Saved them from a costly U.S. misalignment by disproving their core market assumption in under 3 months

First Asset HR, a leading compensation management platform for enterprise customers, had established strong presence in Europe. They sought to understand if U.S. Total Rewards leaders face similar challenges to European counterparts regarding manager involvement in annual merit planning. The company needed to quickly identify effective cold outreach methods and locate the highest-fit ideal customer profile for U.S. market entry.

JJELLYFISH deployed a multi-channel strategy contacting Total Rewards leaders via Email, LinkedIn, and Cold Calls. Initial ICP included BFSI, Professional Services, Consumer, and Health sectors, targeting companies with 2,000+ employees. Cold calling proved twice as effective as Email and LinkedIn. Market research revealed North American Total Rewards leaders did not validate European-based assumptions. The team pivoted to investigate other challenges and discovered that Total Rewards leaders manually managed stock awards and bonus programs unsupported by existing compensation platforms—especially in BFSI and Tech sectors.

Within 3 months, the effort prevented costly market misalignment. Four new customer unmet needs were validated. JJELLYFISH and First Asset HR crafted a revised U.S. market entry strategy targeting market segments better aligned with their specialized solutions.