Rowan Simpson Joins Xero

It’s just been announced publicly on the NZX that former Trademe Shareholder and manager Rowan Simpson Joins Xero to head up product Strategy. After selling his web business flathunt.co.nz to Trademe back in 2000, Rowan has played lead roles at Trademe in both the software development and the increasingly product direction and management, so he’s arguably the number 1 person in the country to head up product strategy at Xero, which is a great boost for the already killer Xero team. Rowan talks about whats next here.

The Role of The Product Strategy

Product roles are often overlooked or misunderstood in software businesses, People often operate on the assumption that you have developers, designers and commercial people, and that this is enough to succeed. Rod talks about managing product development here. But the reality is you need to focus on building a product and not a technology or piece of software, so you have to have this reflected in your team structure and roles, whenever I see a software business with a development manager and no product manager driving things, the red flag goes up immediately. I’ve played the role of product lead through-out my career as I found myself surrounded by some very talented developers and designers but few people who can help bring them together around a clear product direction. You do need amazing designers and developers, but these people have enough work cut out for themselves and need to be complimented by someone who can see into both camps and ahead into the market and help pull together an experience that people love.