Xero company Wikipedia

Even though Drury knew MYOB was his competitor, the company’s co-founder Craig Winkler was a rockstar to the Xero boss. Xero needed around another $NZ7-8 million to scale up to something bigger than a Wellington startup. “If you can keep that ‘how’ working really well, then you find you have no hierarchy in the organisation. And it allows you to have a really flat structure, where people are empowered and they own things.” This individual accountability is present in other ways around the company. Trent Innes, MD of Xero Australia, has a philosophy that he directs all employees to live by.

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The idea is that everyone in the company, regardless of their seniority or role, must wash their own cup. Cardinal has two daughters and in the last couple of years, the constant flying necessary as a manager looking after teams in Melbourne and Wellington has made time a precious commodity. “I remember in my induction here Rod was on a [Google] Hangout – for every single newbie that starts, he gets on a call – and his words were ‘It’s a sunny day outside. If you want to go for a surf then go for it. Just don’t take the piss.'” she says. “Often I’ve joined companies when you walk in the door, and you think ‘What’s the culture, how do I need to adjust my style so that I can be successful?’ … but Xero’s just been a place where everyone is uniquely encouraged to be themselves.” “It was about kind of building lots of ‘diversity in thought’ very early on.”

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The installation also features video narrative from Drury, Walker and his ex-wife Catherine, who also ended up working for the new software venture. Perhaps this knack for evangelism was born out of those early days in 2006 when he had to motivate his first employees – including Craig Walker – to share the same vision as him for Accounting 2.0. Walker recalled that, three years earlier, Drury had shown him a basic prototype of a new accounting system. The entrepreneur, having studied information systems at university, had technical skills himself and in 2003 was able to mock up a model of his big idea – but it was never spoken of again and Walker had long forgotten about it. Most business owners at the time would have been paralysed with horror at the thought of keeping their financial information on the public internet rather than in the privacy of their own computers. But this was before everyone was happily putting their personal information on Facebook and the iPhone was still a secret project deep in the laboratories at Apple.

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“I was 28 at the time. It just felt like it was the right time to trust him, and get a good opportunity to work on the ground floor of something. On May 1, 2006, Walker came in for his first day of work at Drury’s mysterious new venture. He had a lot of faith in Drury as a businessman but that wasn’t a lot of information to quit on a portfolio of customers which was earning him a comfortable living. “The band was called Xero at the time, and we probably had less than a half-a-dozen songs. No flame tattoos yet, no red hair yet, most of us were still in college.”

Microsoft SuccessStory

Drury was adamant that he would not go to Silicon Valley to raise funds, however. So Wellington is a good place to start and be the head office but we are operating in four countries. Wellington, as a capital city with Government and bad weather means that it has always had a strong technology sector. Because we had some capital after I sold Aftermail, I went straight into what became Xero, and we had some great designers on board. We knew it had to be a global engine from day one, because we could see everything globalising. It had to be a proper, double entry accounting system, use the power of a relational database, we wanted to deal with the problem of cash versus accrual accounting.

• Collaborate easily, automate manual tasks & access client records any time with tools to manage your practice.
• Funding will help Other Matter move production from being hand-made to automated systems.
• So rather than going to check online banking in the morning, you went to your accounting software and your transactions were already there?
• A self-described software nerd, Drury locked himself in his office at home for a few weeks and wrote an early online relational bit of accounting software.
• Although still known for its classic no-frills sandals — including a DIY kit to make your own — Xero Shoes has also expanded into sneakers and even boots to capture a wider market share.

“Small businesses move the needle by each adding half a job to a job. And we realised that, really for the first time using our accountants’ channel, we could… drive urgency through millions of small businesses. MYOB likely started with similar objectives to Xero in helping small businesses succeed, according to Drury, but the takeover oversaw a transformation from a “founder-led business” to an xero founder investor-first machine. “I’d been watching him a while closely, and I saw MYOB was moving down the private equity route. When it had all those private equity people come into it [from Archer Capital, in early 2009], Craig got moved to chief innovation officer, then left.” Drury “had private market options, but the IPO delivered more capital at a higher valuation than other options,” Clare said.

Then in 1987 he joined consulting firm Arthur Young, which later became Ernst & Young. “We loved solving the problems. There was this mathematical beauty in accounting. We loved the equation that debits equalled credits,” Drury said. Despite making great money out of Glazier Systems and AfterMail, accounting had been on Rod Drury’s mind since he was a teenager.

Typically, entrepreneurs report a sharp spike in traffic and revenue following the airing of their “Shark Tank” episode, and some businesses even report website crashes from too many visitors. For example, the greeting card app Felt saw revenue spike by a multiple of 10 to 20 times after appearing on the show, per Entrepreneur. For Xero Shoes, which failed to secure a deal from any of the five Sharks following a 2013 appearance on the business-themed reality show, the success story was even sweeter.

It allows users to instantly see their bank transactions when their bank accounts are connected. Xero’s online accounting software connects small business owners with their numbers, their bank, and advisors at anytime. When I got a School Certificate (the former secondary school qualification for high school students in Year 11) I was the most educated Drury of all time. With software you solve hundreds of problems a day and you see cause and effect.