Build your next international market on evidence.
I take post-Series A companies into new markets.
Sprints with real buyers. A decision every two weeks.
WHO I'VE WORKED WITH.
New markets are expensive. The wrong ones cost more.
The board wants to know where international growth comes from.
Every new market costs hires, travel, trade shows and months of sales time.
Maritime deals take nine months or more to close.
By then the money is spent.
MOST FOUNDERS PICK ONE OF THREE ROUTES
Hire a VP Sales.
€160K a year and six months to ramp. Then a full sales cycle before you know if it works.
Put salespeople into new markets.
Athens. Oslo. Hamburg. Singapore. Plenty of activity. No way to compare what's working.
Keep selling yourself.
You stay in every deal. It works until the third market.
Every route creates activity. The hard part is knowing what the activity means.
A market decision you can act on within 8-12 weeks.
I work inside your team, in the market from week one. Your team and I test specific international markets with real buyers, before you commit more money and people to them.
I can't shorten your sales cycle.
Nobody can.
I can tell you sooner which markets deserve one.
Every sprint ends in a verdict:
-> Worth pursuing: a paid pilot, a paid analysis or a business case secured.
-> Not worth it: the evidence to stop.
Both tell you what to do next.
Double down. Pivot. Stop.
A call on every market, every two weeks. Based on what customers say and do.
Agree exactly what we test: which customer, which problem, why now, and how we test.
Take it to real buyers through the channels that reach them.
See what customers actually say and do.
Double down, pivot or stop. Then go again.
Invest more.
Change the approach.
Move on.
Built to work without me.
I build the way of working with your team, so they can keep making market decisions after I leave.
One variable per sprint.
Each sprint changes one thing. If it fails, you know why: wrong market, wrong angle or wrong execution.
Markets compared side by side.
Test several markets in parallel - or different ways into the same one. The evidence shows where to focus.
A decision every two weeks.
Double down, pivot or stop, based on what customers tell you. I hold the line when the answer is stop.
A record of what customers said.
Every customer conversation captured and analysed, so decisions rest on facts, not memory.
When I leave, your team keeps the system. Every sprint and every verdict, including the markets I stopped.
I've taken three maritime companies international. Two exited.
Enterprise B2B and B2G. I ran commercial and owned the number every time. 14 years in maritime GTM.
No strategy, no focus, no real team.
Series A, I took them international.
Went international ahead of a Series B.
Flagship Founders portfolio, Tilla, Vsltec, FuelFwd, Sealenic and more.
Not every market got the same answer. That was the point.
Several sprints into each market, each with a different buyer, angle or way in. The evidence showed us where to double down, what to change and what to stop.
In their words.
Before Joris, going international meant guessing and hoping. He turned our GTM execution into something we could actually read and decide on. We stopped waiting eighteen months to find out if a market was real and raised our series B.
Joris didn't hand us a strategy and walk. He sat with the team and ran it. We opened Northern Europe from Greece and built a repeatable way to find and move deals. He left us with a system the team still runs.
Joris helped us bring structure, coordination, and momentum to international GTM across the portfolio. He combined hands-on sales support with venture-level strategic guidance, creating a practical and repeatable way to support our companies as they entered new markets.
Joris has a unique ability to bring clarity and structure to a sales process. He played a key role in shaping Sealenic's GTM strategy, helping us turn an evolving product and market opportunity into a clear approach to sales and partnerships. Having someone who could connect strategy with execution was invaluable. I can't imagine doing it without him.
We brought Joris in to run our GTM sprints to go international. Three major logos and one successful financing round later, he's still in the room for the highly strategic GTM work.
Joris didn't just advise us. He worked with our first sales hire to accelerate execution, customer discovery, pricing, and deal negotiations. He left us with a repeatable GTM system that still guides how we qualify, pursue, and win deals.
Built for maritime and offshore tech with long sales cycles.
This is for you if
You're post-Series A and raised €5M+
Your sales cycle is nine months or more
You sell complex hardware, software or data to technical buyers in enterprise or government
You have several markets in view, and the board wants to know which is next
This isn't for you if
You close deals on one call or a free trial
Your sales cycle is under three months
You need to fix your product, not test a market
You're looking for a market report, not hands-on execution.
Backing companies like these? I also work across VC portfolios.
Test one market. Or decide several.
Multi-Sprint Engagement
Test several markets at once, with a decision every two weeks. Down to the winners by month six. Your team runs it by month eight.
Single Sprint
Test one way into one market. Ends with a clear call: double down, pivot or stop. Start here before committing to more.
What founders ask before they start.
Taken from real conversations, not from what I wish they asked.
An operator who has owned the number.
I've run commercial as CRO. Here I build the system that lets your team own it.
I design the sprints, get your salespeople in front of real buyers and read every conversation. Every two weeks I put a decision on the table, with the evidence. You make the call.
I install the operating rhythm and the data backbone, and stress-test your team in the market.
I leave when your team runs it without me.
Four things.
A sales team that fails fast. Not only the founder. Most tests fail. They learn and run the next one.
Two days a week per salesperson, in the calendar before we start.
Full access. CRM, call recorder, Claude workspace and the data you already have.
Speed and ruthless focus on the sprint. Everything else waits until it's done.
I might, but it doesn't matter. You know your market better than I ever will. I bring the system for finding out fast whether a market is real.
You do. I bring the evidence, tell you what I read in it, and argue if I think you're wrong. What I own is that the decision gets made on time, not left to drift on hope.
Typically 2 days a week per person for one sprint. Any less and the answers come too slowly to act on.
Depends on the engagement.
Single Sprint: 8 to 12 weeks, one market.
Multi-Sprint: 6 to 8 months. Down to the winning markets by month six. Your team runs it by month eight.
Either way, I start with what's already there. No reinventing the wheel.
Decided markets, a tested team and a backbone that keeps running.
Every market has a verdict and the evidence behind it, including the ones you stopped.
Your team has pitched real buyers every week. You know who can open a market and who can't.
The operating rhythm and the data live in your CRM. Your team runs them the week after I leave.
Which market should you back next?
Book a 45-minute call. For founders and investors.
We'll start with one question: what's your next international milestone, and what's in the way? Then we'll see if I can help.
Joris.
Most maritime teams pick their next market from a conference conversation and a hunch. I help them pick it on evidence.
I don't advise from the sideline. I build the sprints with your team and run them week by week, until they can run them without me.