In the past I’ve gone on record telling people that it is premature to analyse Xero post IPO, given that they have a three year plan and they’ve only just embarked upon it.
What then is my reaction to Adam Bennett’s editorial this morning regarding Burger Fuel’s progress post-IPO?
There’s a difference here between Xero and BF – Xero is a well thought out, strategically focused play that, while risky is a risk analysis of maturity. Burger Fuel’s IPO seemed to rely heavily on street-cred and little on business sense. It also seemed to rely on young, investment-naive investors and as such was always up for higher scrutiny.
On the information thus far I’m pleased I didn’t invest…
Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. 
I’m pleased I didn’t invest too, cheers for the heads up….er…wtf is burger fuel? Holy crap Ben ihnfiwyata on this blog, didn’t you used to make bags? – they were pretty cool too! Really, you need to benchmark your paradigm to determine if your bubble has burst yet. I think I’ll go and dress up as chipmunk now…….
The challenge for Xero will be getting to critical mass. If I can see one problem ahead it is whether the product is sexy enough for people to rave about it to friends and colleagues. I haven’t heard any buzz about the product in the market. I’ve heard loads from Rod Drury but there is always an element of ‘but I would say that, wouldn’t I’.
I recently recommended to a large B2B client that they should consider buying Xero accounts for clients as a promotion. They didn’t get it. Though free accounting would probably have rung their customers bells big time (the argument was that said customers didn’t have time to use the web – it descended from there. I was appalled – self defeating logic has a nauseating effect on me).
Find a way of selling bulk accounts and it would be sexier – and take out the inhibiting factors. I’d be working the banks. Want to encourage SMEs to change banks – (insert brand here) offers free accounting. ‘See, we’re all about saving you money and helping you grow your pot’. And I’d road show it to the world.
1 x 1 sales is 1 x 1 road to a hiding.
[...] to Dubai. In the past I’ve been somewhat sceptical of Burger Fuel, both pre, during and post IPO. After reading the news I momentarily thought that perhaps I’d been a little hard on [...]