From an outside observer (no longer hold but previously have), her are my thoughts:
Xero has had HUGE media hype and had mammoth expectations set by investors/instos/the NZ pubic in general. Take a look at their growth rates per annun, they are absolutely astounding. The company is in a huge growth stages and I think any 'investor' should not by any means worry about the day to day or weekly flucations of the stock. If you're a believer you should be eyeing the end prize and not whats happening day to day. That being said management have delivered fantastic growth and have some huge institutional players behind them. The things I view as a setback for them are:
Rod's ego - he is a very stubborn man, I think he has done an astounding job but in the US I think he needs to step aside and lets the new US president guide it over there. Remember guys, they don't need to get 80% market share to win the US, they simply need to get some footing. I strongly believer they should simply focus on the main tax jurisdictions at the moment (by population size); New York, California and Texas. This way the are targeting a large proportion of the US population without having the throw a hell of a lot of $ towards R&D for all over the other states (which differ significantly in taxation policy/law).
What Xero have done so far, for a small NZ company has been fantastic and I think with the right guidance they will succeed in the US, they have roughly 2-3 years of capital to get some traction in the US, let just sit back and see how they go. I love their story and have been sitting back watching for some time, I will be looking at investing again shorty, but for now just watching.
Just my observations.