Market & Offer Fit
We review your offer, case studies, pricing, buyers, and sales materials, select the second CEE market, and define the target account profile and commercial hypothesis.
Central & Eastern Europe market validation
Validate Your AI Service in CEE Before Hiring a Regional Sales Team.
A 90-day, founder-led commercial validation sprint for proven Western-European AI service companies entering Hungary and one additional CEE market.
Hiring a country manager or opening a local sales function before you know whether buyers will engage is an expensive bet. We identify the right enterprise buyers, localize the commercial message, run targeted outreach, hold qualified conversations, and deliver a clear go, adapt, or stop decision.
The problem
CEE Is Attractive. Entering It Blindly Is Expensive.
Central and Eastern Europe holds real enterprise demand for AI services — but the cost of finding out the hard way falls on your fixed budget, not the market's.
- Remote, English-only outreach rarely creates the trust that enterprise buyers need before they engage.
- Hiring country managers before demand is proven creates fixed cost against unproven revenue.
- Generic market reports describe a market; they do not reveal whether real buyers will pick up the conversation.
- AI services require commercial people who understand both the business problem and the technical solution.
- Smaller specialist AI teams rarely have spare regional sales capacity to run a proper market test.
The service
The 90-Day CEE Service Validation Sprint
One proven service offer. One defined ideal customer profile. Hungary as the operational anchor, plus one additional CEE market chosen for your offer. Four clear stages, from fit to a commercial decision.
Localization & Pipeline Build
We build a qualified target-account list, adapt your positioning to the local business context, and prepare the outreach and qualification workflow.
Market Conversations
We launch targeted outreach, engage relevant decision-makers, and qualify interest, objections, budget signals, timing, and buying process — involving your technical experts when needed.
Commercial Decision
We assess demand, response quality, pricing feedback, objections, and sales-cycle reality, then recommend a clear path: proceed, develop partners, adapt, test another market, or stop.
What you receive
Deliverables
Concrete commercial evidence you can act on — not a slide deck of estimates. We do not promise a fixed number of meetings or guaranteed revenue; we deliver a clear, honest read on the market.
✓ Market-entry hypothesis
✓ Selected buyer profile
✓ Qualified target-account database
✓ Localized messaging
✓ Outreach campaign
✓ Qualified commercial conversations
✓ Objection & pricing analysis
✓ Market-entry recommendation
✓ Final go / adapt / stop report
Fit
Small Enough to Need Us. Mature Enough to Use Us.
The Sprint works when there is a proven service to validate — and a founder or technical lead who can stand behind it in a serious conversation.
A fit
- A proven AI service with a repeatable delivery model
- Meaningful project value — strong offers from around €5,000 upwards are of interest, not only larger enterprise projects
- A couple of credible case studies or references
- Available delivery capacity to take on new work
- Founder or technical experts who can join qualified sales discussions
- Sales materials in English or German, and international growth ambition
- No established CEE commercial team yet
Not a fit
- Early-stage teams without a proven offer
- Generic, low-cost AI SaaS tools
- Companies hoping geography will fix weak product-market fit
- Teams without delivery capacity
- Companies expecting guaranteed sales or commission-only representation
Why expandCEE
Commercial Leadership With Technical Understanding
The Sprint is founder-led. You work directly with a senior commercial leader who can talk to a managing director and a technical AI team in the same week — and who operates locally, not from a distance.
- Several commercial leadership roles with regional coverage and complex service market-building mandates
- Previous experience with companies such as KLM, Kelkoo, and Secret Escapes
- Building and operating multilingual digital platforms
- Hands-on understanding of AI platforms and automation, market-entry strategy and planning, online marketing, localization, and sales infrastructure
- A Hungarian company and genuine local market presence
- Working languages of English and German, alongside Hungarian — useful for both DACH and CEE conversations
- Ability to communicate with both senior business buyers and technical AI teams
The two-market model
Why Hungary, Plus One Market
CEE — Central and Eastern Europe — covers markets such as Hungary, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Romania. It is a region of real economic weight and appetite for AI, but it is not one homogeneous market: languages, business cultures, buying habits, and regulation differ sharply from country to country, and none of it behaves like Western Europe. That is exactly why entering it cold, or testing it from a distance, so often fails — and why a local operator who understands the regional mentality changes the odds.
Hungary provides genuine local presence and direct operating control — the difference between running a market test and merely reading about one. The second country tests whether your positioning and sales model transfer across the region, rather than working in a single market by chance. It is selected according to your sector, service, target buyer, and commercial potential. This is not "Hungary-only validation" — it is controlled regional validation.
Anchor plus one
Operational anchor
Hungary
Possible second market
Romania
Czechia
Slovakia
Poland
After the sprint
Three Possible Paths — Chosen on Evidence
Follow-on work is agreed separately, and only when market evidence supports it. The Sprint's job is to make that decision an informed one.
Direct CEE sales development
Build a direct sales motion into the validated market, with the positioning and pipeline already proven during the Sprint.
Local partner or distributor development
Develop local partners or distributors where an indirect model fits the buyer and the sales cycle better than direct sales.
Ongoing regional commercial representation
Continue with regional commercial representation where it makes sense to keep momentum without hiring a full local team.
Founder
Miklós Mateidesz
Miklós Mateidesz is a Budapest-based senior commercial leader with experience in regional sales, international market development, digital platforms, pricing, distribution strategy, and AI-first automation.
expandCEE combines this commercial background with a practical understanding of how complex AI services are positioned, qualified, and sold.
M.Sc. in Transportation Engineering · MBA
FAQ
Direct Answers
Why start with Hungary?
Hungary is the operational anchor because it gives genuine local presence and direct operating control. It is where the Sprint is run hands-on, rather than remotely, which materially changes how enterprise buyers respond.
How is the second CEE market selected?
It is chosen according to your sector, service, target buyer, and commercial potential. Possible markets include Romania, Czechia, Slovakia, or Poland. The aim is to test whether your model transfers regionally — not to validate a single market in isolation.
Do you guarantee sales?
No. We do not promise guaranteed sales, a fixed number of meetings, or commission-only representation. We deliver qualified commercial conversations and an honest read on demand so you can make a reversible, evidence-based decision.
Do you work with SaaS companies?
The Sprint is built for companies selling complex AI services and projects, not generic low-cost SaaS subscriptions. If your offer is a repeatable, higher-value service with real delivery, it is likely a fit.
What size AI company is suitable?
Company size is not the primary filter. What matters is a proven, repeatable offer with meaningful project value — strong services from around €5,000 upwards can be a fit, not only large enterprise projects — plus credible references, delivery capacity, and founders or technical experts who can join qualified sales discussions.
Will you conduct the sales conversations?
Yes. The Sprint is founder-led, and the commercial conversations are run directly. Your technical experts are brought in when a discussion requires the depth only they can provide.
Can the Sprint lead to ongoing representation?
It can. Ongoing regional commercial representation is one of three possible follow-on paths — but it is agreed separately and only when the market evidence supports it.
Do we need a local legal entity?
No local legal entity is required to run the validation Sprint. Whether you later establish one is part of the commercial decision the Sprint is designed to inform.
What does the client need to provide?
A proven service offer, case studies and references, sales materials in English or German, pricing, delivery capacity, and access to founders or technical experts who can join qualified conversations when needed.
Is the service exclusive?
The Sprint focuses on one offer and one ideal customer profile per engagement, which keeps the validation clean. Exclusivity arrangements are discussed directly, based on the offer and the market.
Contact
Before You Build a CEE Sales Team, Test the Market.
Let's discuss whether your AI service, target customer, project value, and delivery capacity make CEE validation commercially sensible.