NZ Entrepreneur Magazine - Issue 8 by Espire Media

NEW ZEALANDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S E-MAG FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND BUSINESS OWNERS

June 2013

Building Apps Where do I start?

Finding Out Your Why?

10 Questions with

Tim Alpe of JUCY

Profiles on #nzentrepreneurs Rich Tangney, James Ehau & Jillian Rae

Plus heaps more inside!

iSign Not for Profit 5 staff 4 Mobiles Auckland Joined 2012

NZSL Interpreting

BUSINESS

Contents 4

From the Editor

Finding Out Your Why?

10 Questions with Tim Alpe from JUCY Rentals

IP Case Study: Flexi Mower

Entrepreneurial Intelligence with Sandy Geyer

Profile: Rich Tangney & James Ehau from PHD Cleanse

Profile: Jillian Rae from Run21

Tomorrowsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Entrepreneurs

Building Apps - Where Do I Start?

The Paddock

Parting Shot

ABOUT / Short and sharp, New Zealand Entrepreneur is a free e-magazine delivering thought provoking and enlightening articles, industry news and information to forward-thinking entrepreneurs. EDITOR / Nick Harley ART DIRECTOR / Jodi Olsson GROUP EDITOR / Nick Harley CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER / Alastair Noble CONTENT ENQUIRIES / Phone Nick Harley on (021) 052 9770 or email nick@nzentrepreneur.co.nz ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES / Phone Jennifer Liew on (027) 398 100 or email

From the Editor

ADDRESS / NZ Entrepreneur, C/- Espire Media, PO Box 99758, Newmarket, Auckland 1151, NZ WEBSITE / nzentrepreneur.co.nz

ISSN 2253-5683

ntrepreneurship is the toughest job you’ll ever love. Regardless of any perceived glamor, most entrepreneurs I know will tell you there’s often more

misery than joy. But there’s just something within us that makes the prospect of doing anything else seem even worse. I often compare entrepreneurship to learning a new language. During high school, we’re thrown into French, German or Spanish lessons. Learning words and phrases such as “What time is it?” and how to count up to fifty. Should we ever visit the country in question, the words and phrases we need are often outside of the vocabulary we have, so in common situations, we’re stuck, needing to revert back to our phrase book in search of the answers. We can of course use any guidebook for assistance, but there is no real substitute when learning a new language than immersing yourself in that foreign culture directly, picking it up as you go, making mistakes along the way, people laughing at you when you get it wrong. It’s the same for entrepreneurs trying to reach their end goals. There are so many resources we can look to for advice on startups and entrepreneurship, this magazine being one of them, but doing things for yourself and going through those situations first hand really has no substitute. Naturally, there’s always a few people in the class who think they know it all already and simply can’t be told, but for the rest of you, keep learning, keep trying and don’t forget to ask questions!

Nick

Email nick@nzentrepreneur.co.nz LinkedIn http://nz.linkedin.com/in/nickharleynz

jenniferl@espiremedia.com

NZ Entrepreneur is a GREEN MAG created and distributed without the use of paper so it’s environmentally friendly. Please think before you print. Thank you!

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ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Finding Out Your Why? By Victor Yuen You may be set on achieving your goals, but do you know why?

top. Why are you doing what you’re doing?

Before I knew it… I had a list:

Why is the first question you should be asking. If you’re not clear on your direction, then getting more done or

•

Collect and rebuild rare and classic cars

•

Travel around the world

•

Have a family

•

Create cutting edge technology businesses that put a stamp on the world just like Apple or Google

When I enquired into this topic for myself, I began to start

•

Fund and contribute to community projects

seeing what drove me. I saw that I wanted to make a difference

•

Make a difference to the environment

doing it more effectively isn’t going to help you. That would be like giving a hamster running on its wheel a little mini motorbike to make the wheel spin faster!

to others, to make a real difference in people’s lives. I also found that I wanted to grow New Zealand as an economy – to promote technology businesses within New Zealand by becoming a professional director contributing my marketing and productivity skills.

I want to achieve all of these things and it’s going to take something. My life is only so long and I don’t want to run out of time, so that means getting the systems I need in place to support me. This includes teams, personal management and development.

“

What are you up to in life? Where do you want to be in five years time?

Knowing my Why allows me to put effort into developing my systems and sticking to them. It gives me the context, the bigger picture for making sure I don’t let things slip through the cracks. You need to know your Why. Start by looking at this – what are you up to in life? Where do you WANT to be in five years time? What about ten years? It doesn’t need to be world changing, it only needs to speak to you. Here are some examples to get the ideas flowing: •

Start a family and not have to work in the evenings and weekends so I can spend time with them

•

Earn enough money to spend half my time working with youth

•

Double the revenue of my business and go on holidays twice as much

•

Purchase a Lamborghini

Stop and take time out from business as usual. Brainstorm some ideas. Put them on the wall. Share your ideas with others.

