Ep. 56 The $20 Million Mistake - a podcast by John Warrillow author of Built to Sell and The Automatic Customer and the f

Rod Drury is the founder and CEO of Xero, a cloud-based accounting platform that competes head on with Intuit’s QuickBooks.

Started in 2006, Xero now boasts 700,000 subscribers and a market capitalization of almost $3 billion. Xero was picked by Forbes as the World’s Most Innovative Growth Company in 2014 and 2015.

Drury got the capital to start Xero from selling another software company, AfterMail, for $15 million plus another $30 million in a potential earn-out—not bad for a company with a little more than $2 million in revenue.

Drury offers all kinds of insight in this interview including:

 

• How to avoid the mistake he made in structuring his earn-out, which ended up costing him $30 million.
• The definition of R&D by acquisition.
• How to use public company arbitrage to increase the value of your company.
• How to transition from offering a service to a product.
• How to get an acquirer to come to you.
• How to exhibit at a trade show if your goal is to get acquired by someone in your industry.

Further episodes of Built to Sell Radio

Further podcasts by John Warrillow author of Built to Sell and The Automatic Customer and the f

Website of John Warrillow author of Built to Sell and The Automatic Customer and the f