When & How: Wednesday Feb 17 – Register Now!

Accelerate 2010 - The Best Business Event of the year!

This will be tight game raising stuff

If you’ve had your time making plenty of mistakes and starting businesses and now want to get into serious and focused growth mode, then Accelerate 2010 is set to make sure you start 2010 with a fresh growth focus from people doing it well right now.

With Rod and Andy Lark leading the way, this will be a no BS, straight up, put into immediate action day that helps you raise your game and sets up an increasing network of senior entrepreneurs who know how to build and sustain successful businesses. Register up at 0to60.com.

Then the day ends with an Open Air Concert At Black Barn, where Kiwi music legends Tim Finn, Bic Runga and Dave Dobbyn will again take the stage together! Choice…

Event Backed by Xero and promo site which looks hot designed by Mogul.

Major hit to the competition

MYOB was subject to a takeover by a private equity firm at the end of 2008, which sparked the move of previous founder and board member Craig Winkler, and no doubt a shift in culture for the business at a time when Xero is just warming up. The ability of private equity to manage a business which needs to rapidly innovate in a competitive environment remains to be seen, but it’s clear that the now private equity lead MYOB will continue to face challenges in finding and retaining key talent and innovation, and with the visionary founder now moving his money into Xero, the new era of online accounting lead by Xero is in full swing.

Existing investor top-up

The shares will be issued at 90 cents in a round open to all existing investors, so while Xero don’t need your additional money, if you bought in at launch, nows a good time to top up and bring your average buy price down slightly. With a strong growth curve, a freshly capitalised balance sheet, a foothold in New Zealand, the UK and Australia, and momentum building from a base of regular customers, Xero is well on it’s way as a powerful global business that’s changing the way small businesses roll in the new world economy.

Big congrats to the Xero crew, this is a big win for the industry and a great story for the NZX at a time when capital is generally tight.

Self Promotion, The Usual Suspects and my ugly face

Part of me feels a bit funny promoting a party to launch a mag with myself splat bang in the middle of it, believe me, I’m as sick of my own face as probably plenty of others are. I have a whole slide that I discuss when I present at marketing and entrepreneurial conferences – get sick of your face… Really sick of it… Like it or not, there’s a reason I’m starting to become a usual suspect that some people believe they see too much of in this relatively small web industry, so here’s what I think is the key to make me just one of a growing many.

The Key to growing out past the usual suspects

Get comfortable with yourself. If you don’t like what you see – look inside and evolve until you do. Then create, speak, spend, grow from the depth of your heart. Promoting yourself and your business doesn’t make you arrogant – it could – but thats up to you. If you come from a genuine base, promotion is tool you can learn how to roll with, and in New Zealands case, it makes you someone with a reasonably rare talent in much need of sharing and development. We’re up aganst some of the biggest powers in the world here, and we don’t always have everything on our side, so we need to know how to stand out in a crowd, and find and be comfortable with our own voice even if we also like just quietly blending in and standing along side everyone. These are not mutually exclusive.

I’m happy to help anyone who’s doing real stuff get better at getting profile if I can, I spend enough time on it, mostly naturally now, so probably have something to offer. And I’m sucking up the best I can off others. I have no intention of being a sun, just a smiling star among a milkyway of people with a sparkle in my eye is fine with me. I lean on many others, and expect to do much more of this, the article on Silicon Welly in the StartUp mag is all about just this, the leaning that goes on in a community, this is the fabric of a strong society.

So I’ve kinda got over it, and realise that there are the people who see the bigger picture of what we’re doing, get it, challenge it positively, change it, add to it, be it but better!!! and… there are those who sit on the fence watching what just doesn’t look good enough… And they’re right, its not good enough, we’re just learning.

I Feel like a baby…

And I’m just enjoying learning to crawl and walk, and occasionally sticking my wet finger in a wall socket… Ouch! But you live through it, just with slightly spikier hair, and I really beleive movement creates movement, which creates decisions and outcomes which together creates momentum… Momentum lets us create beyond our dreams, something completely different!

