Your first U.S. customer takes longer than the plan says

In almost every entry plan that comes across the desk, the first contract lands somewhere between month three and month six. In practice it tends to land between month six and month twelve, and the gap is rarely explained by product quality.

What happens on the other side of the desk

A corporate buyer evaluating a new foreign supplier is not making a purchasing decision. They are taking on personal risk. If the supplier fails, the internal question will not be about the supplier: it will be about who chose them.

That risk gets managed through process: vendor onboarding, legal review of the contract, insurance verification, sometimes an information security audit. None of those steps appear in the seller’s commercial plan, and every one of them takes weeks.

The cost of underestimating it

A plan promising revenue in month four forces bad decisions in month five: cutting price to accelerate, accepting contract terms that chafe later, or withdrawing from the market just before the process matures. The mistake was not commercial. It was in the calendar.

How it gets shorter

Not by pushing the buyer. It gets shorter by removing friction before it is asked for: having ready the paperwork procurement will request, a verifiable reference in their own market, and a first sale small enough in scope to start without going through the full committee.

The fastest entry is rarely the most persistent seller. It is the one who made the job easy for the person who had to defend the choice internally.