Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2014; the figures on Strode’s age, Invoice2go’s number of business users, the amount invoiced through the app, the company’s 100 million dollar valuation and its App Store rankings are from that year.
Chris Strode is 40 years old and a newly minted multimillionaire entrepreneur. In a way, he managed to build a 100 million dollar business thanks to his former employer, the investment bank Macquarie, which set his entrepreneurial potential free when it fired him for getting drunk at a company event.
Strode has always stood out as someone who doesn’t like following the rules, according to a report on the Mashable website. Even as a small boy he gave his parents headaches, because he developed a huge dislike of school.
That aversion to rules stayed with him all his life, and it’s something this entrepreneur doesn’t regret:
“I think you only have to follow the rules you set for yourself. You can’t start a company without breaking a few rules. Otherwise you won’t make it,” says Strode.
His rebellious streak, and the trouble he had following the rules at the companies he worked for, hid a huge desire to create and build something of his own.
In 2002, at the age of 28, he started working at the investment bank Macquarie as a freelance software developer, and he noticed some flaws in the company’s invoicing system, something that could be approached in a better way. But nobody listened to his ideas.
Even so, in his spare time he began developing Invoice2go, a simple creative idea whose usefulness he couldn’t yet gauge. When he saw how smartphones were advancing, Apple’s iPhone in particular, it occurred to him that by adapting his idea to smartphones he could solve a worldwide problem: invoicing and getting paid faster.
But the idea was still at the “motion” stage, and Strode couldn’t wait to take action
(Read: the huge difference between motion and action).
After the incident of his drinking at that event, the investment bank fired him, which helped Strode focus 100% on his business idea.
He admits that being fired was the best thing that could have happened to him in his whole life (blessed vodka).
Now his Australia-based company, Invoice2go, is used by more than 100,000 businesses, which have invoiced more than 10 billion dollars through its app. His profitable business is valued at 100 million dollars, and its app is the top-grossing app in the App Store in Australia and 50 other countries.
Strode admits that if he hadn’t been fired, the idea would probably have died, because sometimes having a job just blocks your mind when you are looking for ways around the obstacles of a part-time business idea.
When you are fired, you are completely free, because now you can focus for hours and hours on what really matters. Of course, it isn’t always as easy as it sounds. There are also plenty of ups and downs along the way when you build a business like this.
But to sum up, being fired wasn’t the final whistle of his career; it was the starting gun for a new one. And in this case, the change has paid off handsomely.
Further reading
- Starting a business vs a stable job: Branson’s view
- What makes Richard Branson so special compared with other entrepreneurs
- The secret price of being an entrepreneur
- 4 business ideas worth 100 million (who would have thought)
Featured image: Danausi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
