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Where Kiwi explorers connect & make a difference
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Last year 691 Kea community members or ‘solvers’ from around the globe extended a helping hand to provide invaluable support to to 407 Kiwi entrepreneurs, founders and business people.
The Kea Connect Retrospective report contains case studies, insights and advice which showcase how Kea’s community can help unlock international growth for your business.
Kea Connect retrospective – 2022To view our 2021 Kea Connect Retrospective report click here.
In the early days mountain biking was anything but a family affair for Dan, his wife and their three boys.
“Our kids were 3, 7 and 9 years old, and we’d have to split up to go riding. I’d ride the longer trails with our older boys, whilst my wife would stay near the carpark with our youngest son on his balance bike.”
It wasn’t that the family didn’t want to ride together, it was just that Dan and his wife couldn’t find a suitable seat for their youngest son, one that would let him enjoy mountain biking, fit their bikes in the way they wanted and keep their son safe all at the same time. After some searching they decided to solve the problem themselves, asking a friend, Tom, to design a custom seat for them.
“Once we started using the seat out on the trails, people kept approaching us to ask where they could get one – that’s when Tom and I realised there could be an opportunity here. We decided to do a road trip around New Zealand and Australia to see what interest we could get from bike retailers, and that’s how Kids Ride Shotgun was born.”
Since its beginnings in 2017 Kids Ride Shotgun has enjoyed phenomenal growth. Today the company employs 18 people, and its products are sold in over 20 markets. Dan attributes the company’s success to two key factors – one finding a gap in the market and two, being the customer.
“Because it was a product we designed for ourselves, it meant we really knew what the problems were, and were able to design something that solved a lot of problems and delivered an amazing customer experience.”
Having never run a retail product business before, Dan and Tom had to quickly get up to speed with all the facets of the business, including branding, marketing, finance and supply chain. Dan says the onset of the pandemic provided incredible growth for the company with the Government mandating mountain biking as an approved outdoor activity.
“Like everyone else, we did face supply chain challenges, but we were lucky that we had understanding customers and we also placed some pretty big bets early on. We saw what was happening and invested really heavily in stock, which was a bit scary at the time, but ended up working out to our advantage.”
Dan says from the start Kids Ride Shotgun has always had a global mindset and so expanding into international markets was a step they took fairly early on.
“We had to think pretty big as we knew there weren’t enough people in New Zealand to succeed here, so we’ve had to be global from the start. Before we did that initial road trip, we had already looked at what was on offer globally and we knew there was a gap.”
As the company has grown it’s also evolved. In the beginning, Dan says he and Tom thought starting up a business would be a great way to help set up their families. However, they quickly realised what they were doing had a much bigger purpose.
“I think being purpose-led is smart business. What we’re doing is a genuinely good thing for the world. We are getting kids off screens, onto trails, into nature, getting exercise, and spending quality time with their parents. When I open Instagram and see all the people tagging us in their photos from their rides – all these families out riding together. It makes you feel great inside to know you’re helping families to do that.”
And despite their success to date, Dan says the company has lots of plans for the future including creating a generation of mini mountain bikers.
“No one in the world has really looked at mountain biking as a journey and thought ‘how do I best raise a kid into the sport of mountain biking’, particularly in that zero to five-year age range, so that’s our mission now. Our product development team is looking at different ways we can give parents and kids what they need to get out on the trials together.”
“In 20 years, we want to be known as the brand that helped create this mini-mountain biker movement. We want to help raise the next generation of mountain bikers and get millions of kids onto the trails with their families. If we could look back in 20 years and say we helped do that, then that would be success.”
Kids Ride Shotgun came to Kea Connect for advice on providing customer support across multiple time zones, languages and platforms. Kea Connect was able to connect them with a fellow Kiwi CEO who had been through a similar challenge and could provide advice and guidance. The company then utilised Kea Connect a second time when images of their product were being used without their permission on fraudulent sites. They were looking to speak with someone about brand protection for online consumer goods. Kea Connect were able to offer a connection with our legal partners DLA Piper for advice.
When Founder and CEO of tech company Parkable, Toby Litten, saw an email from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet asking him to join a trade delegation to the US, he thought it must be a joke and dismissed the email as spam. It wasn’t until he received a follow up call from the PM’s office that he realised he had been invited to take part in a once in a lifetime opportunity.
“It’s not an everyday thing to be invited to something like that. I was incredibly humbled to be asked. The other people in that delegation were some of the most remarkable business people New Zealand has. To be able to learn from them over the week was incredible and that’s before we even get to all the offshore connections we made.”
Parkable uses software to make parking easy and optimised and in turn, more sustainable. The company has recently partnered with tech giant Meta to improve the management of their workplace parking assets across all physical offices globally, and Toby says the ability to connect with other key players in the US market has resulted in direct business for his company.
“Our PM has incredible brand and pulling power in foreign markets and we saw that come to bear in the US. Being able to be part of that platform goes a really long way to raising the visibility of a company. That leads to business growth and we are so grateful for this opportunity.”
For Co-founder and Director of The Better Packaging Co, Kate Bezar, being asked to join the
delegation gave her validation that of all the work the company has put into continuous
innovation and their sustainability credentials over the past years was worth it.
“The Better Packaging Co. designs revolutionary, customised and sustainable packaging
solutions to support eCommerce and retail. We guarantee our products’ quality and ensure they
conform to the most rigorous global certifications. To be asked to be part of the delegation really
felt like a recognition of everything that we have worked really, really hard to achieve. For a
long time we have always done things by the book, and we have been really careful not to
‘green wash’. It’s so much work and sometimes you wonder if it’s worth the effort, but then it
all pays off when you are asked to participate in something like this.”
The delegation landed in Los Angeles before travelling to New York, Washington DC, Boston,
San Francisco and Seattle. Along the way they met with dozens of people from some of the world’s largest companies. Kate says the mission of the delegation was clear -– to let the US know that New Zealand is open for business and is a leader in sustainability and innovation.
That was a message that tech company Auror, were keen to be a part of. The company operates a platform for retailers focused on preventing crime, reducing loss, and making stores safer. Auror, working with retail giant Walmart, has seen huge growth, particularly in the US, during the pandemic. Co-founder and Director, Tom Batterbury, says the US represents one of their biggest growth markets.
“To be asked on this trip and to be able to position ourselves as a leading New Zealand tech company with a global focus, that’s huge for us. The world’s best retailers leverage Auror to reduce crime and improve safety in their stores, so to be singled out as an innovative software company that is making the world a better place by Microsoft Vice Chair and President, Brad Smith, is incredible. It’s a testament to the hard work we’ve put into the US market over the last three years.”
The connections made on the trip were an invaluable part of the experience and Toby says for both him and his business it really highlighted the unique ‘degrees of separation’ benefits that Kiwi businesses have over those in larger markets.
“The ability to connect as Kiwi is really unique, if you really want to be, you are only two phone calls away from the PM at any one time. It’s taken us several years to realise that there is this incredible New Zealand network that exists overseas which we have not leveraged anywhere near well enough, and we are just waking up to that now. The Kiwi community is awesome and they are everywhere. There is a really strong sense that they want to give back and help and I am really grateful for that. We have leveraged that 2 degrees of separation really well in the New Zealand market and that has been a huge part of our success. Now we really need to look at how we can expand that offshore through platforms like Kea Connect.”
Kate agrees with this sentiment saying that the power of connection is one which cannot be underestimated.
“There were connections we made in Boston with legal and policy people experts who I
know, in future, are going to be really important for us when we are looking to understand
intricacies across the different states. Knowing people on the ground is so valuable. From our
perspective and there is obviously an incredible network of Kiwis in the US that we could, and
should be leveraging.”
Now back on New Zealand soil, all the businesses are reflecting on the trip and looking at how they can share the connections and learning with others. Tom says for Auror the trip highlighted the huge opportunity for all Kiwi companies to band together and tell the story of New Zealand.
“On the delegation we had people from the technology industry, the food industry and the
manufacturing industry. This diversity really highlighted the opportunity for us all to tell the world what New Zealand has to offer. We’ve got huge numbers of Kiwi overseas doing incredible things, taking those NZ values to the world. If we can all work together to tell the trade mission’s story of why New Zealand is the best country for the world, I think we will ultimately see results for all our export businesses and that’s when we will be doing a really good job.”
If you would like find out how our free Kea Connect service can help connect your business with global Kiwi ready to help out with in-market advice and insights please get in with Kea Connect today
Many people will be able to identify with the early journey of Six Barrel Soda Co-founder Joe Slater. After graduating with a BA from Victoria University, the Wellington born Kiwi left New Zealand for the traditional OE, and like many young Kiwi explorers took a job in the hospitality industry first in Australia and later in London and then Paris.
“I was working predominantly as a cocktail bartender in France when my long time friend and now business partner Mike Stewart, got in touch with a business proposal he was keen to partner with me on. I decided it sounded like a good idea and subsequently packed up and headed home to New Zealand.”
That particular business proposal never actually got off the ground, but Joe says it wasn’t long until the two came up with another idea – this time to open a cafe in one of Wellington’s most popular areas.
“We opened a little cafe run out of a caravan, which at the time was a pretty out there idea. We had some tables and chairs and a bunch of plants. It was actually really cool. We ran that for a few years before opening Monterey, which is our bar and diner in Newtown. It was there that the idea for Six Barrel Soda was born.”
Using his offshore experience as a cocktail bartender Joe had been experimenting with a bunch of different syrups and concentrates for Monterey customers and began thinking about how they could expand on the idea.
“Mike and I thought this is actually a really interesting way for people to make drinks without lots of unhealthy ingredients and that was the start of Six Barrel. We refined the process and decided to focus on a soda, for us it was about offering an alternative that’s better for you.”
The idea originally started as a soda shop with products people could take home and over the past decade has grown into the syrup and carbonated soda company that they are today.
For some people taking on a market that is dominated by global giants like Coca-Cola and Frucor might be intimidating, but Joe says Six Barrel has always found success in focusing on what they do best rather than what their competitors are doing.
“I don’t think anyone needs to take over the whole market. I mean, the market is big enough for 100 companies to be huge, you know? We are not trying to take on Coke and what we do is not a direct swap, It’s a different kind of thing. We’ve got a really good business we’re proud of and it’s more about challenging ourselves rather than comparing ourselves to our competition. Just because something works for another company it doesn’t mean it will work for us. It’s better for both your sanity and focus if you concentrate on what you do best, not what others are doing.”
“The big way we differentiate ourselves is that we are a syrup company. Plus we have always been really experimental with our flavours which also helps set us apart.”
Reflecting on the past decade, Joe says the business has achieved a lot of its goals – even if they didn’t necessarily make a hard and fast list.
“I think a lot of the things we have achieved were goals, even if they weren’t necessarily written down as such. That’s things like having a good team around us, working reasonable hours and getting paid properly, having a dedicated kind of production space and having opportunities with collaboration partners and export partners.”
During their decade of growth they have seen huge changes to the non-alcoholic beverage market and part of the company’s ability to grow has come from being adaptable.
“I think if someone tried to launch an alcohol free gin in 2012, they would have been laughed out of the shop. But nowadays there are so many available. Things are always changing. Our flavours have also adapted, in the beginning we were quite American like, whereas today we are a premium New Zealand brand with an identity that reflects that. For example we have a Kiwi fruit and Kawa Kawa soda coming out soon, we do feijoa and other Kiwiana flavours.”
While it hasn’t always been plain sailing Joe says the key to staying sticking around is to trust the process and keep trying.
“We’ve definitely tried a lot of things along the way that didn’t work, but at the same time, we keep coming up with new ideas and keep hunting out new opportunities with people and brands, so it’s really about having the faith that things will work out.”
His advice to those starting out is to be selective and focus on a few things at a time rather than trying to do everything.
“We’ve definitely got a lot better at not just immediately leaping into every idea. Sometimes when people talk about success they talk about staff numbers or how many markers they’re in. But if you’ve got 100 staff and your business is a mess, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the same with markets, we’re in five countries at the moment, two of them are pretty little and just starting and two of them are kind of focused ones and one could be good. So I think not overstretching yourself is key“
Another piece of advice would be to really think about the money you need. We’ve always financed the company ourselves, that’s something I’m quite keen on. Every now and then we meet people who are just starting and they say ‘we’re going to raise all this capital and it’s going to be great. And I’m like, that’s cool but what are you going to spend all that money on? and they say, ‘oh I don’t know yet.’ In the early years you only want to raise and spend what you really need to or else you create a whole other set of problems.”
While Joe and Mike may not have written down many short term business goals they do have a definite long term one, and Joe says it’s one that’s really important to him.
“I really just want to create a legacy business. something that is going to be around for 100 years, whether or not we own it or not. To create something really enduring, that would be the biggest achievement of all.”
Joe is one of Kea’s many ‘solvers’ – Globally experienced Kiwi who are keen to provide in-market advice and insight to other Kiwi businesses through our free Kea Connect service. If you’d like to speak to Joe or any of our other solvers then get in touch with Kea Connect today
Supply Chain Solutions (SCS) provides Kiwi businesses with a one stop shop to grow globally. Founded in New Zealand, the company had been operating in several different Global markets before launching their Europe operations in 2020. The aim is to help businesses with everything from setting up supply chains to understanding how to operate in global markets. Adrian says setting up a business in the middle of a global pandemic was an experience he won’t forget anytime soon.
“We got over to Amsterdam in the thick of the lockdown, trying to find a facility and set everything up was both an interesting and challenging experience. It was the first time in 30 years in the industry I have ever seen logistics break and break quickly. All of a sudden borders were closed. Companies that were sourcing 100% offshore suddenly couldn’t get supply, they had to start sourcing local supply rapidly and were paying three to four times the normal amount. Shipping costs exploded and we saw suppliers imploding as they couldn’t keep up with demand, and then there were the staffing issues as people got Covid, it was crazy.”
On top of all of that the UK was going through Brexit. Adrian says it really was a triple whammy and opening Amsterdam was a huge gamble, but at the same time they both knew it was a unique opportunity to help.
“We both knew that there would be a fear barrier from Kiwis and Aussies about coming back to Europe and the UK or even starting in either country, it was something we could help with. SCS launched globally with three foundation accounts and within two years we helped those businesses to become multi-million-dollar companies. It was just that whole power to take people to the global market and to be able to coach them through the start-up, their marketing, supply chain, that drove the global expansion from New Zealand,”
Helping businesses to grow globally in the thick of the pandemic has certainly given Adrian and Rachel some interesting insights. And Rachel says there’s a lot of opportunity for Kiwi businesses thinking about taking the plunge.
“From our point of view, bar inflationary pressures, there has never been a better time for New Zealand exporters to enter the European market. There are a lot of people who are confused about Brexit and there are a lot of English companies that are not trading in Europe and vice versa. That’s where we are finding a lot of opportunities for Kiwi businesses that are getting into those markets, where other people are hesitant to do so.”
“A lot of Kiwi businesses predominantly lean on the UK, which has traditionally always been the footstep in, but our role is to show these businesses that the UK isn’t the be all and end all. You’ve also got the opportunity to get into Europe, with all of its 390 million consumers. Why wouldn’t you at least investigate that opportunity?”
Here is Rachel and Adrian’s top advice for Kiwi companies looking to take their business global.
1. Regionalise before you globalise
If you work in the consumer industry everything begins and ends with supply chain. If you can’t get the raw materials, if you can’t get the product, you’re going to be suffering. Globalisation has many positives, but in today’s world, businesses need to spread their risk more. Diversification is key and regionalisation needs to be part of your toolkit. You can still get your product from China, but try and draw some of your raw products as close as you can to where your distribution or manufacturing hub is going to be. Also be more open to research. If we were a New Zealand company trading over here, buying products, I’d be spending a lot of money researching what’s available locally that can subsidise what I’m bringing in globally.
2. Cheapest isn’t always best
Pre-Covid, supply chain was about reducing your costs as much as possible and increasing your profits and margins. But in today’s environment, this can be a risk. It can be worth it to pay a little more to source local products. More importantly, it’s about building relationships with those local manufacturers, so that if things flip again and supply chains break or shipping costs go through the roof, you can upscale quickly using local suppliers.
3. Rethink everything you know about globalisation
Obviously, it depends on the industry you’re in, for example, in finished manufactured products, rather than commodities, you need to be careful to manage cash flow, but find a balance between what you should stockpile from global sources and what you can get your hands on locally.
4. Do your homework first.
Talking to people and getting your network going in the UK or EU is super important. It’s so different to home. Some people are really surprised when they get here and things take twice as long. It took us six months to open a business bank account in the Netherlands. It takes three months to get a VAT number. Make sure you’re up to date with compliance and understand the changes that have happened over here since Covid and post-Brexit. Find experts or go to companies like ours that can point you to the experts who can give you the confidence to launch.
5. Always have a good risk plan in place.
Always err on the side of caution, but don’t let that stop you from investing. That’s where your network comes in handy, as you can use them to get that sanity check.
Aryan was grappling with a problem, working as data scientists he found they spent more time preparing the data rather than analysing it. After looking around her realised there was no easy solution available on the current market and that he wasn’t the only person with the same problem.
“I started talking to people and found that this was a problem for the whole market, and it was especially tough on small to medium sized companies. I was discussing it with a colleague of mine, Will, and that’s when we decided to launch Segna. The product uses machine learning to take multiple dirty data sources and output them to a single clean data source.
We essentially automate data cleaning through machine learning to make it much quicker and more efficient.”
Aryan and Will created what Aryan describes as a ‘questionable pitch deck’ and went out and hit up investors. They were lucky enough to gain some money out of a venture fund in Australia which ended up being more than just capital.
“When this fund originally backed us we thought they were just nice guys who believed in what we were trying to do but it turned out they were quite big investors who have helped us a lot along the way with advice and problem solving.”
After securing capital Aryan says they spent around a year building their platform and working out how to best tackle the problem and optimise their time. After deciding to focus on a better data wrangling tool that would be driven by AI, they applied to Silicon Valley based company Y Combinator (YC), which has helped companies like Air BnB, Dropbox and Stripe. After two unsuccessful attempts they were accepted into the programme.
“YC gives you a little bit of money to start, mainly to just pay your costs and then you undertake a three month training program to prepare for ‘demo day’ where you essentially raise money for your seed round. Most of the YC partners are people who have exited billion dollar startups so they are really incredible in terms of advice and help.”
Aryan realised that the investment from Silicon Valley meant their company was going to grow fast and they would need more staff, and that made him think about workplace culture and what sort of environment they wanted Segna to have.
“We knew we needed to be prepared in case there was any ground work to do before we expanded our team. It’s obviously very hard to change things when you have 15 people compared to when you have two, so we wanted to be mindful of that. I was also interested in understanding what makes a great culture. Both of us have worked in startups where there were points of friction and that definitely affected us. Realistically a startup is just the sum of its people and a good culture means you can hire the best people and give them an environment that they enjoy and thrive in. We may be a tech company but it’s our people who build the tech so if we want good tech we have to attract good people.”
Aryan contacted Kea Connect who put him in touch with one of our solvers who had experience in tech startup culture. As a result he says he now has a better understanding of the difference between values and culture and was able to take some practical steps such as changing the way he runs his one to ones.
“It was a good opportunity to figure out what we were doing right as well as what we could improve on. When you begin something like this you are walking in the dark, getting an idea of how others have done this and how they have done it well is really important. I think more than anything it’s about learning from the right people. It’s worse to get bad advice than to get no advice at all and that’s where Kea Connect really helped us, by connecting us to the right people.”
Segna’s team has grown from two people to seven people and is on track to double in size by next year. The company currently has 1000 people on its waitlist but Aryan says the focus remains on quality not quantity.
“We want to mature the product and get to a place where our current customers really love us and we are solving their problems quickly and efficiently. Once we are confident with these customers then we will scale up. Our next goal is to address those businesses on our waitlist and expand our product to fit their needs and address their problems, then in the long term we will look to new markets.”
His advice to other entrepreneurs thinking about launching a startup is to be very clear about the problem you are trying to solve.
“Always make sure you are trying to solve a burning problem, and once you are sure of that then make sure you persevere when necessary but also be able to change if needed. The greatest strength of startups is the ability to pivot, that ability to pivot sets you apart from those big corporations, they can’t do that, they need six months to plan for a small change, that’s why disruption is most prevalent in startups and that’s where we have the advantage.”
Kea Connect’s free service puts you in touch with our global community who are ready and willing to help you solve challenges within your business and help you on your export journey. If you would like to find out how Kea Connect can help, get in touch today.
