In a historic corner of Dunedin, startup culture is thriving. Catherine McGregor visited the city’s Warehouse Precinct to meet the people driving the movement. When Jason and Kate Lindsey bought the four storey building now known as Petridish, it was an absolute wreck. Once home to a thriving hat and textiles factory – a 1919 … 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. This week he talks to Emma Lewisham, founder of a skincare line of the same name. From the outside, the cosmetics industry can … 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. This week he talks to Dr Gaetano Dedual and Jacob Kohn, co-founders of Futurity. It’s possible that in the future, we might just … 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. This week he talks to Dr Gaetano Dedual and Jacob Kohn, co-founders of Futurity. It’s possible that in the future, we might just … Read more
An upcoming three-day conference in Auckland aims to ‘envision our future’, but the Ed Hillary-branded event appears to feature some odd guests, including one who thinks astrology can explain important historic events, and a self-help guru who’s been labelled a fraud. David Farrier reports. A new year, a new pricey three-day conference, this time courtesy … 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. Connections can be the difference between a venture taking off or stalling. … Read more
With 2020’s ‘reeferendum’ on the horizon, all kinds of businesses – from the small and local to the massive and multinational – have their sights set on lucrative new opportunities. This story was originally published on RNZ alongside this Insight documentary On a suburban street in Auckland’s Grey Lynn, Karma Cola’s road-marking-yellow, corrugated-iron-clad headquarters, encloses whirring … Read more
A graduate of a women-only startup incubator is using crowdsourcing to gather usable data about patterns of sexual assault. Whereas once the female of the species was expected to deal with ‘creepy’ behaviour from men as best she could, the #metoo movement has empowered women to speak out about sexual harassment and violence in our … Read more
Kiwis need to get over their cultural bashfulness and start faking it until they make it, businesses were told at Australasia’s first ‘Startup Grind’. Guy Kawasaki looks at me as if I’m a bit simple. I have just asked the corporate ‘evangelist’, speaker, author of 13 books and former Apple Mackintosh marketer whether New Zealand … 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
David Farrier delves into the 30-year-old mystery of Richard A Kontos, a man with a dream of a better world. A man obsessed with talking peas and the tiny town of Peasville. It all started with an email. “A man named Richard A Kontos from Daisy Hill, Queensland, has for the past 30 odd years … Read more
The winners of this year’s Hi-Tech Awards showcased how New Zealand isn’t just good in tech, but good for tech as well, with gender diversity and cultural inclusion taking centre stage more than ever before. Whether it’s tall poppy syndrome or just genuine humility, New Zealanders are pretty terrible when it comes to shouting about … Read more
Wisdom and experience come with age, but these young people are proving to be wise beyond their years. We’ve picked out ten Kiwi business moguls aged 30 years or under that are promising good things for the future of New Zealand business. We love to perpetuate the stereotype of the slacker millennial, spending hours on … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Vodafone Xone. 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 Simon talks to Ben Reynolds about how his company Spalk is … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Vodafone Xone. 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 Simon talks to Jenene Crossan about her kick-ass career in tech. … Read more
Kids around the world are flexing their entrepreneurial muscles by making, selling and marketing the latest craze in tactile fun: slime. Jihee Junn talks to one Auckland-based 11-year-old who’s decided to cash in. Update, 22 August 2018: Katharina Weischede has launched a Givealittle campaign to fight kids entertainment giant Nickelodeon, which is opposing her ‘Slime … 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 18 year old Alexia Hilbertidou talks following your passion, no matter your … 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 Simon talks to Jake Millar, CEO of entrepreneurship-focused video company Unfiltered. … Read more
It’s been estimated to be worth $26 billion, with significant stakes in the forestry and fishing industries. But underneath the story of the Māori economy are also the humming small business stories in Frankie Apothecary and Huia Publishers, Rebecca Stevenson finds. The numbers bandied around are staggering. A 2013 report by BERL for Te Puni … Read more
He’s an award winning young Kiwi chef, but William Mordido’s first pop-up restaurant is opening in Melbourne this month. Rebecca Stevenson finds out why. William Mordido is one of those people who, when reading up their credentials, you start to feel inferior and question what you have been doing with your life. Last year the … Read more
Consider this: while you’re at work, slaving away, putting in hours for The Man, your car is sitting at home doing a whole lot of nothing. Like some apathetic teenager it sulks in the garage, taking up space and contributing basically nothing to the household finances. No more! With Yourdrive, a peer-to-peer car rental service, … Read more
New Zealand’s social, cultural and economic pivot to Asia is well-documented, yet when we head off on an OE London remains the default destination. In the first of a two part series on The Asia OE, Duncan Greive speaks to a young New Zealand entrepreneur for whom Asia called and changed his life. Cowan Finch … Read more
As a nation, we pride ourselves on our creativity, but when it comes to translating great ideas into successful businesses, New Zealand is still trailing behind. Colenso co-founder and serial entrepreneur Mike Hutcheson looks at what’s going wrong. I believe innovation to be the realisation of creativity, but innovation is a two-sided coin: one side … Read more