These are some of the issues that will make entering the US market a challenge for overseas companies

• Competition: The US market is very competitive, with a multitude of domestic and overseas companies fiercely competing for customers and market share. Fortunately, because the market is so big, even a small initial market share can give great rewards.
• Market Segmentation: Because the overall market is so big, both in potential customers and geography, it is impossible to achieve any market penetration without targeting a specific segment of the market. Please realize that these narrow US market segments may be larger than the entire market for your product in your home market. Many smaller overseas companies make the mistake to target too broad a market, and are spreading themselves too thin. As a result they are not credible in any of their markets, and do not reach critical mass needed to build the business in any market.
• Customers: More than in other markets, US customers are laser focused on the value that buying your product will bring to their bottom line. You will find that it will be difficult to excite them with the technical features of your product or services, or the underlying technology, unless you are able to demonstrate to them convincingly that purchasing your product will either increase revenue or decrease cost. This will probably require changing your marketing strategy with respect to product positioning and messaging. US customers also invariably will want to understand what the advantage for them will be if they buy from you, instead of from your competition. This will require you to know whom your competitors will be in the US, and understand their strengths and weaknesses.
• Products and Services: US high-tech companies usually bring their leading edge products first to the US market, their home market. Other non-US companies also tend to bring their most advanced products to the US market. Consequently, a product that has been successful in other markets for some time may lack functionality or sophistication to be competitive in the US market. In many cases the functionality of your product may need to be enhanced before it can be successful in the US. Because this development of new functionality takes time, you want to fully understand the market-fit of your product before entering the US market.
• Marketing Communications: Getting name recognition for your company and product through advertising will be very expensive. Many of your potential customers use the Internet to do their product research, so it is very important that you have a web site that competes in terms of marketing efficiency, technology content and graphical quality with other US web sites. If you cannot afford advertising, you will have to be creative to get your message out to the market, e.g. by using new media, Social Networks, Email campaigns, etc. It is very important that you carefully select your target market, and design your marketing messages and delivery channels specifically for your chosen market segment.
• Business Culture: Like most other countries, also the US has a unique business culture. Most US business people have little experience dealing with foreign businesses, which means that they will feel more comfortable if you will act as much as possible as a US company. You will find that US business people are demanding and are very result oriented. Most of them are tough but fair negotiators, who are trained to legally protect themselves and their company against the threat of lawsuits. Any contracts are expected to be under US laws. In general business discussions certain topics such as politics, religion and racial issues are better avoided. For example, when hiring employees, certain interview questions that may be normal in your home country, may result in your company being sued under US law for illegal discrimination. Talking about sports is always safe.
• Geography: Because the country is so big, it is usually not realistic to try to cover the entire market immediately upon market entry. To limit travel cost and travel time, most companies initially focus on a specific region of the country, or try to partner with a company that has nationwide coverage.

Mistakes in the planning and execution of your market entry can be very expensive and lead to disappointing results or even failure.