Business Is Boring

A flippant comment around a kitchen table in 2013 brought about a business that has gone from making one Thai Green Curry to now having a delivery or pick-up service for ready made meals, 2 cafes, a commercial kitchen, regular media appearances, 2 cookbooks, thousands of meals sold a week and a staff of 25. Jess' Underground Kitchen is now very much in the overground. To talk about the journey, Jess Daniell joined the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Zealand likes to think it’s clean, green and 100% pure, but if you look under the lid, quite a few things you would expect from such a place are not really all there. Like recycling. Even today there is a long way to go, but we are light years on from where we were 9 years ago when Steve Rickerby spotted a massive hole in the market for a company that could pick up food waste from businesses. Back in 2009, Steve was working at an insurance company that had moved in to Auckland's first 5 star green rated building. As part of the rating system, staff were separating waste in to rubbish, recycling and compost but none of the large waste companies offered a service to collect the food waste. So the carefully separated waste was just going to landfill. Steve saw a big problem to solve and launched We Compost collections with one bin on the back of his ute. They now collect over 30,000 kilograms of organic waste each week - Servicing corporate offices, food courts, schools, tertiary institutes, hotels, cafes, caterers, and coffee roasters such as Kōkako Organic coffee roasters who recently switched from plastic coffee dump bags to compostable ones, helping to lead the way and drive change in the coffee industry.. Steve was joined early on in the journey by his partner Gemma Spring and together they have built the business to the point that since March 2012 We Compost has helped save over four million kilograms of waste from ending up in landfill and this number continues to grow… To chat about where they are, where we all are, and what's next, Steve and Gemma joined the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Genevieve is External Relations Manager for Lion NZ, a company that is further along than most on the journey. Last year they were champion winner of the YWCA Equal Pay Awards, and of the DiversityWorks Work/Life Balance Award. To chat that column, her career and how you can have it all so long as that all includes flexible work and some effort to address deep paternalistic bias, Genevieve joins on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Great entrepreneurial ideas come from people, but also from environments that foster creativity, provide support and that lift people to help them to go further. This is part of why co-working spaces- places where creatives and companies can rent space by the desk or the week - have exploded around the world as hubs for people to go to, to make their dreams happen, and to keep the motivation and the energy up. And here, the name BizDojo has been synonymous with co-working since they started on Karangahape Rd in 2009. Founded by Jonah Merchant and Nick Shewring, they grew from a few people at 12 desks to now having thousands of residents, and a string of coworking and collaborative spaces across New Zealand, with some big plans for 2018. They were also a big part of bringing GridAKL into being - that many in Auckland tech will know, spinning up the original GridAKL prototype space, and later running coworking, networking, business support, events and activations in a new permanent building. With BizDojo spaces and events across New Zealand they’ve played a role in thousands of creative enterprises and have been keen to give back when they can, having taken leadership positions in the industry. Like last year, when they ran a survey around mental health issues facing entrepreneurs under their initiative designed to support and help founders in New Zealand - Founders Central. They found some concerning stats. Most respondents had faced problems, and most of them had not sought help due to stigma, time or resource concerns. This is a problem that is perhaps built into the culture of the founder that goes further than the normal to win, but it is one that needs to be talked about. Very recently the local scene lost a wonderful man that many of us worked closely with and rode the rollercoaster of this life with, and that really hits home how hard this can be, and how when what we do is not ordinary we need to have extraordinary support in place. As part of highlighting this issue last year, BizDojo co-founder and Chief Entrepreneur Nick Shewring talked about his own experience in the context of his success and life, and how asking for help and being honest about the ups and downs is important. If anything we talk about in the podcast today leaves you wanting to talk about your experience please do reach out to Lifeline on 0800LIFELINE. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2003 there wasn’t much of a computer game development industry in Aotearoa. But an entrepreneur that loved games, graphics and design set out to change that, and to make a Playstation game - not worrying they didn’t even have access to the Sony development kit. They managed to assemble a team, make a prototype and sell the idea internationally, all on their first hit-out. This pioneering approach has continued for Maru Nihoniho, whose Metia Interactive has gone on to make games that carry great messages and outcomes in amongst the fun of playing. There was SPARX, with the University of Auckland that gamified treating depression, with great success, winning awards and getting written up in the British Medial Journal. There was The Guardian, with a wahine toa, strong Māori women lead, a damsel doing the rescuing and distressing. And an idea I love, Māori Pa Wars, a take on the traditional tower defence game, available in te reo and quietly telling stories from history. Maru has been recognised for services to gaming and mental health with a Member of the Order of Merit and has been appointed by the crown to the board of Māori Television. