COME ESPANDERE UNA START-UP ITALIANA ALL'ESTERO. CASO DI STUDIO: "FUORI DAI BORDI".

PURPOSE: The aim of this Master Thesis is to analyze the gap between what literature has theorized about international expansion of a company, and what the real world of entrepreneurs has put in practice to scale up and expand. In order to arrive at a clear and valuable point, my analysis will focus on a specific kind of startup: e-commerce company with customizable items. Considering my high interest in the practical aspect of everything studied and learned in the past years and my natural inclination for the real case study, I'm supporting the Thesis' analysis with a real example of an Italian startup looking for international expansion: “Fuori dai Bordi”. As a personal objective, I would like to deliver a serviceable ToolBox useful for similar startups with the same goals. METHODOLOGY: The first part of the research is explorative and involves the use of different scientific texts to summarize the principal findings on the selected topic. In addition, qualitative interviews have been made to gather information on how professionals have been dealing with the main aspects of scaling up a business internationally. Eventually, a recap of their experience is serving as the ground to draw adapted recommendations to the Italian startup case. FINDINGS: Conclusions highlight the importance of finding and selecting the right partners, both in technical and business terms. There is the need to connect the domestic market with the target one, and the most reliable and efficient way to do so is by leveraging someone's else knowledge and resources, and indeed partnering shows to be the best way.