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, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Veronica Harwood-Stevenson from Humble Bee. A few … Read more
Householders are losing out as ‘unjustified’ wholesale prices cause a wave of power company closures, a group of independent power retailers have told the Electricity Authority. Four independent electricity retailers have laid a joint complaint with the sector’s market regulator over prices they say are “threatening the very existence of independent competition”. Industry sources said … Read more
It may lack the sex appeal of a brand new city-centre build, but Mt Smart is Auckland’s rock star venue in waiting, writes Mark Thomas. An “orphan” is how the office of the auditor general described Auckland’s Mt Smart stadium in its critical review of a failed David Beckham-starred event in late 2008. A decade … Read more
New Zealanders’ obsession with buying new double cab utes will make achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 almost impossible without a major change in Government policy. And it’s needed almost immediately, writes Bernard Hickey. This content originally ran on RNZ. For more, listen to the podcast version of this story. According to industry sales figures, the … Read more
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, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Phil Thomson, co-founder and co-CEO of security … Read more
Yesterday, NZ Post broke hearts by ending the Twitter Secret Santa game. Emily Writes asked Libby Greatnews – social media specialist for NZ Post / social elf for NZ Secret Santa – what happened. Chances are if you’ve sent a message to the NZ Secret Santa Twitter account, the blue-haired delight Libby Greatnews has answered your … Read more
No science or engineering background? No problem. A new apprenticeship scheme is addressing the skills shortage by training up people with no previous technical know-how. What do beauty therapy and the internet of things have in common? Absolutely nothing, unless you are 27-year-old solo mum Gabriella Swaby. The Melbourne woman was managing a suburban beauty … Read more
Last Friday the Commerce Commission announced that the WORLD fashion label had accepted it had likely breached the law over false garment labels and that it had made enforceable undertakings to the regulator as a result. This morning, in an interview on The AM Show, the company’s founder and frontperson professed not to know anything about … Read more
Savers around the country let out a collective ‘shit!’ this week as KiwiSaver balances took a plunge across the board. What happened, and is this the end of your retirement dream? Reddit user /u/Muter explains. My money is disappearing? What happened to it! Before getting into this, it’s important to understand KiwiSaver and the investment … Read more
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, with the interview available as both audio and a transcribed excerpt. This week he talks to Helen Robinson, winner of the supreme award … Read more
After its initial stubborn refusal to accept wrongdoing and attacking the integrity of Spinoff reporting, the NZ fashion retailer WORLD has changed its tune, accepting a likely breach of law over clothing labels, following a Commerce Commission investigation. New Zealand fashion label WORLD has accepted the Commerce Commission’s view that labelling on some imported clothing … Read more
Michael Petherick learned the hard way that while failure means losing in sport, in business it can be exactly the feedback you need to get you back on track. The road to small business success is littered with cautionary tales of failing and financial distress. But if your venture gets off to a rocky start, … Read more
A Kiwi startup is at the cutting edge of a technology that knows what you put in your shopping basket, eliminating the need for checkouts and queues. Aucklanders are about to get their first taste of a shopping revolution that is gathering pace around the globe. If you thought the demise of single-use plastic bags … Read more
The sons of pioneering immigrant vintner Nikola Nobilo are embroiled in legal action over the family inheritance, with one accusing the other of losing it all. A bitter battle over money has caused a deep rift in one of west Auckland’s original Croatian wine-making families, leaving two brothers slugging it out in court. Relations between … Read more
A lawsuit has revealed Facebook inflated its video statistics for years, inspiring the ‘pivot to video’ which made thousands of journalists redundant. Duncan Greive looks at its impact on New Zealand. So Facebook’s been lying again, at least according to a suit filed last week. Days after admitting that its new portal device would eavesdrop … Read more
From hand-rolling bliss balls to exporting to South Korea, Maria Slade spoke one half of Tom & Luke about taking their healthy bars and balls global. Tom Dorman may be one half of the duo giving its name to Kiwi healthy snacks success story Tom & Luke, but he is not a 50 percent kind of … Read more
From businesses doing good to charities running businesses and everything in between, social enterprise as an industry is growing up and holding its first national conference. In 1942 the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow wrote: “Simply by sailing in a new direction, you could enlarge the world.” He was talking about the first European explorers … Read more
Alex Casey talks to Michele Wilson of AWWA, New Zealand’s first brand of period proof undies, and takes a pair for a spin. It does seem pretty wild that you can 3D print yourself a sex robot in 2018, but there still isn’t the technology widely available to stop period-havers from bleeding through their pants, … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to James Fuller whose company, Hnry, handles financial admin (Income Tax, GST, ACC, Student Loans, KiwiSaver etc.) for self-employed people. ONE: How did Hnry start and what was the inspiration behind it? The … Read more
This week’s sharemarket tumble has been an opportunity to get some of the financial industry’s favourite dramatic words – ‘bloodbath’, ‘plunge’, ‘tumble’, ‘plummet’ – back into the headlines: But what does this mean for investors? Co-founder of Sharesies Leighton Roberts explains. For anyone following share markets or browsing the headlines, you may have heard that there’s … Read more
If your eyes glaze over at the very mention of the word, purple-haired ‘community strategist’ Savannah Peterson is here to change your mind about blockchain, writes Maria Slade. If Savannah Peterson were Mark Zuckerberg, she’d be transforming Facebook into a social network based on blockchain as we speak. Peterson is no ‘crypto-naut’. With her purple … Read more
Politicians have been ignoring pleas to control the wild west property management industry for over a decade, including the latest lobbying effort. The housing minister is unmoved by calls from a coalition of 26 organisations to regulate rental property managers. Social change agency Anglican Advocacy is leading a lobby to rein in the uncontrolled property … Read more
An anti-corruption student media start-up says there’s an ugly underbelly to building a new life in Aotearoa. Leo Shao is an unlikely caped crusader. The softly spoken 20-something looks like any other student striding around Auckland’s CBD in his dark duffle coat, takeaway cup in hand. Yet behind this understated exterior lies an alter ego. Shao … Read more
The New Zealand head of accounting success story Xero talks to Maria Slade about battling his demons, and helping Kiwi businesses through their own dark days. Many people would think Craig Hudson has it all – sporting talent, good looks, a lovely wife and four children, and a great job as New Zealand managing director … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to Alexandra Bell, co-founder of smoothie bowl business Soul Boul. ONE: How did Soul Boul start and what was the inspiration behind it? Stacey [Horton, co-founder] and I met at Otago University and through mutual … Read more
Staff and customers of accounting software platform Xero speak of it in awe. Duncan Greive heads to their conference to find out why. “Xero gives me life,” he said, skin glistening, eyes blazing. Bhaskar Krishna Bitra stood before me in a corner of the Brisbane Convention Centre, clutching a Xero branded basketball and a Xero … Read more
Art Green’s company Riot Foods (parent company of CleanPaleo and Poppy & Olive) hit headlines this week for all the wrong reasons when it was revealed it needed $1 million in the next two weeks or risk being sold. Green and co-founder Ryan Kamins sat down exclusively with The Spinoff to reveal exactly what went … Read more
A year on since launching Nisa – an ethical underwear company that employs former refugees – founder Elisha Watson reflects on all the things she’s learnt about running a business with a social cause. Quitting your job to pursue your dream is one of life’s great cliches. You’re probably working a desk job – stable, lucrative, maybe … Read more
From blow-up water balloons to prefabricated buildings: Homegrown toy giant Zuru is flexing its manufacturing muscles in the direction of the housing shortage. Toy giant Zuru has launched a massive international push into the prefabricated building industry, a venture it says will “make everything else we do look small’. Zuru is the half-a-billion-dollar toy manufacturing … Read more