Speaker 1: The USA the holy grail of markets for entrepreneurs all
Speaker 1: over the world.
Speaker 2: While we Kiwis have many cultural distinctions that separate us
Speaker 2: from our western piers, we also have a huge number
Speaker 2: of similarities.
Speaker 1: This fact, as well as the sheer amount of money
Speaker 1: and the number of people, make the US market a
Speaker 1: golden goose for local entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2: Our guest this week is Mahesh Moralda, a venture capitalist
Speaker 2: who was the twenty fifth employee at Australian unicorn startup Canva,
Speaker 2: and he has strong feelings about the need for New
Speaker 2: Zealand companies, especially tech and software companies, to expand beyond
Speaker 2: New Zealand.
Speaker 1: With his deep experience in the VC world, maheshkiv's advice
Speaker 1: to startups on how to capture some of that American cash,
Speaker 1: as well as his view on why it's so important
Speaker 1: for New Zealand businesses to break into the US market.
Speaker 3: QUI founders who make it to the US are better
Speaker 3: than the top tier American founders because American founders they're like, hey,
Speaker 3: if this doesn't work out, I'll be fine. We founder
Speaker 3: who makes the US knows and believes they have one shot,
Speaker 3: and then they go.
Speaker 2: All that's coming up later in this week's episode of
Speaker 2: the Business of Tech, Howard by two Degrees for business.
Speaker 2: But first, Peter, have you ever been smashed?
Speaker 1: I haven't been successfully smashed, but I got to say,
Speaker 1: literally last week I almost fell for one for the
Speaker 1: first time, which was a message from supposedly from New
Speaker 1: Zealand Post about a package that hadn't been delivered, had
Speaker 1: been held up. I needed to give some more information
Speaker 1: and I literally was waiting for a package that had
Speaker 1: been held up. So I was like, finally they've got
Speaker 1: in touch with me. It clicked through to it looked
Speaker 1: just a little bit off, didn't look like the New
Speaker 1: Zealand Post website, and then I looked at the URL
Speaker 1: and it was not ented post dot code into ed. So,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people will be familiar with
Speaker 1: these smashing text messages. It's basically SMS fishing, which is
Speaker 1: an attempt to get you to divulge sensitive information or
Speaker 1: to click a link to download some malware onto your phone.
Speaker 1: That's often the case as well, so I think kiwis
Speaker 1: are quite familiar with this. But a case that's just
Speaker 1: been uncovered that played out earlier in the year was
Speaker 1: a smashing campaign that didn't just rely on the existing
Speaker 1: networks of two degrees or one end Z or a spark.
Speaker 1: What these people did is a lot more sophisticated. They
Speaker 1: set up effectively a fake mobile base station in Auckland
Speaker 1: to try and get people to connect to that base
Speaker 1: station automatically thinking they were on a regular network, and
Speaker 1: then they sent them dodgy SMS messages. And the reason
Speaker 1: they would go to all that trouble is to bypass
Speaker 1: all the sort of filtering systems that the other legitimate
Speaker 1: networks have in place to try and weed out a
Speaker 1: lot of these smishing messages. And then they could basically
Speaker 1: tailor messages with their own phone numbers from this fake
Speaker 1: base station and communicate with these people who thought they
Speaker 1: were responding to legitimate messages. It's incredible how far they
Speaker 1: went to make this happen. You've been very few examples
Speaker 1: of this, mainly out of China where this sort of
Speaker 1: level of sophistication of smishing messages has been seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's almost kind of cool in a
Speaker 2: way when you look at the technology that's involved, and
Speaker 2: it's kind of this very ad hoc thrown together thing.
Speaker 2: You can see the picture in the article will link,
Speaker 2: but to kind of know there's some teenage amateur engineer
Speaker 2: out there who's throwing together one of these things in
Speaker 2: an attempt to defraud people. Obviously terrible behavior and not
Speaker 2: something to be encouraged at all, but at the same
Speaker 2: time kind of amazing that they were managed to get
Speaker 2: the kit, put it together and successfully actually do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I wonder if there is a China link here,
Speaker 1: either Chinese students in New Zealand doing this or someone
Speaker 1: working with people in China to get the equipment here.
Speaker 1: It was a operation by the police Operation ORCA. Funnily enough,
Speaker 1: they had a bit of a sense of humor around
Speaker 1: that one, and the Department of Internal Affairs was made
Speaker 1: aware of the scam in July. I don't know whether
Speaker 1: she was dabbed in or what happened, but they've been
Speaker 1: on the case. These fake base stations, they call them
Speaker 1: base transceiver stations BTS towers, and there is in China
Speaker 1: again malware called swearing Trojan, which is Android based banking
Speaker 1: malware which have been used in conjunction with these BTS towers,
Speaker 1: which ultimately have a range. According to reports out of China,
Speaker 1: off ten to twenty kilometers, so you could have a
Speaker 1: lot of people. What I don't understand is how they
Speaker 1: get you know, my phone, I'm on the skinny network
Speaker 1: on a skinny sim. How they get my phone and
Speaker 1: my sim to connect to their network. There must be
Speaker 1: some authentication that there's somehow mimicking or bypassing there for
Speaker 1: that to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they talk about it just auto connecting as well.
Speaker 2: Your phone will auto connect and you won't even know
Speaker 2: that it's done it because and it will use I
Speaker 2: think like a two G network as well, rather than
Speaker 2: the three G or four G because for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: it tricks your phone into thinking it's the network that
Speaker 2: it should be connected to. There's some instructions where you
Speaker 2: can actually disable the two G network on your phone
Speaker 2: to be able to make sure you can avoid these
Speaker 2: kinds of things. But realistically, the smishing is no more
Speaker 2: sophisticated than any other text fishing, and they can be
Speaker 2: pretty convincing. You know, you're not the only one who's
Speaker 2: definitely clicked on one of these links and then gone,
Speaker 2: oh no, that's actually not something I should be clicking on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think obviously a lot of those messages
Speaker 1: still get through, because I got one just last week,
Speaker 1: so that the networks aren't doing enough to keep up
Speaker 1: with this deluge of smashing messages. But to go to
Speaker 1: the next step of installing some physical hardware, you know
Speaker 1: there must be a real incentive to do that, which
Speaker 1: is and I think it is when you're on that
Speaker 1: fake base station that's down the road from you or whatever,
Speaker 1: they can tailor official looking numbers, They can create their
Speaker 1: own basically their own phone number network to send you
Speaker 1: official looking text numbers and phone numbers, which then you
Speaker 1: might make you think, oh, okay, this is legitimate, but
Speaker 1: ultimately they're still going to send you to a dodgy website.
Speaker 1: So all the same preventative measures are in place. Is
Speaker 1: it the right url? Are they asking for information my
Speaker 1: bank normally wouldn't ask for over email or via a
Speaker 1: web form? All those things come into play again, and
Speaker 1: which should hopefully eliminate ninety nine percent of the chance
Speaker 1: of you actually getting schmished.
Speaker 2: I know it sounds like it's something you might want,
Speaker 2: but trust me, you don't want to get smished.
Speaker 1: Definitely not.
Speaker 2: And of course cybercrime isn't just restricted to teenagers in Auckland.
Speaker 2: There are nation state actors as well, and China, it
Speaker 2: turns out, has been able to take advantage of backdoors
Speaker 2: in telecommunications companies which were left open to meet US
Speaker 2: federal regulations. That was a really interesting story that you
Speaker 2: sent me on this one. Basically a bunch of professionals going,
Speaker 2: we told you these backdoors were a bad idea, that
Speaker 2: there were a weakness in the armor, and it turns
Speaker 2: out that that some hackers have found those weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked earlier in the year about this vault
Speaker 1: Typhoon hacking group again out of China. That was leaving
Speaker 1: were packages and critical infrastructure the likes of power stations
Speaker 1: and water infrastructure companies in the US, and this happened
Speaker 1: several years ago, but the US governments and the Five
Speaker 1: Eyes partners, including New Zealand, came out earlier this year
Speaker 1: and said you need if you run critical infrastructure, you
Speaker 1: need to go in and check your systems because this
Speaker 1: vault Typhoon group is through a lot of companies in
Speaker 1: the US. So fast forward sort of nine months, we've
Speaker 1: got Salt Typhoon, and this is apparently a slightly different
Speaker 1: group of hackers who have been very much focusing on
Speaker 1: the wire tapping infrastructure that the US requires big telecommunications
Speaker 1: and internet companies in the US to maintain by law.
Speaker 1: So that's a law from about thirty years ago that says,
Speaker 1: you need to make your network's interception capable, and there's
Speaker 1: some little black box that hangs off the back of
Speaker 1: your network that we need to be able to connect to.
