Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
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.
00:07:28 · Sarah Kocianski, Gary Turner
[00:07:28] S0: The fintech superstars, actually. [00:07:30] S1: Yeah. And and because we share so many customers in common, and we actually share the same philosophy, I think, of this as the new world of openness and a product that doesn't talk to other products, that isn't responsive, that doesn't engage, isn't open, isn't gonna get very far. And and we were lucky, I think, that we we we we saw that we needed to do that, and what's happened is the the the the kind of ecosystem that's grown and clustered around that has just been incredible. So we're very lucky. [00:08:01] S0: And and presumably, it's also gotten easier to find those partners now, has it? Do people come to you? I mean, they do come to you because they can develop against you, but it it actually makes your life easier as well if people are...
00:08:01 · Sarah Kocianski, Gary Turner
[00:08:01] S0: And and presumably, it's also gotten easier to find those partners now, has it? Do people come to you? I mean, they do come to you because they can develop against you, but it it actually makes your life easier as well if people are... [00:08:10] S1: Yeah. And and and so it was much harder. I mean, I remembered, like, no... Nobody... I mean, not nobody, but it took a long time to go from five to to 10 to to 50. Because, of course, we probably only had, like, 4,000 customers in The UK. And so the currency that we had as a brand, as a as a kind of community of businesses was much smaller. So why would I integrate with Xero? Because nobody's ever heard of you and nobody's using you. And so every year that we grow and we've added over a 100,000 customers in the in the last twelve months in Xero, and we're benefiting from just more people using Xero, maybe a little ahead of Xero. The the... You know, it's like one of these great network effects. The more people you have engaging on the platform, the more attractive that becomes and the more people that come. Like a snowball effect. Yeah. So we definitely see that now. But, oh, we would go for weeks on end and the phone wouldn't ring in the early days because nobody had heard of you. Now we have... Like, there's a constant backlog of people building and engaging, and and and we're just very lucky that that's happened.