Xerocon – The Best New Kid In Town…
Wow! We’ve had an incredible, whirlwind couple of days here in (not so sunny) Sydney. Since arriving at Xerocon last week, we’ve had the warmest of receptions from everyone at Xero and the awesome community they’ve worked so hard to build together with accountants, bookkeepers and add-ons here in Australasia. And what a surprise it was for us at the end…
Day 1
After settling in, unpacking our bags and finding our bearings, our first day was spent hanging out with the lovely folks at Receipt Bank, a fellow Xero add-on and all round outstanding bunch of people. A special mention goes out to the whole Receipt Bank team who’ve really took care of us the entire time we’ve been out here in Sydney.
Day 2
Developer Day. Lots of discussion about where Xero are heading next, how they are going to get there and their plans to foster growth and innovation within the development community. It’s definitely a great time to be an add-on in this fast-moving space. Of particular note to us were the changes Xero have introduced to the way add-ons are displayed and hopefully more easily found and discovered on the Add-ons page, and also the announcement of a widgets feature set to be released in the near future. Colin took to the stage to tell the story of Float to a roomful of attendees and afterwards a great drinks reception was hosted by Receipt Bank where we got to hang out with a whole host of great accountants, bookkeepers and add-ons active in the Xero ecosystem.
Day 3
Conference proper. Our stand was all set, flyers out and laptops at the ready. A steady stream of users, soon-to-be-users and inquisitive accountants and bookkeepers stopped by our stand. We love meeting our users and this was a great opportunity for us to gain insight into the Australian market and take this vital learning back to Scotland to continue to build on and improve the Float experience for our users across the world.
After a day of chatting and demo-ing , Xero hosted a drinks reception in the conference hall which proved to be a great opportunity to chat with the ‘Xeros’, fellow add-ons and of course, have a go on the Dodgems.
Day 4
Final Day. Phew! The last few days have flown by, a combination of jet lag and adrenaline. It’s been an excellent conference. Xero announced new and welcome changes to their Partner Program and we continued to meet and tweet with users and attendees throughout the day. After a very interesting Q&A with Rod Drury (CEO of Xero) and Chris Ridd (MD Xero Australia) we wrapped up our stand, gathered up our obligatory conference ‘swag’ and changed into our finery for the Gala dinner.
As it happens, the Gala dinner was to become the highlight of what had already been an awesome excursion for the Float team!
Float wins Emerging Add-on Partner of the Year
That’s right! After the blood, sweat and tears of the past year – out of around 300 Xero add-ons, Float won Xero’s award for Emerging Add-On Partner of the Year. It’s outstanding to have received this award amongst so many excellent add-ons and it’s great to receive this validation and recognition for what all of us at Float have been doing over the past year.
And that’s a wrap for this year’s Xerocon. It’s been incredible, exhausting, exhilarating and massively uplifting for all of us here at Float! We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last year and helped us to win Xero’s ‘Emerging Add-On Partner of the Year Award’.
It’s been a great (almost) 12 months on Xero and we are really looking forward to what the next year is going to bring!
Congratulations to @floatapp, Emerging Add-on Partner of the Year at this year's Xero Awards Australia! ^EF #xerocon pic.twitter.com/iBQSuod0gB
— Xero accounting app (@Xero) August 22, 2014