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Y Combinator is one of the great names in tech and start-ups. The incubator slash business bootcamp is famously hard to get into and famously hard full stop! Airbnb, Dropbox and Stripe are some of the alumni and they only accept companies that have billion dollar potential. It’s also, like much of Silicon Valley, disproportionately made up of young, male, Stanford Grad founders, with not a lot of people accepted from outside the US, let alone from little old NZ. But Dr Alyona Medelyan, CEO of Thematic, managed to break a lot of those preconceptions. She has a PhD pioneering new work in machine learning, doing it after thirty, with her husband as a partner in the company and their two kids in tow. Their company uses machine learning to get insights from customer feedback for big companies like Stripe, Air NZ and Vodafone, and was a part of the Vodafone Xone startup accelerator. They’ve just picked up a new funding round, have traction and momentum in an exciting space and we are very lucky to have Alyona join us now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How is a country going to grow if the tangata whenua, some 15 percent of the population, are overrepresented in negative stats and under-represented in the ranks of entrepreneurs and owners? Well, that is a big question, and one that can be broken down into many parts, and the first of which might be how do we get frontline Māori workers performing better, growing and improving, and into upward progress. That’s where Indigenous Growth comes in. They work with organisations with Indigenous workers, what they term those frontline workers, to unlock their potential and increase their contribution. It’s about bringing all of people to work, and unlocking the same positive qualities that many of these workers have in their whanau situations. A great idea and business from Michael Moka, an entrepreneur, scholar and leading voice in engagement. You might have caught him at TedX Auckland, or know him from his work with Executive Education and the Maori students association at Auckland Uni, or maybe through his love of Kapahaka. Michael Moka join us now to talk about Indigenous Growth and unlocking potential. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What exactly could loving One Direction have to do with fixing the diversity pipeline problem in tech? Well if you hear ‘One Direction’ and go into dismissal mode, that might just be the root of the problem. A few years ago a tech industry leader in law gave a presentation at a serious Berlin tech conference about how perhaps the diversity pipeline problem could be traced back to the way that traditionally female spaces of fandom have been minimised online. It was based around fan fiction, One Direction secret love affair conspiracies and honouring how people’s enthusiasms can lead them to learn about making things online. If you love something and build a fanpage, that is a very real way in to website building. The talk has led to more talks, years, and time spent on One Direction than Sacha Judd had ever anticipated. Sacha, a former partner at top law firm Buddle Findlay, has been an influential figure in tech – being very early on the journey of big firms like Vend, where I know her from, and now running the family office for Rowan Simpson, a recent pod guest, at Hoku. As well as identifying and funding the next wave of great companies. Her back of a napkin service for tech founders has helped get many companies off to a great start, and she joined me to discuss what we term serious and how that seriously affects who feels welcome. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At 16 Alexia Hilbertidou looked around and saw that she was the only girl in her IT and physics class, then the next year the only young women in advanced physics. What was going on? How did women go from the forefront of coding to underrepresentation at a time when it is meant to be more accessible than ever? Well, to change the ratio you have to change the structure. So Alexia decided to take the message to young women while still choosing what subjects they would take, and so founded GirlBoss NZ, an organisation which encourages young women to embrace STEM, Entrepreneurship and higher leadership. In just 18 months, GirlBoss NZ is New Zealand’s second largest network of women with nearly 8000 members. At 18-years-old, just finished high-school, Alexia has spoken to nearly 20,000 young people, teachers and business professionals about gender equity, STEM, and the future of work. This passion for future-focussed education has seen her named a Top 30 Global Teen Leader, a Top 5 Young Leader by the Ministry of Youth Development, and the most influential New Zealand woman under the age of 25 at the 2016 Westpac Women of Influence Awards. A serial entrepreneur Alexia also was the National Winner of the Unitec Coding App Competition, at 16, receiving a $30,000 prize for KaiShare - an online food redistribution platform. …To talk changing the ratio, and her work, Alexia joins us now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rowan Simpson has made his name about ten times and he’s not done yet. He’s had a large hand in the product and growth in some of New Zealand’s greatest tech exports, he