone explicitly.
11. What’s the burn assumption, and what does month 6 need to look like to continue investing?
Most entries underestimate burn in months 4–9. Define the checkpoint in advance.
12. If the model doesn’t work as designed, what’s the fastest path to a pivot?
Not pessimism — commercial discipline. Most entries require at least one significant adjustment in the first 18 months.