So you’ve just got to do something and make it happen. You can’t stand still in life, when you do, it hurts to look out and see whats happening around you, because you know you could do different, and better, and you can! But until you do, you’ll see others rocking around with less time to think, and more time doing making calls and makng mistakes, and taking us all forward.

Starting up a Business or 2, and a Nation

I’ve been learning, like others willing to give it a crack and learn how to work the media to raise the profile and bar of my company, myself and an industry. Number 1 is You’ve just got to get in, put your name on the line and Do Stuff. I’ve had and continue to have my fair share of quiet behind the scenes ground work. Most of my long days are still just beavering away, getting stuff done, stuff that no-one sees, but as a company, an industry, a country, a world, we’ve got to develop a voice, a profile, the start of a consciousness, so that people out their taking action or starting something but feel a bit isolated can reach out and go, Yeah… I’m in that space too, I want to connect, I’ve got something to throw in the mix! Starting up a Nation

And in our online space, where we’re starting, connect they are, so watch this space as the community that is unfolding across the country behind the scenes takes centre stage. We’re all doing our bit, and it is getting somewhere…

We’ve only just begun, the best is yet to come… Enjoy the close of your week, make it whatever it can be.

Random phrase from a promotional master: When talking about YAOOS (Yet another opening of something), Sesei Rod once said, “I’ll do the opening of anything, even a door…”

Comments: Comments are on but are a bit rough on this site, have your say and ping me at tim at planhq dot com and bare with me until we migrate to whats going to be a big next step.

1. Solve a problem – is my idea a business?

2. Get Shareholding and agreement right

3. Have your pitch and your pitch document

4. Get Angel Investment

5. Selling Globally

6. Selling Strategy

New Money and the Growing the pie equation:

If I pay less tax on profits made in my export business, then I reinvest this money into building my business, which gives me more leverage to build more export sales. More export sales means more money coming into the country – aka a bigger pie. Conversely, if I sell only domestically, then I’m just redirecting money from somewhere else already in the economy – I get the money, someone else doesn’t.

The Real Role of Exporters in the economy

The job of export businesses in the economy is not to create profits so that the government can tax it, the job is to increase the money supply for the country. Once there is more money in the supply (and I mean real money – equity not debt) the government has more money to tax as it moves around domestically, and this is where government should focus on making its tax revenue.

No need to tax it at the door in

It’s a short-term outlook to see exporters just like any another business and should be taxed the same as any other business. If the government is willing to take a short term reduction in tax revenue from exporters it will get medium and long term gains in tax revenue from the money moving around the economy that far surpass any initial taxing of the profits as the money comes into the country from export sales.

1. Xero works when the economy is up and down

Xero is a financial management application for small medium businesses, and so provides value when times are good and you’re growing and sales are moving fast, or when times are tight and you need to make sure all your money is coming in on time and less money is going out. When it comes to business technology solutions, this is key, you need to know the product is an essential that you need to make money.

2. Xero already has strong financial+ backing

Xero is hitting the public market earlier than what has been done before, so since they’re an early stage business it considered a much higher risk, and Xero echo this clearly to ensure people come in knowing this is a long term investment. But with a little analysis, the reality is they’ve already jumped their first investment hurdle and are already building Xero with the backing of existing high net worth individuals who have made their money on building and selling software companies. While a driving force, and a man to bank on, Rod’s not going alone on this and has pulled in Sam Morgan and highly successful but possibly less known Guy Haddleton who sold his Business planning software company for $US160 million, And this is no name dropping exercise its a signal of confidence of people who demand and make success.

3. Reputations and Trading Stability

The people who have already invested, along with many stepping up the plate for some action now (Sam Morgan is buying $1million worth at the same price everyone else can) are people who together are investing for the long term, and this provides stability to the public trading environment. People like Rod, Sam, Guy, and the other Directors Phil Norman, Hamish Edwards, and Graham Shaw all value their reputations above all else, its the primary currency for successful people. The listing of Xero on the NZX is a signal from these key people that Xero will work and they’ll back it to make sure it does.

Photo: Courtesy of Rod Drury’s Blog and Xero

Why go Xero

If you’re like many small medium businesses and are sick of having your accounting information trapped in a piece of software on one computer, then Xero is exactly what you’ve been waiting for.