Business Is Boring

Rachel Taulelei is a strong advocate for the Māori economy and sustainability, and her connection to her Māoritanga has been vital in her career – from founding sustainable fishery Yellow Brick Road, to being CEO of food and beverage company Kono. Now at the helm of Oho, an Aotearoa business design and brand strategy firm, Rachel joins Simon and Brianne to spill her secrets to global success. Going Global is brought to you in partnership with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. NZTE wants to help more Kiwi businesses reach their global potential. Visit www.getthere.nz to find out more Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Growing up in poverty, losing his mum at age eight, and leaving school at 14, Saia Finau Latu had the odds stacked against him. In 2016 further family tragedy left Latu at a crossroads, and the path he chose led to founding a leading construction recycling business with a passion for sustainability and a heart for the community. Join Simon Pound for this very special kōrero with a truly remarkable entrepreneur. Content warning: this episode contains details of a serious car accident that some may find distressing. Please take care while listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Building the next generation of leaders is a key element of Marisa Fong’s business approach. Passionate about connections and how they impact sales, she’s gone from co-founder of Madison Recruitment to investor and director. She joins Simon Pound to share her journey as a leader supporting other leaders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Runaway Girl to runway success, for more than 30 years powerhouse designer Karen Walker has built her brand and business globally. Known for clever designs, adventurous collaborations, imaginative storytelling and constantly redefining her approach to retail, Karen shares her world class journey with Brianne and Simon. Going Global is brought to you in partnership with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. NZTE wants to help more Kiwi businesses reach their global potential. Visit www.getthere.nz to find out more Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you get if you cross a pie with a curry? That's the question that led Ollie Morrison and Logan Stevens to found Roti Bros. The pair join the pod to talk starting a new business mid-pandemic, opening their flagship store in Auckland's Commercial Bay and what they've got planned next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Production company Augusto have pioneered a hit model. Harnessing the tagline "Blurring the lines between advertising, entertainment and production", their breadth of work truly surpasses all boundaries beyond being just an agency. Working with the likes of Tourism NZ and Netflix, to (most recently) royalty, we’re joined by Michelle Walshe (co-founder and global CEO) to hear their story - how they made it in the big apple, and how COVID brought them back home to rebuild with a focus on impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you take your business beyond Aotearoa to the world stage? Welcome to Going Global, a six part pop-up series where we find out. For its inaugural episode, Laura Bell, founder and CEO of SafeStack Academy, joins hosts Brianne West (CEO and founder of Ethique) and Simon Pound (Business is Boring) for a kōrero about everything from the export market for digital products, to how SafeStack Academy found itself helping world-class companies with their cybersecurity training. Going Global is brought to you in partnership with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. NZTE wants to help more Kiwi businesses reach their global potential. Visit www.getthere.nz to find out more Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even if you've never heard of Canva, you've definitely seen social media posts using its graphic design templates. Mahesh Muralidhar played a part in making the Australian company a global success story, and now back in New Zealand he's leading Phase One Ventures, a start-up incubator with big ambitions for Aotearoa business. He joins the pod this week to talk about his dreams for the incubator, the importance of making business more accessible to youth and his plan to make six unicorns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Girls That Invest, Simran Kaur is dismantling the patriarchy through financial independence and making more women welcome in the world of investing. Now with over 150 thousand Instagram followers and more than a million downloads, hear how she grew Girls That Invest, and why investing should and can be for women/marginalised groups. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With his workplace mental health platform Groov, Sir John Kirwan is continuing a journey to change the conversation around mental health. An open and prominent figure advocating for awareness in Aotearoa (and beyond), he joins us this week for a chat about the all-important intersection of mental health and business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A self-proclaimed "high school drop out", Janine Grainger now works in the blockchain and cryptocurrency tech fields as the CEO and co-founder of New Zealand-based cryptocurrency purchasing platform Easy Crypto. She joins the pod to chat about the company's build to a billion in sales, and where they – and crypto – are headed next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coming from humble beginnings in an ambitious yet small market, Special Group has built itself up big from day dot. With a driven mindset of being the biggest and best agency in the world, they have now found huge success as one of NZ's most awarded agencies. Co-founder and CEO, Tony Bradbourne, joins us to talk opening offices around the world, their work (including Gwyneth Paltrow eating her infamous candle), and growing in an industry that’s seen a fair few struggles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NewFish is a startup