What you need to know to work at one of the world’s most innovative companies

If you follow hot SaaS, you are probably aware of Xero.  We are one of the world’s fastest growing and most innovative SaaS companies with over 600,000 subscribers across the UK, Australia, US, New Zealand and dozens of other countries.  We’re growing rapidly with low subscriber churn and a fantastic business model.  We’re second only to Intuit in terms of total small business accounting subscribers.  And, we are catching up to their approximately 1 million US-centric base of customers.

A few days ago, I posted several observations about my experience inside Xero.

#1.  Success and passion are contagious.  We have a winning, disruptive business model built on a solid foundation of authenticity and purpose.  

#2.  Xero is about making a difference today, not ‘later this year’.  I like how Andy describes it.  “Xeros know that they can make a difference by doing what she or he can do today.”  

#3.  Xero is about growing, thriving and making our economy and society better.  Our partners – accountant, bookkeeping and advisory firms – are hiring as fast as they can find talent and making more money with less effort by taking advantageous our continuous flow of innovations.

I am now very actively recruiting for talented and driven Partner Marketers and Product Marketers to join Xero.  We’re growing rapidly with roles advertised across our global offices - check them out here.  Quite a few people have asked me to elaborate on ‘how we work’ and ‘what is different at Xero from other companies’.  Since I often cover this in our the 1st conversation with candidates, it seems quite useful to share some key points here and answer the questions I received.  I encourage you to think how you enjoy working as you read this and decide if you would enjoy working inside Xero OR if it’s not right for you.   We find it exciting, invigorating and rewarding to be part of Xero; and, I’m looking for talented people who would enjoy working here too.

Here’s some things you would experience if you joined the Xero team.

#1.  #Challenge – ‘We dream big, inventing better ways to do business’. This is one our core values. We are not aiming for 10% growth as a company.  You shouldn’t  be aiming for 10% per year growth of your knowledge and capabilities either.  A few years ago I was working with my friend, Derek van Beaver, in a company that was creating billions of dollars of value and growing 30% every week and quarter.  Derek would often say to our colleagues – “If our business is growing by 30%, and you’re not growing your capabilities by 30%, then you are falling behind and it won’t be fun for you here.”  Like my time with Derek, Xero is a high growth business.  It’s the best place on the planet for committing yourself to being a high growth professional.  It’s not a good place to be if you’re okay with staying at your current level of proficiency.

#2.  Adding value in meetings or excusing yourself —In many other companies, people feel good if their calendar is full of meetings. They feel really good  if those  meetings  include very senior managers.  These people think that being seen in meetings and having a  full calendar is the best way to get promoted.  This is not how we work at Xero.  

The expectation at Xero is that if you’re in a meeting, you should be getting work done in that meeting to advance the business.  If you’re not adding value, you should politely excuse yourself and resume your work on another area.  When I was at the Corporate Executive Board, one of the most importance performance review questions was “does this person routinely make very valuable contributions in meetings?”  I think this is a great self-assessment question. I frequently ask myself whether I added significant value to meetings as soon as it’s over.   I suggest you starting doing your own self-assessments.  You’ll soon know if you are creating value for your company or only making meetings unnecessarily expensive by attending.

#3.  Meetings are for getting work done — A meeting in a traditional company might look like this: seven people hold a meeting to review press releases and discuss a proposed communication plan. One person has drafted everything prior to the meeting. In the meeting, two or three people discuss the plan and call out what changes need to be made before the next review.  One or more of the people in the meeting will write down ‘follow-up action items like “set up a meeting for X, Y and Z before this committee’s next meeting”.  The rest are there for potential input or as an fyi. Does this sound efficient?

We think this is completely inefficient and a terribly slow way to work.  For the same type of project mentioned above, two people would meet for 20 minutes to write the announcement during their meeting in real-time using Google docs.  If anyone is needed, they can also comment in real-time.  Rather than creating a list of ‘next steps,’ we do these activities in the meeting as we go.  For example, schedule the event right then, rather than create a follow-up action item that’s assigned to someone.

#4.  Working in the open – We leverage Yammer (a social work tool) to ensure important projects and news is widely known and easily discussed in real-time without having to hold meetings.   If you like being one of the only people in your company that knows how a project is going, you’re most likely not going to enjoy working at Xero.  Managers from traditional firms like to hold their knowledge close as a way to reward and influence others.  We simple don’t believe this is effective.  

We want to do great work quickly, then tackle the next opportunity.  There are many benefits of working out in the open.  First, people can contribute and stay up to date in real-time.  Second, it’s easy to know what’s going on across the business and know where your project can fit in and add value.   Third, everyone quickly hears what is working and not working in the business so the they can help with adjustments.  Fourth, it also nearly eliminates the need for ‘monthly reports’.  Fifth, if you are doing great work it’s visible to everyone.  Last, it’s easy to tell who deserves recognition for adding a lot of value to the business and who is probably not pulling their weight.

#5.  True passion and commitment to our mission are visible  outside our walls.  While this is particularly true for Product and Partner Marketers, it is widely true of all Xeros.  Andy Lark - our CMO - and I have discussed this quite a bit recently.  In our rapidly growing business, there is a very strong need to ‘get the word out’ to partners, customers, influencers and media.  The world is moving very fast.  What we need are high energy marketers that are overflowing with energy to get the great news of our solution out to as many people in the world as possible.  Ideal candidates find great enjoyment in getting their product’s story translated into blogs, social, media and to influencers.  We want people that spend their time with partners, sales and customers. They should enjoy figuring out how to optimize the messaging to win as many customers as possible and displace/disrupt competitors with more  effective communication.  You’re probably nodding your head in agreement.  

What this means, however, is that the more cerebral activities that many marketers learn in business school (e.g., developing market strategies, writing creative briefs, developing creative segmentation schemas, etc.) are  much lesser important here.  We want 90% of our energy spent on amplifying the Xero message to the outside world and less than 10% on such cerebral activities.  If you really enjoy spending your days being an analytical strategist, Xero is not the right place for you.  In contrast, if you love actively promoting an amazingly successful product, you will love it here.

#6. We’re also trying out better ways to get work done.  This article is an example of this.  In this case, I am rethinking my own recruiting process. In the past, I would have shared this comments one-on-one with each candidate in an hour long conversation. But that’s not the most efficient way to work. Instead,  I’m posting this out in the open so candidates can make an informed decision about whether or not to apply. That way, when I read a resume and schedule time to talk, I know it’s with someone who understands the environment.

I hoping that this will make our conversations more effective as well.  I’ve always taken as much time as necessary to help candidates really understand what it’s like inside a company so that they are not surprised or disappointed after they sign-up.  For those hired by me, you’ll probably remember me saying to you when you were a candidate “I want to be certain that IF you sign-up that 2 months from now, you come back to me and say ‘Doug, it’s just like you said it would be here’.”  You can see why this is important. I’m going to be investing in you for a long time, I want you to be just as invested.  

I would like to acknowledge that this post was inspired by comments made by several speakers at Xerocon London (Jay Macdonald of Microsoft, Rod Drury and Andy Lark).  For example, when Jay was talking, I realized that HOW we work is exciting to many people and very foreign to other folks.  Like Jay said, we work in ways that enable us to quickly see, discuss and deliver on new opportunities.

Before you go, please take the next 60 seconds to comment on anything that you think I missed or that you enthusiastically agree with.  Share an example of how your company does anything similar to the four points above.  Or, add a 5th point.  Your 60 second comment will help and inspire hundreds maybe thousands of people and companies.