was head of product for Trademe and that worked out pretty well. He did a similar role in the early days for Xero and that has worked out amazingly, it’s a global leader in software as a service. He was an early investor and board chair for Vend, where I first got to know him and work with him and see how much he did to help us grow. Then there’s Timely, where he’s an investor and director, and that company just announced a seven million dollar funding round to take their profitable company in scale. And those are just some of the greatest hits - we haven’t mentioned his latest work, Ron is one of those people who could’ve stopped long ago, but uses his social and financial capital to bolster the next wave of tech companies. And through his charitable foundation is also giving back in more traditional ways. This might make him seem finished up and out of the game, but he’s not. His blog is required reading in tech, with great takes on start-up and product, and he’s active with the next big companies too, like Melodics, who we’ve had on here. To chat the methodology of the start-up, what product is, the throughline of these companies, and what’s next, Rowan joined Simon at Spinoff Towers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On September 4, 2010, when just 15 years old, Jake Millar’s life changed forever. His father and four close friends died is a skydiving plane crash. Prime Minister John Key visited the scene and Jake wrote to thank him. A hand-written note reply came from the Prime Minister who wanted to meet Jake. Away from the media. And as someone who had also lost a father young, and gone on to great success, Jake credits this meeting and example as part of what’s led him to go on and do what he’s done. And what a lot of that there is, already.Always entrepreneurial, Jake became driven. He set goals and got them. Head boy of school and house, check. He landed a 40,000 scholarship and then rather than take it, he took advice from a book by Sir Richard Branson that said “Screw it, Let’s Do it” and he gave it a miss and started a company that months later he was in the works of selling to the NZ Government.His second venture, Unfiltered, sees him traveling the world, spending most of his time in North America, talking to business leaders about how they succeed, and selling it to people and great companies all over the place. It’s going great guns and backed with serious investment. He’s even interviewed Sir Richard Branson. At 22 he’s just getting started but already giving back, in New Zealand doing fundraising for Lifeline, raising 55 thousand with a charity dinner. In conversation with Simon he talked career, what it takes to succeed and giving back right from the get-go. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few short years ago a fellow looking for some good butter for a baguette noticed something odd. Although we were a dairy country if you went to the supermarket and wanted a fancy butter the option came in a blue pack, all the way from Denmark. Why and what on earth? This thought led Peter Cullinane to try to make his own top-shelf butter, and to then found and grow Lewis Road Creamery, beautifully made, indulgent and to-be-savoured dairy. It’s been quite a ride - with tales of security guards protecting their Whittakers Chocolate milk collaboration, sold out ranges, copycat milks and expansions into bread, ice cream and non-dairy milks to name a few. Lewis Road Creamery is a huge success, and part of that may be that it wasn’t Peter’s first rodeo. He’s an ad man, who ran Saatchi & Saatchi in New Zealand and Australia, and then worked for them in a bog role in New York. On coming home he co-founded Assignment Group -who have always let the work talk for itself, launching Hyundai here and helping Whittakers reach their most-loved brand position. And he also co-founded Antipodes, the beautiful water in the elegant German bottle. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last July long standing TV producer Bailey Mackey (Code, The GC) came to the Spinoff Towers to talk about the busines of making TV. Earlier that year new had hit that the production company he runs, Pango, had sold a television format to Freemantle Media, the world’s biggest tv outfit. This was a massive coup, made all the bigger by the fact it was an under-the-radar show called Sidewalk Karaoke hailing from Māori TV. Bailey talked Simon through the bidding war that surrounded the format and talked about how a good idea with the right brain and guts behind it can make it all the way to the top, even if its from compratively small origins. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 years ago a bunch of young comedians, and their manager, who’d spent years making comedy nights happen across Auckland, thought it was time for a dedicated venue. On Queen St, near the Town Hall, they found a venue that was a lot perfect and a bit yuck – The Classic, infamous as an adult cinema. Over 20 years of building the business and the state of comedy in New Zealand, one founder, Scott Blanks, went from organising comedy nights through to being the owner, mentor, fosterer and friend to comedians young and old, new and established. He turned his background – first in accounting and then cinema marketing – into a role often called the Godfather of Stand-up, creating careers and also recognition for the craft. And not just with the live shows, but through telly too. Before there was 7 Days there was Pulp Comedy. Scott was part of that. And before that, Funny Business. Yep, Scott too. And how it’s all grown. His club puts on 350 plus gigs a year for tens of thousands through the door, with space on stage for those just staring right through to some of the biggest names in world comedy. To chat the first 20 years, the explosion in comedy he helped spark and what’s next, Scott Blanks of the Classic Comedy Club joins us now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the age of 37 a young women, who made her way up through a pretty sexist world, got the biggest job in the country. No, it’s not Jacinda Ardern today, it’s Theresa Gattung, in 1999.For a brief little window there a few years later most of the top jobs in this country were held by women - Dame Sian Elias was Chief Justice, Dame Silvia Cartwright was Governor-General, Margaret Wilson was Attorney-General, Theresa Gattung was Telecom’s chief executive and Helen Clark was Prime Minister.But boy how we slipped. By the time Gattung retired in 2007 it was only Dame Elias left. How do we get back? Well, the new PM is a start, but gains got can be gains lost. One way is for women to empower women. And it’s in that capacity Theresa Gattung joins the podcast today. After Telecom she’s gone on to chair major boards, co-found ridiculous success My Food Bag, and get a Companion of the NZ order of Merit gong for services to business and philanthropy, with her work for the Wellington SPCA and organisations empowering women. Like the newly lunched SheEO. A fund that has women invest in women, part of a global 1 billion dollar idea that Theresa has just helped bring here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest is a serial entrepreneur. If you haven't heard of his latest company you've very likely seen their work on awarded and effective websites for clients like Marketo, Visa, Air Newzleand, Spark, and Les Mills. Having started just six years ago with a perfectly timed mix of design, brand marketing, and build for the market, his agency Little Giant came and got big fast. Little Giant was one of New Zealand's fastest growing companies in 2015 on the Deloitte Fast 50. One of Asia Pacific's fastest growing companies in 2015 and 2016, and Mark was named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalst in 2017. They grew big and they got bought by one of the leading players in global advertising, the $11 billion annual revenue behemoth Dentsu Aegis. It's a huge achievement in a short time but it wasn't Mark's first rodeo. He's been starting companies since he was 17 and learned some hard lessons along the way that he's turned into his exit and next launching pad. Mark Hurley joined us on the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the fourth of July just four years ago today’s guest started a new company in the technology space. Having come out of some of the world’s biggest ICT companies like IBM and Cisco, Mike Jenkins was keen to help use the power of this cloud technology thing to help businesses do better. And look at how it’s gone - today his brainchild The Instillery is working with some of New Zealand’s biggest companies, like Fonterra, through to helping retailers like World run better businesses. He was awarded the emerging ICT leader at the CIO Awards and got the Digital Transformation of the Year gong at the IDC Australasia Awards for their work transforming Fonterra. From starting with a team of three they’ve grown to 30 employees and are just getting started. To talk about the power of the cloud, the effect it is having on business, and how he has used it himself, Mike Jenkins joins the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About 2 years ago the rent went up on a much loved cookie shop near the Civic in Auckland. Moustache Milk and Cookie Bar was facing a 40% hike. Owner/founder/manager Deanna Yang, a constant presence in the store and online through her energetic, revealing blog that charted the ups and down of business wasn’t going to take this. As an entrepreneur in her early twenties, from a single parent family, young, a woman and a kiwi of Singaporean Chinese descent she had faced a lot of uphill battles so far and she wasn’t going to let this one get her down. She’d baked, invented, shared and given a lot back in her short run in business and used this community as a springboard to a successful $91,000 crowdfund. Even Lorde was keen to #savemoustache. Deanna used this to evolve the business, ditch the OTT rent, fit out a bus and tour the country taking the cookies to the people and now open three stores. All in less than 6 years in business. These goals have all been set and nailed, against the odds and against an environment that NZers like to think is pretty easy for people that aren’t pakeha, but in Deanna’s experience, it isn’t plain sailing, but there are a lot of good people out there too. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the first week of the job at Coca Cola in 1996, today’s guest was wheeling out coke products from Pizza Hut after they moved to Pepsi. Although just a new sales rep he vowed that one day he’d get Coke back in to the big chain and its sister KFC. The years passed, and Craig Cotton moved up the ranks. He went from sales rep to a manager, into sales operations, marketing and eventually, all the way to General Manager from his shop floor start. And on his last day with the company, 17 years later, Craig and his team made that deal with Restaurant Brands, the biggest single one in Coke NZ’s history. How’s that for a story of growth and dedication? Craig has gone on to be the CEO for the Better Drinks Co, makers of Charlie’s as it went from a small indie to part of the huge Asahi, and then on to Independent Liquor and now, the Innovation Council - where this year’s awards are upcoming and the sector is in good health. Craig Cotton joined Simon to talk about his career and what could be next for innovation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do The Evil Dead, Zena, Spartacus and an immersive 80s extravaganza live theater spectacular have in common? If you guessed Rob Tapert, you've got the chocolate fish. It's very exciting to get a chance to talk to a person who's brought about a billion dollars of overseas investment to New Zealand; jobs, he's helped build an industry careers and inspiration for local film and TV. Which is no mean feat, especially when you're doing it on the other side of the world from his native America. that's the kind of extra challenge that Tapert has thrived in and had a track record of pulling off and the latest of these is Pleasure Dome. To find out about what that is and about show business, Rob joined me in conversation in a secret location in West Auckland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we're talking action. The debate is over, it is just fact increasing diversity of gender, background and age in the decision making parts of organisations helps businesses do better. But still, as we've been exploring a lot lately, only one of the NZX top 50 listed companies is run by a woman. And less than twenty per cent of directors on listed boards are women. Still. So it is past the talking and into the action stages. One person driving action is Miranda Burdon, CEO of Global Women. Her organisation has pulled together a 1 Day For Change conference happening on the 19th of September. It's a great way to celebrate Suffrage Day to talk about the how of increasing diversity in organisations with a range of business leaders and heavy hitters from CEOs of our biggest companies like Fonterra and Spark through to ex Prime Minister, Dame Jenny Shipley. They're not mucking about. Miranda Burdon is an award winning exporter, who's built a career in agribusiness, is chair of one of the biggest mushroom producing companies in Australasia and has been the architect of the conference. I talked to her in the Auckland CBD HQ of Global Women. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest has been mentioned at least three times on the podcast for her leadership on some of the biggest topics facing business and society today. Cindy Gallop has become a by-word for changing the ratio in advertising, business and culture, getting diverse perspectives and experiences in terms of gender, ethnicity, background and moving past the stale pale and male. As the leader of BBH New York, Gallop helped build one of the world’s great ad agencies, and since leaving has been a pioneer in sex tech and the global conversation about the effect pornography has been having on young folk. You might have seen her amazing ted talk, you would have seen her quotes on twitter, Cindy is the person that the people I look up to look up to. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Big news this week, with Fairfax NZ, one of the largest and most influential media companies announcing a new name and CEO. Now to be known as Stuff, the company is to be led by Sinead Boucher. The move was very well received from journalists, happy that a fellow journo and someone from the news side of the news business would be in charge. Recently under Sinead, some of the most successful and exciting multi-media work has been coming from the Stuff stable - the Bain murder podcast Black Hands, and the new series The Valley - showing that quality and innovation are working. And Stuff, the website that ate the company, was built with Sinead as Digital editor. All great signs for the bigger business and the workers at Stuff in uncertain media times. To chat about the print business in declining print times, the news biz and her career, CEO Sinead Boucher joined the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every company these days has a lofty goal. App makers with silly camera filters say they exist to bring humans together. Every company says it is out to change the world and make it a better place, but often, that’s nonsense. Not so for today’s guest. Professor Steve Henry is the founder and inventor of Kode technology who has worked to make commercialisation and mass application of research in partnership between his company and AUT. His work developed a compound which is now being developed into a potential cure for solid cancers. It’s also in development for products that could be used to prevent people with surgical implants getting infections. And he’s only just getting started with the applications of his technology. He’s CEO of Kode Biotech- a biotechnology company he’s been building since 1996, taking his research into synthetic molecules and how applying them to cells and surfaces can change the way they interact with their environment. For example coating a cancer cell with a synthetic shape can make the body see it in a way that means it can fight it. Something Steve will explain better shortly. This idea, commercialisation, patenting and market development has seen Steve Henry selected as a finalist for the 2008 New Zealand Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year and the 2011 recipient of the Royal Society of New Zealand's prestigious R.J. Scott medal, in 2015 Kode Biotech won the Supreme NZ Innovator Award and this year Steve has become the first Australasian to secure a spot in the world-leading Johnson and Johnson Innovation centre, JLABS, in Houston. To talk innovation, commercialisation and building biotech as a category, Professor Steve Henry joins us today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You could look at the way work is arranged and decide that it’s something designed by the patriachy to avoid looking after their kids. A more equal society would have work start after school drop off and finish in time to help with the end of day. And that’s just if you have kids. You might also have a life. It’s just one of the ways that work is not really built for the modern age. One person that has done a lot of thinking about the way we could work today, and is helping put it into practice is Kate Wright. Kate’s completed her MBA, looking at new modes of work that reward output and efficiency rather than face time and hours spent. Opening up the way we work opens work to new people, the diversity we are looking to build today. To talk all these thoughts, and the role of mentoring for business, Kate of Business Mentors NZ and business design company Intentio joined the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's guest is a trailblazer in law, business and leadership. Mai Chen, together with Sir Geoffrey Palmer, opened Australasia's first public law specialist firm in 1994, and since then has built a company and record that has resulted in more gongs and top positions than this intro could fit. Here's a few notable ones: New Zealand's Best public law firm a bunch of times, Inaugural Chair of Global Woman, a Director of BNZ, Adjunct Professor at Auckland Uni Law School, and recently the launch chair of Super Diverse Women. To talk the law business, her career and Super Diverse Women, Mai Chen joined the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you want to see the power of great execution, walk into any of the hospitality offerings that our guest today has brought us. You might think a burger is a burger, but that is until you’ve been to Burger Burger. Consistently named a top option in town, their great ingredients, atmosphere, energy and engaged team have made their affordable treat a household name, with half a million plus diners served a year. Before that Mimi Gilmour introduced the Mexico restaurants, growing fast and taking that mix of tacos, fried chicken and fun across many locations to a successful exit. To talk ideas, creativity, execution and big goals delivered, Mimi Gilmour joined the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest has broken new ground, confounded any stereotypes and excelled at every level of business. Leaving school in South Auckland with School Cert, going to be a bank teller, marrying her boyfriend and having a baby at 21. This could be the end of the public life story of many women 40 years ago. What happened instead has been a career leading some of New Zealand’s biggest media companies through some of the biggest landscape changes. Joan Withers has been a CEO of one of the first deregulated radio stations, the CEO of Fairfax in the last glory years of newspapers, and a professional director, with twenty years of governance experience as a board member and chair. Currently the Chair at Mercury and The Warehouse and just recently stepping down from Chair at TVNZ, Joan has a new book out, A Woman’s Place, that is a life story so far and also practical career advice, stories from the frontline and thoughts on that provocative title, A Woman’s Place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the common kind of bleats from this podcast is that as a country we invest too much in unproductive assets like houses and interest payments, and not enough into companies. One of the reasons we are like this is that it actually isn’t that easy to invest in other stuff. In order to get into something like shares there are risks, and also you need to get a diverse range of investments to spread your risk. There are managed funds, full of fees and large sums needed to invest, there is share trading through a bank, but with 30 bucks each brokerage you need to be doing more than about 2000 at a time or else the fees are more than a 6% return. It actually just isn’t the easy. Enter Sharesies! A cool new idea that makes it easy to invest -simply set your industry preference, risk appetite and get started with as little as 50 bucks a go. It aims to increase financial literacy and get more people into good investment practice, and its promise, that I love, is that you don’t need to be rich to have a share portfolio anymore. Co-founder and CEO Brooke Anderson joins me to chat all things Sharesies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest is a pioneer in organics, sustainable business and has won awards for being the world’s fairest trader. You have definitely sampled his wares, if you’ve enjoyed a fair trade banana, a cola made with actual cola, or a few years back tasted a lemonade sweetened with honey. Chris Morrison was the co-founder of Phoenix organics, when, more than 20 years ago there was no organics industry. He built the business and the category, and then did something remarkable, he not only worked to mentor the next generation of sustainable businesses, but has gone on to reinvent some of our most ubiquitous consumer goods, the banana and the cola. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the big ingredients for business success is other people’s money. Who are these other people and what motivates them? There are stereotypes in pop culture -from Silicon Valley style VCs that unseat founders and are machiavellian - through to the Dragon’s Den approach of omnipotent geniuses bidding to lend their capital and reputations for a big slice of the future pie. Somewhere in the middle is the angel investor -a bit of a smaller scale, earlier stage kind of thing… and to find out what that actually looks like in NZ, Suse Reynolds, Executive Director of the Angel Association joins us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alas, Simon is away this week so we've decided to republish one of our favourite episodes from 2016: fashion Svengali Karen Walker. Their discussion is worth a listen because Karen lays our her philosophy of no compromise and how that's helped build her business into a kind of super brand. As Simon wrote at the time "Karen Walker is not just a significant figure in New Zealand, she is a fixture on the Business of Fashion’s list of the 500 most influential figures in fashion worldwide, the brand’s sunglasses are worn by the world’s most famous stars". To learn what it takes to create a leviathan of a business and brand, listen on. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you like to read and follow the stories of successful people some common themes emerge - never giving up, always persevering, get knocked down and get back up, never take no, feel the fear and do it anyway, fail until you succeed. It sounds ghastly doesn’t it? And it can be; it is hard, emotionally and physically. What does it take to do this - to get the resilience to keep going, to make it. Simon's guest for this episode is Jamie Ford of Foresight Learning. He's an expert in this field, a coach and mentoring resilience to businesses, leaders and sports teams like the Crusaders and the Wallabies. He talked Simon through how resilience is learnt, trained and practiced and not innate, and how you can build your own. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’ve enjoyed a scented candle in glass, perhaps one with a lovely gold foil on the front or with letters artfully arranged you may have been enjoying the fruits of the work of today’s guest, a kiwi that has had great success in international fragrance, an entrepreneur now based in London who has also been a champion for the new wave of kiwi companies. Christopher Yu is the MD of United Perfumes. He went to the UK as a lawyer, fell in love with the luxury world, helped reinvent the world of the scented candle by growing Diptyque and then launching the Cire Trudon and Fornessetti candles. His company works with the world’s biggest brands, and he has also long worked to try to help make NZ a place that an international success could come from, to talk perfume, the UK, and brand New Zealand, Christopher joins us today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Much of what we talk about in entrepreneurship in NZ comes to us from Silicon Valley. Whether its the lean, agile, the series A, the seed round - the terms and actions come out of this place. So it makes a lot of sense that AUT, for their inaugural entrepreneur in residence, have brought to NZ a 30 year veteran and key figure in the valley. You might have heard of some of the firms he has founded, been on the board for, or invested in - Pandora internet radio is one of the better known consumer brands - but there were a raft of companies that pushed forward technology. He also set up Garage Ventures with Guy Kawasaki, the best selling author of Apple Macintosh fame, who popularised their work together. Bill Reichert is in town for a series of events with AUT and we’ve been lucky enough to grab him today to talk about the Valley, VC and entrepreneurship. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many small business people get into business to pursue their passion, yet end up spending a lot of time on the admin and accounts, and the salt in the wound is that this can also be wildly expensive black hole to throw hours, dollars and tears down. It’s a pain-point alright. And where there's pain there’s profit to be had. Enter Beany, a company that has come in to ride the wave of disruption currently hitting accounting services. They are adding their own push by offering a service that, for a low fixed fee, connects small businesses with their accountants and to work in the cloud. They're providing great professional services efficiently and cheaply, and allowing new ways of working both for the accountants and the businesspeople. The CEO Sue De Bievre braved the Spinoff stairs to talk Simon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One day when working on an online marketplace entrepreneur Holly Cardew was trying to get some imagery clear-cut onto a white background. Unless you’re a bit of a photoshop whizz, that is a real mission. Holly thought that if this was a problem for her it probably was for others looking to make a professional site, and that insight has led to her successful online enterprise pixc. The demand was out there, and the business has led Holly to startup incubators, being named on the Forbes 30 under 30, and to New Zealand, where she is part of techweek and the sales and marketing jams that the Kiwi Landing Pad makes happen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a few years' time, once enough cars are autonomous and car ownership has collapsed and we’re turning roadside car parks into bike lanes and garages into four storey apartments, we will look back and wonder at how much space was left vacant just waiting for these cars that only ever got driven five percent of the time. It’s bananas. Some people didn’t have to wait until the future to see this. They looked at all that time, space and capital sitting inefficiently a bit earlier. The big names you know. Uber and Airbnb are two standard bearers for the sharing economy, taking what’s underused and sharing the usage. And locally, in the car park space, we have a very cool company called parkable. They take your empty car parks and match them with parkers who pay a fee. They market and provide the tech, clip the ticket, and help the world squeeze some more efficiency out of the model. Parkable is run by Brody Nelson on the technical side and Toby Littin on the commercial side. They're here today to chat through the idea, about seizing the moment, and their new app, Campable. Campable is opening up