Xerocon London 2013
We are just back from our first Xerocon in London – and we are impressed! It really was a great conference, attended by more than 450 delegates and 22 exhibitors. It was great to meet and share stories with other fantastic add-on partners like Fathom, Vend, Deputy and ReceiptBank who are playing a significant role in the Xero ecosystem, there are a lot of great tools out there, and Xero have really seen that as a huge part of their strategy. We felt very welcome, and are definitely eyeing up one of the add-on awards next year!
We got to hear from Rod Drury the Xero CEO about the direction and vision of Xero becoming the default platform for businesses moving to the cloud, with the add-on community providing the rest of the functionality. This is the end of the beginning for Xero, said Rod Drury, and there’s lots more to do. Then Andrew Tokeley, (Product Development Manager at Xero) talked about the product roadmap – lots of features in the pipeline, with touchscreen becoming a big part of that. I can’t imagine the pressure he is under, to make Xero compliant globally, as it comes into demand from a rapidly growing user base. I don’t envy his job, but he seems to handle it very well, and rather than hiding away from people at the conference, actually intentionally going out to get feedback and talk to customers – impressive!
Our take-away from Xerocon
- Xero have managed to create a great culture. Their team loved working there, they were energetic, and were excited to be part of it.
- They have put together a good senior leadership team, and they are on a mission. It seems very clear, that Xero is going to dominate in Australia and NZ, and the UK is starting to move in that direction. The US will take longer, but once payroll is in place, then I expect growth to be steady there too.
- The support of the add-on community and accounting partners is a serious part of the Xero strategy. Its not a nice to have, its an essential part of the Xero vision.
Where do we go from here?
I believe Float is in a unique position to help businesses manage their cash flow, a lot of the people we spoke to said it was the “missing link” from a Xero point of view. Once you can get to grips with a good financial outlook, you can get back in control of your business and its a powerful place to be.
With our new collaborative features allowing team members to work together on budgets and forecasts, business owners and finance departments can gain greater insights into the future financial position of the company. And with Float removing the complexity of spreadsheets, we allow more people to take ownership of the financial planning – so that you can spend your time and effort on what really matters – running the business.
We’re currently finalising our own product road map, and scaling up our team, to make this thing happen. The last year has been a slug fight with numbers, and putting in a solid architecture to build on. If we continue to achieve the pace that we’ve hit over the past month, we’re on track for the system we’ve been dreaming of the past few years.
We have lots of new input to our roadmap. Features like weekly and quarterly forecasts, multiple companies, scenarios and email alerts are high on the wish list, and these are some of the things we are working on next!
It was great to meet some really progressive accounting practices, and we’re looking forward to building those relationships and developing our own partnership program.
So thanks to Xero and all the great Xerocon attendees for the valuable insights you’ve shared with us!
See you all next year!
Colin