aiming to change the fishing industry for the better. Using fish that might otherwise be waste, they are looking to massively increase our use of macro and micro algae, instigating further progressions of sustainability within NZ's food production systems. To talk the journey, the goals and what’s next, co-founder and GM Hamish Howard joins the pod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We first spoke to NZ company, Dotterel in 2019 as they were just coming together with a cool concept for making recording from drones less noisy. Now, over the last three years, they have become the global leaders in capturing sound in noisy environments. Having just announced a new raise of $3m to take a recording breakthrough they’ve made out of the drone industry, CEO and co-founder Shaun Edlin joins us to talk the journey, the biggest change in sound in decades, and taking NZ IP to the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michele Wilson, founder of AWWA period care, was once a corporate lawyer whose side hustle turned into her full time mahi. Now leading conversations around understanding the period cycle through her business, hear her journey of how she built AWWA from a standing start to half a million dollars in sales a month, and the mahi she does to share the sacred kaupapa of the business. Rawe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we’re talking tech companies and seeing it, to be it. Greg Denton excelled in his studies and afterwards, found himself in a big bank. Not loving life in a suit (and saying he was a banker), when he discovered the tech world, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t known it was open to him. If it was hard for him with his background, he wondered how hard it must be for others without his advantages. So, he set up Matchstiq; a way to create more visibility, pathways, and connections into the tech industry. To talk his journey, how people can get access to this world, and opening up more pathways, Greg Denton joins the pod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve all heard a lot about the metaverse lately; the virtual worlds we soon might be spending a lot more time in. However, for Sam Ramlu (co-founder of pioneering studio, Method), it’s already beginning. Having built the super successful Wanderer VR game in the unreal engine (one of the leading virtual world builders), how did they pull this off? What is the story behind her success at Method? We find out, as well as how we can make sure the metaverse future is better than our tech present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is back! With the support of Spark Lab, we’ll be talking with some of Aotearoa’s most successful business people and checking back in with some of the 250+ guests we’ve had on the podcast over the last five years. We last spoke with Sharesies 3EO Brooke Roberts in 2017, when the site had been live for a month and had just ticked over 2000 users. Today the platform has half a million Kiwi on board, with $2 billion invested, and has recently expanded into Australia. Brooke returns this week to talk about all that’s happened in the last five years and what being a 3EO actually involves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Supply shortages earlier this year brought attention to the fact that although we grow plenty of oats here in New Zealand – and know a thing or two about milk – we have been importing all commercial oat milk. Boring Oat Milk founder Morgan Maw was in a place to do something about that, knowing oats through her first oat biscuit venture. To talk about the three-year journey she had to go on to get onto shelves, the state of the oat and alternative milk industry here, how she’s using brand and storytelling and what’s next, she joined Business is Boring via Zoom this week. - This is the last episode of Business is Boring. Thank you so much to everyone who has listened, shared the podcast, got in touch, talked to me about it and been a supporter. It’s been an enormous privilege to have been able to talk to an interesting person doing cool things every week for five years. We’re going to take a little bit of time off and come back with a new concept. I’m really looking forward to changing things up a little to keep hopefully providing value to you all, and to keep trying to do our bit to share some of the great stories of tomorrow in Aotearoa. I hope that now after five years, more than 200 episodes, and more than half a million downloads, we’ve proven that business is not boring. - Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luke Nutting is an electrician who eight or so years ago saw that solar would be the future. He went from being a man in a van to now leading Lightforce, a company that does 20% of New Zealand’s solar installs, with more than 80 staff around the country. Now he has big plans to help create alternative energy choices by helping people sell their excess power back to the grid. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vignesh Kumar is a partner in Global from Day 1, or Gd1, a local venture capital fund which recently announced the first close of its third fund -- a $130m infusion of capital to invest in New Zealand companies wanting to scale to be worldwide successes. The company has partnered with a bunch of global experience across finance, marketing, venture, operations and hardware – including Vignesh, who was previously a hardware scaling leader at Apple. To talk about the VC world, his personal purpose and what Apple was like, he joined Business is Boring by Zoom this week. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ockham Residential co-founder Mark Todd is not your usual property developer. Over the years Ockham has helped make Auckland a more compact and liveable city by building the kind of apartments people actually want to live in and have as neighbours. The company is pioneering build to rent, Iwi partnerships, offering more Kiwibuild options than a bank manager might recommend and giving back through their foundation, the Ockham Collective. But it might be the example they are setting, and the uncomfortable conversations they are starting, that will have the most impact. To talk about his journey, Ockham’s mission and how they’re changing the conversation, Mark joined Business is Boring via Zoom. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Batteries are an ethical minefield, and it’s an issue that often gets overlooked in the important move to green tech. Now a New Zealand startup is helping solve the problem. Dr Shalini Divya is the co-founder of TasmanIon, who are commercialising her research into using the earth-abundant aluminium to make a new generation of more recyclable, sustainable and equitable batteries. To talk about the mission, the science and the journey, Dr Divya joined Business is Boring this week. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A couple of years ago Maggie Marilyn designer and founder Maggie Hewitt debuted her first collection straight onto Net-a-Porter, one of the most desirable doors in the world. Maggie Marilyn has since become a pioneer in sustainable luxury, being made in New Zealand and pioneering better production practices. Recently the brand has started moves to become carbon positive, and released lines that are more affordable and that run to larger sizes, two accessibility issues the industry struggles with. To talk about that journey, making it work internationally from New Zealand and what’s next, Maggie joined Business is Boring via Zoom. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Samantha Gadd founded Humankind about ten years ago as a new kind of HR, people and culture company. Over time, Humankind has specialised to focus on the growing area of employee experience, helping some of our biggest, best and most successful organisations – from growth companies like Sharesies or Supreme Coffee through to government departments – design better culture to get better results. Samantha joined Business is Boring this week to talk about her journey, EX design and how HR is changing. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Theresa Gattung became CEO of Telecom at 37, she became the first woman to run an NZX top 50 company. It was a glass ceiling shattering moment, but over 20 years later there still remain huge gender opportunity and achievement gaps in business. So to do more at the structural level, Theresa has just announced she will work with Auckland University to create a new hub to help increase participation and excellence in entrepreneurship for women by funding the Theresa Gattung Chair of Women in Entrepreneurship. To talk about that, launching Tend and why we need to start taking burnout more seriously, Theresa returned to Business is Boring. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jodie Imam and Lance Hodges are the COO and general partner of Tractor Ventures, a group offering debt financing to Australian and New Zealand startups. Both startup legends in their own right, they tell Simon Pound why they wanted to be part of this new model and how it all works. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melanie Spencer is the co-CEO of Socialites, a company that’s helping businesses big and small succeed on social media. She joins Simon Pound on Business is Boring this week to talk about her journey, agency culture and staying on top of the rapidly changing social media landscape. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ten years ago, if you said New Zealand would soon be one of the handful of countries in the space club, regularly sending satellites to space and famous for its space industry, you’d probably have been laughed out of the room. But that’s exactly what has happened, and the driving force behind this change has been Peter Beck at Rocket Lab. To get the company off the ground he’s had to pull together some of the world’s biggest investors, have international laws changed and successfully pioneer innovations in making and sending rockets that are now industry standards. It was wildly unlikely at most every step, but today Rocket Lab is on the verge of a massive listing on the US stock exchange, and a big shift to larger rockets. To talk about the journey, his perseverance and New Zealand becoming a member of the space club, Simon Pound met Peter Beck at the Rocket Lab’s Mount Wellington HQ. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lauren Peate is the founder and CEO of Multitudes, a New Zealand software company that helps measure and improve companies’ culture and performance. She came up with the idea while running Ally Skills NZ, a diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy for tech companies. She’s worked in and with startups in the Middle East and as a management consultant with Bain & Co in San Francisco, and received a degree in economics from Stanford. To talk about that journey and what Multitudes is here to do, Lauren joined Simon Pound for a chat. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shotgun co-founder Dan Necklen joins Simon Pound to talk about designing a new type of kids’ bike seat and taking it to the world. From a couple of mountain biking mates turning over an idea – what if a child could sit between the arms of the rider and have their own set of handlebars – the idea has grown to now be sold all over the world. With new products in the works, the company now has a bigger goal of helping get kids off screens and ultimately raise the next generation of mountain bikers. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jane Ormsby is an online ad industry innovator. She built online advertising inventory network Response Directive into an Australasian market leader before using her online publishing expertise to work with APN (now NZME) as it tackled digital, leading the paywall at The Listener and launching Bite. Her current company is Scroll Media, a network of trusted publishers and advertisers. To talk about the journey, the future of advertising and share tips for selling a business, Jane joined Business is Boring this week for a chat. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thomas Dietz is the founder and CEO of Woop – short for world on our plate – a company whose inventive offering has found a strong foothold in the hyper-competitive food box space. He joined Business is Boring this week to talk about his journey from France to New Zealand, and from makeup marketing to food boxes. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Zealander Georgia Robertson is the CEO of Humanitix, an Australian ticketing app with a difference. The company was started by two friends in Sydney, who pooled their resources to make a ticket booking platform that would donate 100% of profits to charity, using the power of better tech to deliver lower costs to customers and clients. Georgia joined Business is Boring this week to tell Simon Pound about working at the intersection of tech and social good. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Zealand company Myovolt has been at the cutting edge of innovation in wearable technology the last 20 years, with founders Dianne Jones and Steve Leftly working on wearable tech with Nasa, Apple, Adidas and Nike. Now they’re launching their first major consumer products, a series of devices to help with muscle recovery. To talk about Myovolt’s journey, their new range and ongoing innovation, Steve Leftly joined Business is Boring this week. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Isabel Pasch is the majority owner of Bread and Butter, bakeries and cafes that focus on traditional sourdough fermentation and using as many locally sourced and organic ingredients as possible. Unlike most supermarket white bread, which she believes is about as nutritional as a fizzy drink, Isabel’s Bread and Butter aims to make bread that’s good for you, your gut, and the planet. To talk about the journey, a mission for sustainable food, the politics of bread and what’s next, Isabel joined Business is Boring this week for a chat. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re listening to this podcast on a smartphone in New Zealand, chances are you have an app today’s guest helped create – and hopefully you use it every day. Pavan Vyas is the CEO of Rush, makers of NZ COVID Tracer, an app which was brought to market in crisis response speed in 2020 and since improved on to the point it’s been adopted by the NHS in the UK. To talk about how they made the app, and about growing the company to count Google, Disney Plus and Microsoft among its international customers, Rush CEO Pavan Vyas joined Business is Boring for a chat. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Zealand has an addiction to using plastic cling wrap – and it goes without saying that’s no good for the environment. Jon Reed’s startup Compostic is out to change that with a range of home compostable cling wrap and other kitchen products. In the last few years the company has grown from a product only available in specialty stores to now be available in most New Zealand supermarkets, along with hundreds in Australia, and now it’s launching into the US market too. Founder and CEO Jon Reed joined Business is Boring this week to talk about the journey. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If flowers are so often bought by men, how come florists aren't designed to appeal to them more? That’s the (extremely paraphrased) gist of the Jerry Seinfeld routine that helped inspire Vanisha Narsey to start Bouqo, an online platform that helps people select the right floral solution, see examples of bouquets at their price point and get them delivered. With 15 florists onboard across Auckland and plans for expansion, Vanisha joined Business is Boring this week to talk about the idea and its development, how it's going and what’s next. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s episode, Simon Pound talks to Dr Robert Feldman, CEO of Covid-19 Vaccine Corporation, about the fascinating science behind developing a vaccine. Covid-19 Vaccine Corporation (CVC), brings together some of the top figures in local pharmaceutical, deep tech and life science commercial enterprise. The chair is the managing director of Douglas Pharmaceuticals, and the CEO is Dr Robert Feldman, who has had a career working at Harvard Medical School and Imperial College, London, founding the UK vaccine company Microscience among other enterprises, before moving to New Zealand as Executive Director of Pacific Channel and after that, his own life science consulting company. To talk about the fascinating science behind vaccine research and development, Dr Feldman joined Business is Boring this week. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Louise Aitken is the CEO of the Ākina Foundation, which for the last three years has been delivering a programme in partnership with the government, called The Impact Initiative, focussed on the future of New Zealand’s social enterprises. Ākina runs a range of programmes to help more businesses make money and positive change, to help grow companies’ capability, support them in things like finance and other nuts and bolts of doing business well, and create and demonstrate impact in what they do. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Women make up about 10% of all tradespeople in New Zealand, and only about 4% of “on the tools” workers. That's a wild statistic, and part of why this week's guest Emma Kaniuk started Tradespeople – a directory that lists companies owned and run by women and gender diverse tradies around the country. Emma joined Business is Boring this week to talk about the idea behind the directory and the need it serves. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From humble hole-in-the-wall beginnings, Wellington-based Fix & Fogg is now one of the hottest nut butter companies in the world. Founder and CEO Roman Jewell tells Business is Boring how it all happened. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Take2 CEO and founder Cam Smith tells Simon Pound about the life-changing work his company does helping ex-prisoners reenter the job market. The job market is tough at the best of times – but for an ex-prisoner without any recognised skills, it can be pretty much impossible. One ground-breaking new non-profit is out to help change that by helping incarcerated people learn how to code. The goal of equipping prisoners with highly sought-after skills led this week’s guest Cam Smith from an exciting career in impact investment into the world of non-profits, dealing with big government departments and multi-generational societal challenges. To discuss all these big problems and the big ideas needed to help solve them, the Take2 CEO and founder joined Business is Boring this week. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mutu founder Toby Skilton joins Business is Boring to talk about his vision for a service where people could rent out and borrow things from each other – and how he made it a reality. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a service where you could either make money by lending out the stuff you own and hardly use, or save money by borrowing things from people near you instead of buying them? That’s the thought today’s guest had a few years ago, and he decided to turn it into a business. Mutu began in Christchurch, and has grown to now help users counter waste and create new income and connections nationwide. Mutu founder and CEO Toby Skilton joined us by Zoom from Christchurch this week to talk about the journey so far, and where he wants to take the business next. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Business is Boring, Bex Rempel tells Simon Pound about the need to replace petrol motors on boats. Did you know that an hour out on a little dinghy with a petrol powered outboard motor is as damaging to the environment as having 38 new cars running the same time? This is the fact that led New Zealand business ZeroJet to change tack and use their tech to try and replace some of the hundreds of thousands of petrol powered motors on small craft. Even if they only fit 10,000 of their electric motors, it would have the same impact as removing 1.5 million cars from the road. The company’s co-founder and CEO Bex Rempel joined Business is Boring to talk about the environmental impact, being better to our oceans and what they plan to do next. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Business is Boring, Billie Jo Hohepa-Ropiha tells Simon Pound about inventing the sewer-safe wet wipe alternative BDÉT. There is a big problem lurking in our sewer pipes. Flushed wet wipes, even the supposedly flushable ones, are major contributors to ‘fatbergs’ – huge clumps of wipes and other stuff flushed down toilets that are blocking sewers and generally grossing people out everywhere. What if you were able to put something onto regular toilet paper that would make it function like a wet wipe, but without all the problems? That was the brainwave Billie Jo Hohepa-Ropiha had nearly 20 years ago. After building a successful journalism career, she studied for an MBA, studying around work and family commitments, then launched not one but two bathroom products – BDÉT, the flushable toilet paper wet wipe alternative foam, as well as Kiwee, a toilet lid lifting device. To talk entrepreneurship and finding opportunity in places not everyone wants to talk about, Bille Jo Hohepa-Ropiha joined Business is Boring for a chat. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nearly every morning, thousands of people around New Zealand and the world start their day with a workout led by a mum of four boys from her Christchurch lounge. Lisa Fong leads these short, sharp 20 minute workouts over Facebook Live on her iPhone. The friendly, inclusive approach to accessible workouts at only $10 a month has seen business boom. Lisa Fong’s Move it Mama is now a worldwide success, with a great community behind it – just the kind of positive realness we could all do with a bit more of. Lisa joined Business is Boring over Zoom from Christchurch this week to talk fitness, the journey, lifting people up and the importance of keeping it real. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duane Mutu is the founder and CEO of LetsPlay.Live. Esports are big business, with the number of people playing competitively and the number of spectators watching them play on a wild growth curve. With admission to big events, national sports associations and scholarships available for esporting phenoms to universities and colleges, esports are now recognised as sports. The money involved is massive – with billion dollar companies being built on the periphery, the industry is already way bigger than Hollywood. One part of that industry is LetsPlay.Live (LPL). It’s the biggest esports competition and broadcast platform in Australasia, with more than 400,000 members in its community, and it’s all run production studio in the base of the Sky Tower. Business is Boring is presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he’s joined by Blair Turnbull, CEO of Tower Insurance. One of the things we get asked for on this podcast is to hear from people involved in business who aren’t necessarily all-or-nothing entrepreneurs. So this year we’re sharing a few more stories of people doing interesting, big and different things in business. This week's guest is one such example – someone who recently returned home to New Zealand to take on the CEO role at one of our big listed insurance companies. Blair Turnbull had a big role at ASB before heading overseas and working with Aviva – an insurer out of London with 30 million-plus customers. Blair led digital, retail and innovation functions, rising to be looking after 15 million customers before being shoulder-tapped to come back home to run Tower. To learn a bit about how the insurance game works, what it takes to grow into a CEO role, and what innovation is coming our way in insurance, Blair Turnbull joined Business is Boring for a chat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices