Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:00:09 · Sarah Kocianski, Gary Turner
[00:00:09] S0: Hello, and welcome to this very special episode of Fintech Insider Insights recorded live at Zerocon twenty eighteen at London's Excel. David and I had the pleasure of hosting a live show at the end of the conference to kick off the after party. And during the conference, I spoke to some great interviewees about their Zerocon experience, the relationship between SMBs and accountants, and much, much more. Let's hear from them now, kicking off with Xero co founder and UK CEO, Gary Turner. So I'm now here with Gary Turner, who is co founder and MD at Xero. How are you today? [00:00:43] S1: I'm feeling really good. I'm I'm blown away by the fact that I I did the opening keynote this morning at XeroCon and walked out on stage to 3,000 people, which is incredible. Who who would have thought that bat returns could be that interesting? Amazing. [00:01:01] S0: You know, we talk... I've talked about this with a few people this morning, but the energy here is unbelievable for for what is essentially an awful lot of accountants. Yeah. Yeah. It's... I mean, how does that make you feel, like, knowing that you've managed to create this?
00:01:13 · Gary Turner
[00:01:13] S1: It's actually really quite humbling. You know what I mean? I think we feel like there's something about this time and about where technology is and about what people have been accustomed to using, And there's a real sense of change and hunger for change. And the people that come to ZeroCon are right at the front end of that. I mean, so so there are industry events in all industries, and the accounting industry is no different. And I think we can all imagine pretty quickly what a stereotypical accounting industry event might be. Like, you have, like, kind of stale muffins, hard cookies, not very good coffee Suits. And then suits and somebody talking for an hour and a half about IFRS standard changes. You know what I mean? And and and as much as that's kind of what define the accounting industry, at least stereotypically, there are many, many thousands of accountants, it turns out, that want to do something a little bit different. And so we have been incredibly fortunate to build a product that has captured the imagination of not only the over 300,000 small businesses now that we have in The UK using Xero, but the accounting community that's so integral to that audience. And they love it. And they and they actually... We have a party at every XeroCon. The party's tonight. And remember, if last year's anything to go by, this evening will be the same. I I I remember accountants feeling rather guilty and embarrassed that they were enjoying themselves too much because they shouldn't enjoy themselves at an accounting event.
00:02:48 · Sarah Kocianski, Caroline Plumb, Gary Turner
[00:02:48] S0: That's that's a sad state of affairs. [00:02:49] S2: I I wasn't here last year, but [00:02:50] S0: I did see the pictures of party, and it looked amazing. And on that note, I mean, you've been doing Zero Com, what, seven or eight years? [00:02:57] S1: This is our sixth. So we started in 2012, we thought, well, what if we what if we did like a little event? Maybe some people might come along to that. And so we did the very first one and it was like we had no idea. And we thought, maybe 50 people might show up or maybe nobody will show up. And and we were really blown away just as we were going. We had 200 people came along. And you have to pay. It's not like a free You have to pay and that's always a bit nerve nerve racking that will people actually pay and come. And since 2012 it's gone from 200 to 400 to 800 and the last couple of years, we've been well into the thousands. So we had 2,000 here in 2017, and we have 50% more. I mean, we've got a thousand more this year, which is again crazy. So I I think we're... We run the risk of running out of venues pretty soon. I mean, we need do the O two next. [00:03:52] S0: Well, I mean, it is amazing. So for for people who aren't here, you actually have two halls at the XL. So when I came in, I couldn't find the main stage. And somebody was like, oh, it's other hall. [00:04:00] S2: Yeah. [00:04:00] S0: So that's that's astounding. [00:04:01] S1: That is crazy.
00:04:01 · Gary Turner, Sarah Kocianski
[00:04:01] S1: That is crazy. [00:04:02] S0: I mean... And and obviously, aside from the number of people, what what are the main changes you've seen over over the time you've been doing this event? [00:04:09] S1: I think when we got going, I mean, so I think about, like, nine, ten years ago... I mean, so nine, ten years ago, you you you could like take a random sample of the people here today and there were people like that. They were just in the minority. You know what I mean? So the 5% freaks and weirdos, they got their stuff before everybody else did. Yeah. And so I think what has changed is, like, more and more people get it. When we got going, the conversation was like, oh my god. Why would I put my financial information on the Internet? Surely that's not safe. And nobody asks that anymore. I think people have become much more accustomed to cloud technology. I think I think... I mean, we've obviously tried to help people get comfortable with it, but I think actually people having photos on iCloud or Google Photos and Netflix and Spotify, and I think actually they've done a great job in helping us acclimatize and and habituate more and more people and and even on a consumer kind of context. Think, this clothing is actually okay. [00:05:12] S0: Yeah. It's... It is safe. I can use it.
00:05:12 · Sarah Kocianski, Gary Turner, Anil Stocker
[00:05:12] S0: Yeah. It's... It is safe. I can use it. [00:05:14] S1: Yeah. And so I think that's helped. And so therefore, the people that come to ZeroCon in 2018 are similar to the the the early adopters in in in 2012, many more of them. And there are probably altogether more sophisticated now. And and there is there is no doubt that the cloud and cloud and modern integrated apps is the future. Maybe ten years ago, it was like, well, will that ever take off? Nobody's asking that question anymore. [00:05:43] S0: Yeah. I mean, I was gonna say as well, with that that sort of acceptance of of the Internet and cloud technology actually opens up you to support many other of the... More partner businesses because... And there's some seriously exciting businesses around here today. You know, how how important is that ecosystem to you? I mean, how you still be building that out presumably, like, that's kind of at the heart of what you do, I'm guessing. [00:06:03] S3: It it is. I have
00:06:03 · Anil Stocker, Gary Turner, Sarah Kocianski
[00:06:03] S3: It it is. I have [00:06:05] S1: to say... Do you know what? I I don't think we ever envisaged that would grow to the scale that it has. And we could always say, well, we knew and always do this, but we... I don't think we we did. I think when we when we we knew that we had to have an API, we knew that contemporary digital experiences and platforms were defined by a number of things, but not least you had to have a great and open API and lots of documentation because that's just how you should do that. And so there... Therefore, we've always had a great API and a great developer experience around Xero. And and and I remember when we had 10 apps, and that was kind of pretty cool. And then and then it became 50, and then it became a 100. And and now we have getting on, oh, 750 or something like that. It's insane. And and I think that's probably taken us a little bit by surprise, but you could map it back. And we've got a great API. We have a very open culture. We don't charge you to kind of develop against zero. We've got some great developer resources. We just wanna make it easy for you to do that. And and we've just seen some incredible partnerships emerge out of that. I mean, some of the people that we've... We have here that we're announcing deeper integrations with, so they'll go cardless. We've got Revolut, TransferWise, Tide, Starling. All those guys are here. [00:07:28] S0: The fintech superstars, actually.