Kōrerorero – interview with NZGCP

New Zealand Growth Capital Partners (NZGCP), the NZ Government-backed early stage investment fund, ran an interview with me today on their Kōrerorero blog, discussing general approaches to angel investment. I answer questions like: As an Angel investor, what do you look for before investing? What are your top tips for Kiwi companies with high-growth potential?…

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A list of New Zealand startups

The good people at Callaghan Innovation have compiled a little list of New Zealand startups from various sources as part of the Scale Up NZ project. The list is rough, but it’s ready, and as they say, perfect is the enemy of good. I’m told it’s a temporary fixture, and can be distributed freely. If…

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Founder mental health and wellbeing hacks

Starting up a business is hard. Being a founder can seem like a pan-galactic ultra marathon. Here is a list of things you can do to attain and maintain good mental health, including achieving a good overall attitude, maintaining focus, looking after yourself, making space for regeneration, dealing with uncertainty, getting help, and dealing with failure.

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My week on @AotearoaPeople

Last week I was the curator of the @AotearoaPeople Twitter account.  I covered a lot of areas of interest to me. The tweet stream follows. I hope you enjoy it! Jump to: Monday: Intro, my whanau, and our charitable trust Tuesday: Lexicography and words Wednesday: Tech, startups, and investment Thursday: The future of government Friday:…

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Abe Lincoln, sharpening axes, and startups

I was having office hours today with one of the startups I work with, and asked the founder how he was going on sales.  He responded by saying that things were slow, as he was preparing thoroughly for the next phase.  He quoted Abraham Lincoln: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and…

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What does a startup need to thrive?

Last weekend I was invited to be a panelist on Radio NZ’s “The Weekend” programme with Lynn Freeman, discussing what it takes for startups to thrive.  You can hear the audio here: I took some notes before the panel, of all of the things that I wanted to say – but of course in these…

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