I learnt from Kerry Spackman’s book, “The Winner’s Bible”. Intrinsic drivers are what I colloquially say as “what floats your boat”. It’s the fundamentals of why you derive fulfillment and pleasure from doing the things you do. Let’s look at one of my passions, rally driving. Here are some of my intrinsic drivers: •

Competition - competing with others and being the best at what I do

•

Sensory experience - the smells, the sounds, the motion. I love the strong engagement of my senses

•

Sharing laughter with friends - having loads of fun and creating memorable experiences

•

Engineering systems and structure - planning and structuring processes and systems to have everything work in harmony.

As you can see, the intrinsic drivers aren’t specific to rallying. I get the competition, sharing laughter with friends and engineering systems and structure from my business ventures as well. Building cutting edge technology businesses fulfills many of my intrinsic drivers.

it’s forgotten the next minute and it doesn’t work to drive you

Use these intrinsic drivers to refine your Why. If your Why is aligned with your intrinsic drivers, it’ll become far easier to keep going when the times are tough and you’ll far more enjoy the process and the results.

along.

So go on, get started.

You’ll need to determine your intrinsic drivers. It’s a concept

Your Why needs to be your starting point.

As the ideas start flowing, you’ll find that they’ll be in endless supply - especially if you’re the entrepreneurial type. However, if the idea doesn’t fit with your intrinsic drivers, you’ll find that

Victor Yuen is a marketing entrepreneur, dedicated to making a real lasting difference in the world and is currently involved in marketing start up, Futurist Inc. Find out more about Victor at his website www.victoryuen.co.nz

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10 Questions with

Tim Alpe of JUCY Rentals

Great businesses are started every day when people act upon an opportunity. Tim Alpe co-founded JUCY Rentals with his brother Dan and the business has become one of Australasia’s leading and fastest growing independent tourism brands. Tim, when did you start JUCY and what made you decide it was a good business idea? We started JUCY just after the September 11th attacks so it wasn’t the best time to start a tourism business. We also didn’t realise when we started the business that there were 200+ car rental operators in Auckland alone and perhaps it wasn’t the smartest move to start another one. So much for market research! In saying that we knew pretty quickly that it was a great idea especially when people started hiring the cars. The first year of a new business is often the hardest financially. How did you survive that startup period and keep growing the business in those early days?

Starting a business is a scary thing that puts off a lot of people.

Starting a business is a scary thing that puts off a lot of people. The first year is always going to be a challenge especially if you have left a well paying corporate role to go it alone. The best way to survive is to ensure you are hungrier than your competitors. You have to learn to make personal sacrifices, mainly in terms of your time. This is hard when you have a young family.

When Dan and I started we were fortunate that we were still in our mid twenties and had very few commitments. We could work 7 days a week and it didn’t impact on anyone else. You have to be incredibly selfish and focus solely on this amazing new opportunity. Get it right and the rewards and time will come. What was your working background before you started JUCY? I was working for a publicly listed tourism company called Tourism Holdings Limited (THL). I had been with them since leaving school and had moved up within the business to the point where I was running a company called Airbus for them. THL were great to me and taught me a lot about business and tourism. It also showed me that I was not suited to corporate life and that I really needed to control my own destiny. What was the most painful lesson you’ve had to learn in business? We decided to take on the big boy and start building and operating the big 4 berth campervans commonly run by the likes of Maui Campervans. We saw what our competitors were doing and thought we could do it better. This was a big

INTERVIEW

move away from the normal and successful business model of running small compact 2 berth high top campers. The successful campervans we were used to running were based on Toyota High Ace vans that we imported from Japan, pulling out the seats and putting in a fiberglass living area complete with bed, kitchen, heated towel rail etc. We decided to use the same concept for a big 4 berth camper but instead would use small trucks imported from Japan. We would then build a fiberglass box that would house the living area (including a bathroom complete with shower and toilet) that would be bolted onto the truck chassis. In theory, it sounded like a great idea that would be totally revolutionary in the campervan market.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

Listen to your customers, listen to people you trust and listen to your gut.

What are the three most important business skills you would advise up and coming entrepreneurs to develop? Listen

While the finished product looked amazing and had all the bells and whistles, the fiberglass box was too heavy for the small truck chassis we had used. That meant the camper could only reach a maximum of 70km per hour. You can imagine how well that went with customers driving around New Zealand and holding up traffic. It got so bad that we had to pull all the JUCY signage off the rear of the campers as we were getting so many phone calls from the general public complaining about be stuck behind these very slow campers.

We have a saying at JUCY that you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listen to your customers, listen to people you trust and respect and listen to your gut. It can be a lonely world being an entrepreneur, especially starting a new business. I was really lucky to have Dan with me so I had someone to bounce ideas off every day. It also helped that his strengths were my weaknesses and vice versa.

Eventually we decided to pull the campers off the fleet and scrap the project. All up it cost us in excess of $1.3m. An expensive way to find out that we should stick to what we are good at doing!

We have 200 staff at JUCY which means I have 199 weaknesses. You need to find rockstars that also believe in what you are doing and people who want to see your business succeed.

Employ your weaknesses

From left to right: John Banks, Tim Alpe, Dan Alpe

Never be the Undercover Boss It is imperative that you know all parts of your business and that you get out from behind the desk and see your customers and staff. While email, phones and SKYPE are great tools, there is nothing like being there is person. I once took a 38 hour flight to Dublin to see a potential new customer who had the ability to give us a lot of business. I was there for 4 hours and then came home. People said I was crazy, but it worked. The main reason being, people find it hard to say no to you in person, especially if you have just flown around the world for one meeting. JUCY has expanded to multiple overseas markets. What fundamental things do you feel are the key to success when expanding overseas? We have succeeded in Australia and the US because we have basically replicated what has worked for us in New Zealand. When we launched into Australia in 2008 we took exactly the same vehicles that we were running in New Zealand. While Australia is different to New Zealand in a lot of ways, we felt that there was no benefit in reinventing the wheel. Our business in New Zealand was going great and the time was right to expand in Australia. Our move into the US was slightly different as we were really breaking new ground offering small compact mini campers. This really hadn’t been done before and was a much more risky move. I would love to say we did a lot of market research but the truth is we didn’t! We simply told our customers in Europe that we expanding into the US and they said “awesome that’s a great idea”.

They then said “we’ll start selling now”, which meant we were committed. Luckily it seems to have worked out and now we have over 200 campers on the highways in the US. Were there times you doubted yourself in building your business? If so, what advice would you give to those who have periods of doubt about whether or not they’ll make it? I don’t think we ever doubted ourselves as we always knew we were going to make JUCY into a success. If you are passionate about something it’s hard not to make it work. Don’t get me wrong there were plenty of times when we thought we were well out of depth, especially in the early days where we really had no idea. We were really lucky to have each other, which I believe made this business work. Only family can turnaround and tell you to pull your head in or tell you when you stuff up that “shit happens” and not to dwell on it. If you could start your business all over again, what three things would you do differently? Well that’s a great question. To be honest I really wouldn’t change a thing except maybe doing it a little bit sooner and also protecting our brand from the start. When we started we called ourselves EZY Car Rentals. I had a mate who had a nickname called Easy because he was so chilled out and relaxed all the time. That seemed like the type of tourism business we wanted so we decided that would be a great name. Unfortunately

“

There were plenty of times when we thought we were out of our depth.

INTERVIEW

NZ is often regarded as a nation of small businesses and we often hear business builders take their foot off the gas or sell out once they’ve got the boat, bach and beemer - do you believe this is a fair assessment? we didn’t realize you should trademark your brand and as a result we started to get people passing off as our brand. It all came to a head 4 years into the business when we got a letter from this guy called Stelios who had a small little company called EasyJet in the UK. He had taken offence to us using the brand EZY and put his lawyers onto us. While that wasn’t the reason we changed to JUCY, it did illustrate the importance of owning your brand and protecting it. We are after all a marketing company that just happens to run hotels, rental cars, campervans and a cruise company. Our brand is our biggest asset. I am pleased to say that the rebrand to JUCY was the best move we ever made and is now protected around the world.

There is no question that a lot of New Zealand entrepreneurs build amazing businesses and then sell them instead of taking them to the next stage including going global. We have a very good lifestyle in New Zealand and I think a lot of people are happy to cash up. There is nothing wrong with that provided there are also businesses who want to become global players. New Zealand needs more XERO, Orion Health type businesses who truly think global. I also think the lack of IPO’s in NZ means that a lot of business owners who need capital to continue to grow, decide that it is sometimes too risky or too hard and that it is easier to sell the business than take the next step. In the US and Australia, businesses strive to list on the exchange not only as a way to grow but also as a possible long term exit for the owners. We need to encourage more people to see the capital markets as a way to grow businesses. It would be great to see young entrepreneurs start businesses with the sole desire of listing them one day. You’ve already achieved so much in terms of business success. What’s your biggest goal for the next 10 years? We have one goal and that is to see JUCY become a global tourism brand. Both Dan and I are committed to JUCYFYING the world and have plans to take our model to new markets. The launch of JUCY USA has shown us that the brand and product offering has global appeal and there is no reason why we can’t see JUCY operating in different countries across the globe. We are currently considering an IPO and see this as a great way to help us continue to grow the business. To find out more about Tim and JUCY, visit their website at www.jucyrentals.com or www.jucy.co.nz

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I P / I n n o vat i o n

Case Study: Flexi Mower IP IN ACTION

By Deirdre Coleman The importance of protecting a unique idea with watertight patents has been a crucial lesson inventor Trevor McCoid learnt in the eight years it’s taken for his Flexi Mower to go to market. In 2003, McCoid approached Partner Anton Blijlevens with a working prototype of his invention - a mower attachment that fits onto any line trimmer. “The Flexi Mower hovers 35mm off the ground, and the suction of the mower holds it there so it’s completely safe to use,” explains McCoid. “It feeds the lawn by mulching the grass back into it.” “It’s a simple idea, but it hadn’t been done anywhere before,” says Blijlevens, who immediately saw the products’ potential. “It’s the logical lawnmower alternative for people with small properties.” On Blijlevens’ advice, McCoid registered his company, Torque Technologies, and filed an international patent pending application to cover 120 countries. This has now proceeded to a full patent in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China and the US, which have been identified as key markets. These patents proved invaluable when the Flexi Mower’s first Chinese manufacturer and Australasian distributor were

bought out by another company that attempted to bring a poorly made version of McCoid’s product onto the market. “I told them to cease manufacturing as it was in breach of my patent,” says McCoid. “In doing this, I was challenging my own intellectual property coverage. “The fact that they had to destroy the sub-standard product proved that our intellectual property was sound.” Undeterred by the initial false start that cost McCoid two years, he found another Chinese manufacturer, and has now secured sales through Ryobi’s multinational parent company, TTi, which began marketing the Flexi Mower in the UK earlier this year. “Anton’s been very helpful; he’s guided me and given me good advice. We trust each other and I knew he’d understand what I had, which is important. I understood the products and the business end but not the patent process and how to go about protecting my product.” The Flexi Mower will soon be available in Australasia.

Written by Deirdre Coleman, this case study was featured in #39 of Idealog. Photo courtesy of Robin Hodgkinson.

P E R S ONA L T R A I N E R

Entrepreneurial Intelligence with Sandy Geyer Do I have the right personality ? By Sandy Geyer

I’ve been told that people with certain personality types have a higher chance of being a successful entrepreneur than others. I want to start my own business but I’m concerned that my personality may mean I’m not cut out for entrepreneurship. I suppose I am quite introverted and detail oriented and would prefer to stay “behind the scenes”. What do you think? Is it true that some personality types should not try and start their own business? From my experience, personality types don’t give you an indication of whether you would be a successful entrepreneur at all, but they do provide very helpful guidelines as to how to play to your strengths as you align and set up your business structure. Your level of self awareness is critical in this area. As an introvert, you would most likely score highly on the task oriented and detail oriented dimensions of personality type measures. Task orientation is a great attribute as you would function well in a “control” position. This also indicates that you would focus on getting the job done without being concerned about how much you think people like you. Your detail orientation would ensure that you think things through carefully, analyse your results and set good systems in place as you go. In other words, you will look before you leap! The downside of your possible natural detail orientation, is that you might get too caught up in the accuracy aspect of things and forget about the necessity of taking massive and consistent action. Your task orientation might also cause you to struggle with inspiring your stakeholders (ie clients, staff, partners) to follow you.

The benefit of personality theory over and above the insight it might give us about ourselves is the knowledge of what drives human behavior in our businesses. In your case, you would be most interested in how to be a valuable contributor, sitting behind the scenes, whilst mobilising the right people to storm the barriers. I would strongly suggest that you learn more about personality drivers and how to apply that information to the structuring of your business. Ensure that you are playing to your strengths whilst filling in the gaps by either partnering with, or employing the people who have what you don’t. In each issue Sandy will be answering commonly asked questions from new entrepreneurs. If you have a question for Sandy to do with entrepreneurship, building successful businesses or the challenges and difficulties faced by entrepreneurs, email the editor at nick@ nzentrepreneur.co.nz.

Sandy Geyer is an entrepreneur and mentor and teaches the principles of entrepreneurial intelligence (EnQ), to entrepreneurs in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. You can visit Sandy’s website at www.enqpractice.com

TAKING THE PLUNGE

Rich Tangney (left) & James Ehau (right)

Profile:

PHD Cleanse Rich Tangney & James Ehau Profile by Nick Harley Each month, we talk to up and coming New Zealand entrepreneurs who have set about turning their idea into a real business. PHD Cleanse is New Zealand’s first HPP cold-pressed, 100% raw vegetable & fruit juice cleanse system, delivered direct to consumer’s doors.

Briefly tell us about your business. How did you first come up with the idea? PHD Cleanse was established in early 2012. Customers can choose between a one, three or five day cleansing system which can help reboot their digestive system and change into healthier eating habits. The PHD story was the result of a trip overseas where, while attending an evening out with friends, we met a young lady who was drinking a strange looking green juice during our three course meal! She later explained that she was on a juice cleanse and that for the last two days she had chosen to consume only juices. Knowing that NZ has some of, if not the best produce in the world and with James’ knowledge of the beverage industry, it was not long before we were in the kitchen trialling and concocting delicious healthy juice recipes for our system. What is the big goal for your business? Our long term goal is to be able to provide an online platform where we provide a ‘one stop shop’ for our customer’s health and well being requirements. For us, the juice cleanse system

is just the beginning, we have some great ideas on how we would like to expand Pure Health Delivered which we will be working on very shortly. What inspired you to take the plunge? James and I are both very passionate about living a healthy lifestyle, so for us it was easy to be involved in a project like PHD Cleanse. Being able to see your business growing overnight gives us a huge sense of accomplishment which inspires us to keep looking at how we can continually try and improve what we have.

What advice would you give to any people reading this who are thinking of starting a business? As someone once told us “you only miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. From that we would only add, “make sure the shots are well calculated!” Also, never underestimate the power of networking, you never know what opportunities that small conversations could open up for you. Find out more at: Website: www.phdcleanse.co.nz

What have you found to be the most challenging aspect of building your business so far? Scalability has been a challenge all on it’s own! When you have a fresh, chilled product with a short shelf life it is hard work trying to forecast productions and then logistically being able to deliver that product. It is an ongoing challenge for us but having a need to scale up is a good challenge to have!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/PhdCleanse Twitter: @PHDcleanse Are you a New Zealand entrepreneur that has recently “taken the plunge?” Would like to tell our readers your own story? Get in touch with Nick at nick@nzentrepreneur.co.nz

What keeps you going when you feel like giving up? Giving up has never really been a choice we could ever afford to make and I guess with such a broad business plan we have always had something to work towards. A lot of kudos needs to go to our partners as well! They are both very supportive of what we are doing and have always offered their knowledge in their respective fields which has helped considerably.

T THE PLUNGE SAEKCI NTGI ON

Jillian completed the Great Wall Marathon

Profile:

Run 21

Jillian Rae Profile by Nick Harley Don’t you just wish that for once in your life you could break out of the mundane routine and achieve something really worthwhile? Jillian Rae’s current business venture helps you do just that, as well as live a healthier lifestyle.

Briefly tell us about your business. How did you first come up with the idea? We all know the kinds of things that we’re supposed to do to stay fit and healthy, and throughout my twenties, I was doing none of them. It therefore shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that by the time I turned 29, I was overweight, unfit and felt like a failure. I tried a bunch of different ways to get my fitness back, but I couldn’t stick to any of them long enough to make a difference. I didn’t want to enter my thirties feeling or looking the way I did, so in desperation I signed up for a fitness bootcamp. And I started to run. At first I was terrible. It took months before I could run 3 kilometres without stopping. Less than a year later, I ran my first ever half marathon. Six months after that, I found myself in Beijing, China - lining up in the start corral of the Great Wall Marathon, one of the toughest 42 kilometre courses in the world. That’s when I discovered that ANYONE can run a marathon, even me. A marathon is a pretty hard sell, though, so instead I started Run21 Half Marathon Training with the idea that a half marathon - 21 kilometres - is a distance that most people can imagine themselves completing, and probably even have on their bucket list of things to do. We offer bootcamp-style training for beginners, which progresses gradually into more of a running group as participants get closer to their chosen race. We teach people everything they need to know about nutrition, hydration, shoes and gear, as well as how to look after their muscles with massage and physio options. The programme is designed to take anyone, whatever their current level of fitness, and get them across the finish line of their own first half marathon. What is the big goal for your business? There are two big goals I’d like to focus on as we grow Run21 over the next few years. The first is for it to become a real community, both online and off. At the moment, the

training sessions are just a bunch of small, disparate groups scattered around Auckland, each doing their own thing in their own way. Building that into something much bigger that people can really feel a part of, getting some friendly rivalries going, becoming a real goldmine of resources for beginner runners - that’s where I’d like to see Run21 headed. If any of the readers have any experience or advice in that area I’d love to hear it, because it’s not something I have any background in myself. The second goal is obviously to expand the programme outside of Auckland. So far I’ve kept the advertising spend very local, but of course on the internet these things have a tendency to spread. Even before our first bootcamp launched, I was getting emails from people all around NZ asking when we plan to start up in their area. By the time we had our first Auckland customers on board, I’d already connected a couple of would-be half marathoners in Otago with a keen Dunedin-based running coach, all of whom had contacted me separately wanting to be involved with Run21. So, looking to take the concept to other destinations is definitely on the agenda, once the business model has been tried, tested and refined in Auckland. What inspired you to take the plunge? Like many people who decide to work for themselves, fitness trainers don’t tend to enjoy the marketing and admin side of their business. It stresses them out and takes up far too much of their time. They’d much rather be out coaching clients and making a tangible difference in people’s lives than sitting at their computer figuring out a social media strategy or writing articles for their website. On the other hand, I love doing those things. And yes, I want to make a difference in people’s lives, too. So it seemed to me that I could really help out both the trainers and their potential clients by creating a business that bridged the gap between them. A lot of people have the perception

that personal trainers are these super-fit drill sergeants who can’t relate to the feeling of being overweight and terrified of making an idiot of yourself in public. To some extent, that’s true - most fitness trainers have been into sport their entire lives and have no idea how humiliating it can be to learn to run as an adult. I realised that as a former fitness failure, I was in the perfect position to understand both sides of the equation. I’d briefly contemplated getting certified as a trainer myself, but I soon decided that there are already plenty of people out there doing a fine job of getting up at 6am in the freezing cold darkness to coach a workout. I’m a big believer in playing to your strengths, and being cheerful and enthusiastic before sunrise is NOT one of my strengths. Of course, there are also Run21 sessions available at more sociable hours of the day as well, for the rest of us who aren’t quite so good at getting to bed early. What have you found to be the most challenging aspect of building your business so far? I wouldn’t ask my customers to do something I’m not prepared to do myself, so the occasional 6am start is still on the agenda, and to be honest I still haven’t quite got the hang of it. But an even bigger challenge for me is getting past people’s preconceived ideas about themselves and what they’re capable of. Admittedly, a half marathon does sound rather daunting. But that’s also what gives the goal its power. Someone who goes from being unable to run, to completing a half marathon has every right to feel really proud of their accomplishment. After crossing that finish line, they get permanent bragging rights. Compare that with someone who sets out to “lose weight” or to “get a bikini body for summer”. Those people are going to fail at their goal - because they don’t actually have one! The amateur psychologist in me finds people’s resistance fascinating, but at times very, very frustrating. A person needs to reach a certain level of self-worth and self-confidence before they’re prepared to invest time and money in their health and mental well-being. So the people who need this the most are the ones who excel at talking themselves out of it.

What keeps you going when you feel like giving up? Almost everybody who’s encountered Run21 in some shape or form has been wildly enthusiastic about the idea, even more so than I’d ever imagined. As difficult as it can be getting people to show up to their first training session, I know that once they do they’ll be hooked. I persist because I know that what Run21 offers is a winwin-win for everybody. For the trainers and other businesses behind Run21, for the customer, and for me. Out of all the projects I’ve ever been involved with, this is the first time I’ve believed that statement to be 100% true. In the past I’ve sometimes felt taken advantage of, and other times I’ve felt like I’m selling a product nobody really needs. It feels great to be finally working on something that I know provides value for all parties involved. What advice would you give to any people reading this who are thinking of starting a business? Test everything and don’t be too attached to your ideas. You’ll try a hundred different things and fail at most of them before you find something that really works. The Run21 I’m working on today bears very little resemblance to the Run21 that began in my imagination last year. And I’m sure that by the end of this year it’ll look quite different again. Build the thing your customer wants to buy, not the thing that you want to sell them. Involve them in the process of figuring out exactly what that is, because then it becomes “our project” and not just “my project which I want you to buy into”. Experiment with EVERYTHING. Instead of printing 5000 flyers the same, print 1000 copies each of five differentlyworded versions, and see which ones get the best results. It costs the same and gives you five times more information about your customer and what it is they really want. Test your email subject lines to see what people respond to and what they ignore. When you chat with people in everyday life, try telling your story in different ways to see the reactions you get. The possibilities are endless. Above all, remember that taking the time out of your crazy schedule on a daily basis to exercise actually GIVES you energy, rather than draining you. And if you struggle to stay motivated with that, a half marathon is the ideal goal to keep your fitness on track! Find out more at: Website: www.run21.co.nz Facebook: www.facebook.com/Run21NZ Twitter: @run21nz

Training at Boot Camp

T o m o rr o w s ’ E n t repre n e u rs

Young Enterprise Terry Shubkin, CEO Young Enterprise Trust

he second term of the school year is a really busy time for the Young Enterprise team and the students we work with. Students who are taking part in The Lion

Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme launch their businesses across the country and start to generate sales of their new products and services. The best and brightest of those

This year we’ve also spent part of this term piloting a new programme for primary students. The Junior Enterprise Challenge has been a huge success and we’re keen to see it rolled out across the country. Like any charity, we need to find funding to make this happen but we have seen the benefits of the programme firsthand and are determined to keep it going.

students also come together in Auckland for a weekend to participate in two international business competitions, before six are chosen to represent New Zealand at a competition in Hong Kong. We will also visit 19 different schools in the nine weeks of the term to run the BP Business Challenge, where younger students come up with a new product idea which they pitch to local business people. We will also host the Fairfax Media New Zealand Business Hall of Fame at the end of July, which will see some of this country’s greatest business leaders honoured. Tickets are selling fast, so if you’d like to attend make sure you visit www.businesshalloffame.co.nz.

Support Young Enterprise Trust at Give A Little

Junior Enterprise Challenge

Primary students get down to business

oung Enterprise Trust has launched its latest programme, the Junior Enterprise Challenge. The programme is designed for students in Years 5-8 and is

being developed and piloted in Auckland, as part of the Glenn

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Its a great opport unit y for the kids to learn about the value of money

Family Foundation’s Otara Project. The Junior Enterprise Challenge is run over three days, with Young Enterprise staff as hosts. The programme engages 50 students from local primary and intermediate schools in an introductory enterprise and financial education experiential programme. Students work in teams of 6-7, with each team designing and producing an item or service. They are engaged in a range of activities that culminates in a Market Day on Day 3, where they will sell their goods and services to parents and people from the local community. The first challenge took place at Yendarra School, with students from Bairds Mainfreight Primary School, Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate Junior School, Dawson Road Primary School and Flatbush Primary School taking part. Terry Shubkin, Chief Executive of Young Enterprise Trust says the emphasis is on learning while having fun, and the Market Day at the end lets them showcase their ideas for their parents and caregivers. “This is a real highlight for the children,” says Shubkin. A panel of judges from the local business community is invited to attend the Market Day and determine the winners. Peter McGlashan, General Manager of the Glenn Family Foundation, judged at Yendarra School and enjoyed the experience. “It’s a great opportunity for the kids to learn about the value of money. I hope that exposure to this type of scheme will set them up well for the future,” says McGlashan.

Check out the Junior Enterprise Challenge in action www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb5Pa1QjW7I

Getting It Done

“ Image by Doug Belshaw

Building Apps: Where do I Start? Got an idea for an app but don’t know where to begin? Misty Gibbs from Hype This Track shares her own story, taking her business from idea to app store.

Misty, What’s your background? How did you come up with the idea for your app? My background is pretty varied; I’ve been a real estate agent, a nanny, a truck driver, and a student. Currently, apart from working on Hype This Track, I’m studying marketing and entrepreneurship extramurally with Massey University, and I host a weekly radio show. I’ve always loved businesses, and I had been thinking about creating an app for a while. I spent around three months while I was travelling gathering ideas and researching the process. I needed to work out how to outsource the project, as I didn’t have the design or development skills to do it myself. A few of the early ideas I had for an app were pretty complex, especially for a first app. I started thinking more about what I wanted my app to be, rather than exactly what I wanted it to do. I decided I wanted my app to be one that had regular, high usage; viral, so I needed it to connect people together; free, but I still wanted it to generate revenue; ad free, and one that was interesting to as many people as humanly possible who used a smartphone. The idea for Hype This Track was perfect, as it combined all of these elements, but also had the music aspect, which is something I’m pretty passionate about!

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Once you had the idea for your app, what did you do next? I put an ad on freelancer.com to see what level of response I got. I had about 60ish bids on the project within a couple of days, but found 90% of them started their message with ‘we have read and understand your brief, and are able to do the job’...which would have been great, but I hadn’t actually posted a brief up. I felt the bids were a bit too spammy, so I decided I personally wouldn’t use freelancer. com, or that type of site, at all. I ended up looking a little closer to home, and posted an ad on Student Job Search and on TradeMe Jobs. The number of applicants really surprised me, and their level of experience was pretty high. As I had not been through the process, the main criteria for me was someone who had built an app before, though I didn’t mind if it was a small, hobby type app. It was just important that they had been through the process, and knew what steps were involved. I ended up finding a post grad student based in Auckland, and a designer out of Russia after looking through portfolios on Dribble. Both of them were brilliant to work with. Did you commit money to the idea? Did you pay for the development? How did you feel about spending money? Any fears it wouldn’t work out? So far the app is fully self-funded, and I’ve paid for all of the development and design costs. I was prepared to spend a substantial amount on it, and was happy to finance it myself. I also knew that because of the business model that I’ve chosen, I wouldn’t see any significant returns for a while, so at this stage it’s not something I’m worried about. I’m expecting growth to be exponential for the app, as it’s one that engages you with other people; friends will get friends on to it. I’m so pleased with how it’s come out. The feedback I’ve had so far has been great, and it’s an app that I’m hoping will be a core app for a lot of people! How did you do the development? Did you create a prototype and show people before working on it further? Did you have designs to work with to get your ideas across to the developer? I created a wireframe on an iPad using AppCooker. It’s really easy to use, and I mock up all of my app ideas on it. The wireframe was just a super basic, no colour mockup of every screen that I envisioned the app having. I had every screen on its own page with notes and bullet points of the features of that particular screen, and sent that to the developer and designer.

Doing it this way meant that the bulk of the coding was done by the time the design was finished, so it only took a couple of weeks to integrate the design into the app, rather than a few months to build the app from scratch after the designs were completed. Is it easy to get your app into the app store? From what I found, yes! Apple has quite strict guidelines for developers and apps (available online) especially in terms of user interfaces and gestures and content. If your app works within these guidelines, it takes roughly 7-14 days to get accepted.

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I love everything about the app industry. You can work from anywhere and at any time.

We worked out a system where the designer would send me a .jpg file of the final design of each screen as he completed it, which I then sent to the developer so he could start coding. That way, he could start coding with the end result of the app in mind, even though he didn’t have the physical images to work with yet.

S Ee C G tT t Ii ON ng It Done What advice would you give to others doing this? Anything you’d do differently or to watch out for? The best advice I could give someone wanting to create apps is just to spend a huge amount of time researching and googling everything you can think of; the process, other apps, business models, how to outsource, experiences of other app developers, how to generate revenue, how to promote your app, good app designs, analytic tools, etc. This is one area you could never spend too much time on, and it’s something you should carry on doing as long as you have apps in the App Store…I still learn so much and get new ideas from reading blogs and forums. One thing that I had prepared myself for, but still surprised me, is just how lost you can get in the App Store. As of January this year, there were 775,000 apps available on the App Store www.apple.com/pr/ library/2013/01/07App-Store-Tops-40-BillionDownloads-with-Almost-Half-in-2012.html. It’s a good idea to make sure you have a marketing plan to push your apps outside of the App Store. I love everything about the app industry; it’s creative, you can work from anywhere and at any time, and you can get started with very little start up capital and no overheads. For me personally, it’s the perfect business. How’s the app doing? What’s your revenue model? What are your plans for the future? The business model for the Hype This Track is a free app with affiliate marketing. I became an iTunes affiliate, so every time a person shares a track on the app, a ‘Download on iTunes’ badge for that song is automatically added in the top right hand corner of the post. If someone likes that song, they can tap on the badge and be directed to the song in iTunes (if available on iTunes), and from there, the app generates a commission. It’s a way to ensure I can keep the app ad free, free to use, but still generate a return from it. With this revenue model, the focus is on the number of active users as opposed to downloads. Further down the track I’m planning to develop more features into the app, such as audio fingerprinting, develop the app for Android, and optimise for iPad. The developer and I are also working on more apps together, so I’m excited see those apps in the App Store as well! For more information: App Store: www.appstore.com/hypethistrack Website: www.hypethistrack.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/HypeThisTrack Twitter: @hypethistrack Misty’s blog: www.mistygibbs.blogspot.co.nz

Path of the Lion

Sandy Geyer, our Entrepreneurial other well known Intelligence (EnQ) expert has just gurus in their field, released her new book, Path she demonstrates of the Lion in New Zealand. exactly how to follow the path of Path of the Lion is not just another the king of the boring and uninspiring business book. entrepreneurial jungle, the EnQ By use of engaging and insightful Lion, using her 4 entrepreneurial species analogies and real EnQ tools. life case studies, Sandy offers a guided exploration into the limiting traits and common mistakes of entrepreneurs found To find out which territory you might be in the less successful territories of these frequenting there is a free assessment for species. Using her own real life our NZEntrepreneur readers at experiences along with the expertise of www.enqpractice.com/assessment.

Path of the Lion is a must ‐ read for entrepreneurs of all shapes and industries and has been compared by its reviewers to “Think and Grow Rich”, Napoleon Hill and “Mind Power” John Kehoe, due to the enormous value of the qualified practical advice that it offers. Here is what her readers have to say; “I finally understand why I am in business and what I have to do to move that business forward.” “If everyone going into business reads ‘Path of the Lion’ first, there will be a lot of successful people out there!”

NZ Entrepreneur founder, Richard Liew says: “Filled with wisdom that can only be learned and passed on by those who "walk their talk", Sandy is the real deal and I have no doubt that this book will be a huge help for any entrepreneur with an open mind and the desire to learn.”

Available for purchase now at www.enqpractice.com.

T H E PA D D O C K What’s happening in the NZ entrepreneur ecosystem

Upcoming ICEHOUSE Events Dr. Rob Adams - New Venture Creation After two highly successful visits, internationally renowned start-up investor, author, consultant and former technology executive Dr. Rob Adams is returning to New Zealand for the 3rd consecutive year as part of the ICEHOUSE International Entrepreneur in Residence Programme.

Startup Weekend is where entrepreneurs, developers, and designers get together to form new businesses in a 54-hour marathon of inspiration, perspiration, collaboration, and fun! We attract people with all skill levels in a friendly, welcoming, yet challenging environment. Startup Weekend Hawkes Bay - 28th June 2013

Auckland

- 2nd July

Tauranga

- 9th July

Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand at R Block, EIT (Eastern Institute of Technology)

Hawkes Bay

- 11th July

For more information visit -

For more information visit: www.theicehouse.co.nz/rob-adams-2013/

www.hawkesbay.startupweekend.org Startup Weekend Tauranga - 5th July 2013

First Wednesdays

BNZ Partner Centre, Cameron Rd

On the First Wednesday of every month, The ICEHOUSE opens up to ambitious entrepreneurs who are hungry to understand the steps to start-up business success. Access our knowledge, tools and contacts to discover how to turn your idea into a business success.

For more information visit -

For more information visit: www.theicehouse.co.nz/first-wednesday

www.tauranga.startupweekend.org Startup Weekend Wellington - 16th August 2013 Massey University College of Creative Arts, Wellington For more information visit www.wellington.startupweekend.org

The entrepreneur club

ECENTRE MASSEY

The Entrepreneur Club is a friendly, supportive community group who get together on a regular basis. Interested? Come along to the next meetup on 1st June.

Business Idea Workshop

For more information visit: www.meetup.com/The-Entrepreneur-Club-NZ

You’ve got a great idea you’ve been thinking about. You may have been developing it for a while. You think you have the drive and passion to see it through. You want to be part of the next generation of smart New Zealand companies going global. If this sounds like you, we’d like to meet you. Come along to one of our free Business Idea Workshops. When: 31st July (Simpson Western Lawyers) & 22nd August (ECENTRE) - 5:30pm-7:00pm Please register early to secure your spot. To register contact ecentre: reception@ecentre.org.nz

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Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Henry Ford