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Xero - Source: ONE News -
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One of the business success stories of 2009 has been online accounting software company Xero.
The listed company doubled its customer numbers over a six-month period this year and now has over 12,000 paying customers in 50 countries.
The company is the brain child of entrepreneur Rod Drury who has said he would like the company to be the next Nokia.
Drury says feedback from overseas is positive and he expects next year will be a growth year, with 2011 being Xero's target for turning a profit.
He points out that Xero is different from most start up companies because of the amount of capital it has.
This year the company raised $30 million, enabling it put good foundations in place and be very strategic. He says the company has built everything "below the waterline" and has made the application so that it scales.
"What we've found in this space is that it's all about the capital - it's about taking the time to do things right, because in the small business space you can build great software but it's very hard to actually make people buy it," he says.
"The huge privilege that we have inside Xero is really being able to do things right and we're starting to get results from that."
He says New Zealand's software and IT sector has been able to
harness the power of the web to overcome geographical distance and
he believes exciting times are ahead for the industry.
