Rod Drury - International Entrepreneurship

Rod Dury, an experienced entrepreneur and early stage investor passionate about software development and building value, delivered an interesting seminar focusing on international entrepreneurship and finding investors at the Otago School of Business. Most of the ideas here are those of Rod Dury.

As a web site designer, I spend a large number of hours online It is changing rapidly and online applications (or Software as a Service SaaS) is a growing area. It is this domain that Rod focuses with his latest project, Xero. Xero, a design lead online accounting application, is geared towards SME. It is hard to believe that such a large sector of the economy is deprived of an easy to use accounting software solution. He believes, and quite rightly so, that those men and women running businesses should be able to focus on growing their business rather than squinting square-eyed at a computer screen as they try to decipher the error message that MYOB throws at them. Go and give it a try, they even let you have a play around for free.

The software industry exhibits rapid acquisition cadence, meaning ITC companies and products are assimilated quickly. This often results in one company wining as they buy up the competition around them. This is especially true in the SME accounting market as single companies dominates their region. The market share of Sage in the UK, Intuit in the USA and MYOB in Australia support this.

So how is it possible to crack these markets? Of course the first step is to have a great product, but that is a given. Rod identifies that "the first one funded wins" so he wanted lots of cash quickly to increase his chances of success.

How about an IPO? It brings in cash quickly. However, it is quite difficult to raise the millions required to fund a software startup especially with no revenue.

Now lets just think about who are the people behind this offer are. If you type "rod" into Google the man behind Xero is number one, the most well known and publicized Rod in the world! It called personal branding. Rod was able to raise this money because he had a proven track record and established himself as an expert in his field. He proposed a strong team for the project and the IPO was fully subscribed.

If you ever get the change to hear Rod speak take it.