spots all over the country to mobile home and vans of travelers, providing vineyards, marae and paddocks a new income stream, and hopefully putting an end to pooping in public car parks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One week ago, on the second week of this podcast, we had a lovely chap in to talk about the Techweek that was going on. A week to bring in local and international experts to talk about how tech can solve today's problems and advance tomorrow's industry. It was a great success and it's now back for its second outing. To discuss what the week has in store, we are again joined by Patrick McVeigh, general manager - business, innovation and skills at ATEED. Not sure which events to catch? Read The Spinoff's Techweek'17 recommendations here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s a cool idea. How about taking a service every company needs, then doing it for free for them while also managing, as part of the deal, to get funds to charity. It sounds like you’ve just managed to clock life. Well, today’s company has done just this with Thank You Payroll. It's a clever service, where they’ve turned an IRD subsidy into a force for good. Christina Bellis and Lani Evans of Thank You payroll Simon to discuss the business, a crowdfunding venture they have on, and how they make it happen. Note: Apologies for the sound quality. This episode was conducted over the phone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adàn Tijerina is the director of Almighty Beverages. It's a Wellington based company producing a range of organic juices now to be found in stock around the country. It's hard graft making a boutique company work, particularly one that has a organic and community based ethos at heart. But hard work is something Adàn's well acquainted with. His background includes farm work in the States, working with the homeless, running some of Wellington's most iconic bars and restaurants, the Wellington orchestra and finally helping drive the Almighty ship. Simon caught up with Adàn while he was on a business trip to Auckland and enticed him to The Spinoff towers for a chat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a remarkable success story: create a enterprise that combines both business and philanthropy and before you blink, you're knee deep in work. The idea is simple: order a lunch and the price pays for another free lunch to go to a hungry school kid. Such is the journey of Eat My Lunch, which started from a home kitchen and very quickly ended up supplying 40 schools and a similar number of businesses. The CEO Lisa King talked to Simon about how rapid the growth in the business was, how they managed it as well as the logistics of delivering 1400 lunches every day. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're looking at companies in the last few years that have made a real impact in the local entrepreneur and general scene, you can't go past My Food Bag. Pulling an idea in from overseas and making it work here in tiny, weird New Zealand was a passion for Cecilia and James Robinson. The idea was weekly delivered food parcels that contained everything a family needed to make meals for the week. They got Nadia Lim on board as a brand ambassador and next thing you know they're making $100 million in revenue. But it can't have been that easy. In this conversation Simon talks to Cecilia about making the move from their earlier company Au Pair Link, approaching Theresa Gattung to sit on the board, creating a well regarded customer service operation and living on Weetbix during the hard times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vic Crone was announced as the new CEO of Callaghan Innovation in February of this year. Crone comes with a high profile won in executive roles at Chorus and Xero and from her bid for the Auckland Mayoralty. Simon invited her in to talk about her career, her time at Xero, what she learnt from politics and what's coming next for Callaghan. Disclosure: Simon works at Vend, who have received Callaghan grants and Callaghan Innovation are a sponsor of this podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might have heard of the PayPal mafia, a term given to people that came through PayPal and then went on to invest in, found, and help grow other tech companies. People like Elon Musk, Peter Theil, Reid Hoffman; companies like Tesla, LinkedIn, Yelp, all trace back to PayPal. Well, in New Zealand I think we have our own version of that, the Trade Me mafia. The people who helped that company start, scale, grow and sell have gone on to use the capital they built up - both in terms of money they made and the social proof of their skill and judgement - to go on and foster a lot of the local industry. It's a theme of this podcast, and one of the key members of what I'd call that mafia is Lance Wiggs. You can draw one of those detective show style photo boards with the lines and there'd be lines all over Business is Boring for today's guest. Lance has been a director, investor or advisor to many of our guests. Wierdly, Onceit, Vend, Populate and Timely to name a few of our guests. Lance has taken his experience and created a vehicle to help fund and propel high-growth companies forward, with Punakaiki Fund, and is a prominent commentator on local hi-tech companies. We get him on today to find out about his career, his fund and why he keeps doing it when he has probably done well enough to go for a long bike adventure and not be busy as an active director on a number of companies. Disclosure statement: I work at Vend, hold a tiny number of shares in the Punakaiki Fund and Lance is a semi-distant cousin. #NZ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices