Billion Dollar Businesses – Xero | TIN – Technology Investment Network

In our continuing series on Billion Dollar Businesses, we take a look this week at Xero, which has a current market valuation of A$8.3B. Craig Hudson, Xero's Managing Director for NZ and Pacific Islands, tells us that what he loves about being a Kiwi business is that they've proven that you can build a truly global business from ‘down under.'

How much does your current success feedback to your company's founding principles? Did you think big from the start?

Rod’s vision was to build a global business from an island in the middle of the pacific, even when others in the market said it wasn’t possible. But it was always more than just about accounting for Xero - it was much bigger than that. So Rod’s vision was always clear, it was just a question of execution.

Rod also knew that for these global aspirations to become a reality, the business would have to be founded with a strong purpose. The essence of this purpose has guided Xero through its exceptional growth over the past 13 years, and still stands at the heart of the business today - to make life better for people in small business.

What have been the three key elements of your success to date?

How did you first approach international expansion?

To succeed internationally, we first had to win in our home markets of New Zealand and Australia. Xero has a proven playbook that we know resonates with accountants and bookkeepers here, who are our trusted partners that help us grow. To leverage our existing playbook and proven experience, we have a preference to enter english speaking markets first. This approach has been proven by Xero’s success in the UK where a similar playbook was used to New Zealand and Australia via our partner channel. Xero is now the market leader in the UK and in our latest result, the UK business achieved a record in net subscriber additions - we had 151,000 subscribers added over the FY19 period, and more than 100,000 net subscribers added in H2 FY19. This growth was supported by the opportunity provided by Making Tax Digital, in a move by the HMRC to digitise tax filings.

How have you been able to manage globalisation from NZ? What are the advantages of being based in New Zealand?

What I love about being a Kiwi business is that we have proven that you can build a truly global business from ‘down under’. We’ve shown that our remote location can be used to our advantage - we were able to remain largely undetected by the global incumbents while we were scaling up in our earlier days.

Xero is now the global cloud accounting leader (outside of the US), with over 2500 employees in 18 locations around the world. I am so proud of what Xero has achieved through disciplined execution of our growth strategy, from right here in Aotearoa.

What have you got your sights set on next?