A recognisable customer is one of the strongest assets in a sales conversation. It is also one of the least portable. Companies arriving in a new market lead with the logos that work at home and find them landing flat, which reads as disinterest and is actually unfamiliarity.
Proof is local before it's impressive
A buyer evaluating an unfamiliar vendor is asking a specific question: has someone like me, facing my constraints, in my regulatory environment, made this work? A large customer on another continent doesn't answer it. A smaller one nearby does.
This has an uncomfortable consequence for sequencing. Your first customers in a new market aren't only revenue — they're the proof that makes the next ten possible. Which means choosing them opportunistically, on whoever says yes first, has a cost that shows up much later.
What to do before you have one
Until a local reference exists, the substitute isn't a bigger logo. It's specificity: demonstrating that you understand how this market's procurement works, what its data requirements are, what the buyer's internal objections will be. Understanding travels better than reputation does.