Speaker 1: We have that here in New Zealand as well. Most
Speaker 1: countries do that, and when you get a warrant, then
Speaker 1: that will activate the ability to use the y tapping
Speaker 1: method to either infiltrate or listen to calls as well
Speaker 1: as Internet traffic. So you know that is effectively a
Speaker 1: backdoor in the network that the FEDS in the US
Speaker 1: can access. Well, it turns out, according to the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal, which reported this on Friday massive story, the
Speaker 1: likes of AT and T and Verizon and Lumen Networks
Speaker 1: formerly century Link have all been compromised. These y tapping
Speaker 1: facilities have been compromised, potentially exposing customer data to these hackers. Now,
Speaker 1: if that's the case, if we're talking about huge volumes
Speaker 1: of traffic that go through the likes of AT and
Speaker 1: T and Verizon, if that's the case. You know, that's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest exploits in many years. It hearkens
Speaker 1: back to the Edward snow and revelations of twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: when he basically revealed and all the documents he leaked
Speaker 1: a mass surveillance effort underway by the US government that
Speaker 1: even some of the telcos and internet companies didn't really
Speaker 1: know what was happening. Yeah. Effectively, that infrastructure still exists
Speaker 1: to some extent, but has been cleaned up a lot
Speaker 1: so that the tech companies are more aware of what's
Speaker 1: going on, and you need sort of legal permission to
Speaker 1: utilize that technology. But it's been found to be insecure,
Speaker 1: and I guess it really sort of highlights that whole
Speaker 1: point of the tech sect has been making about encryption
Speaker 1: and back doors, and if you put a back door
Speaker 1: in encryption, you're going to have this problem to an
Speaker 1: even greater degree.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of the telegram story from not long ago. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, with the founder was at risk of getting
Speaker 2: arrested by the French or did get arrested by the French.
Speaker 1: Authority, still sitting there.
Speaker 2: So the question then becomes like it's that age or
Speaker 2: question of is it more important to have privacy or
Speaker 2: is it more important to have a governmental oversight and
Speaker 2: access into communications. It's difficult to find that balance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think this legislation which was introduced about
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, it's called the Communications Assistance for Law
Speaker 1: Enforcement Act ninety ninety four, that came into effect just
Speaker 1: as sort of cell phones were starting to take off
Speaker 1: and the Internet was in its infancy. But then after
Speaker 1: September eleven we had a lot of wire tapping, huge
Speaker 1: ramp up in wire tapping activity, so this was really
Speaker 1: called on. But the interesting thing about that legislation, if
Speaker 1: your network is fully encrypted, you obviously don't have to
Speaker 1: comply with that. You can say, well, my mobile network
Speaker 1: is end to end encrypted, I can't help you with
Speaker 1: a wiretap. Sorry about that. Most of the telcos and
Speaker 1: internet providers have an encrypted their networks, while they have
Speaker 1: other security measures, and they facilitate their customers encrypting their
Speaker 1: own data. A lot of traffic isn't and a lot
Speaker 1: of that metadata obviously isn't as well. So I think
Speaker 1: the next step will be Okay, the likes of Horizon
Speaker 1: and AT and T will go well, this was really
Speaker 1: embarrassing and this hurt us. We're going to encrypt our
Speaker 1: entire network, and it's probably quite a lot of work
Speaker 1: doing that, even on mobile networks and five G modern infrastructure,
Speaker 1: encrypting the whole thing so that we can literally say
Speaker 1: to the authorities so we don't have the ability to
Speaker 1: wy tap our customers anymore. And that's really where the
Speaker 1: likes of Meta and Signal and others have gone with
Speaker 1: messaging apps.
Speaker 2: It's just an absurd bureaucratic difference, isn't it really at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, where you know, you just say, well,
Speaker 2: if you spend a little bit more money and make
Speaker 2: sure that everything is super secret, then we won't ask it.
Speaker 2: We can't. You know, it just feels a little bit arbitrary.
Speaker 2: But I suppose at the same time it's just going
Speaker 2: to push everybody towards more encryption, which maybe at the
Speaker 2: end of the day is beneficial for privacy and security.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, the alternative is that you capitulate to the
Speaker 1: FBI and the US administration and say, okay, we're going
Speaker 1: to build a back door into encryption, and it turns out,
Speaker 1: as has been the case here, that your customers are
Speaker 1: even more vulnerable to foreign interference and terror, terrorism and
Speaker 1: the like because of that back door and encryption systems.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why it hasn't progressed any mandate
Speaker 1: because they know that things are not secure. There's always
Speaker 1: going to be a way in and if you building
Speaker 1: that back door, someone is going to come through it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Signal president Meredith Whittaker is quoted in this tech
Speaker 2: Crunch article saying there is no way to build a
Speaker 2: backdoor that only the good guys can use. It's pretty
Speaker 2: much like the summary, there isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Keeping an eye on what that might mean for the
Speaker 2: future of regulation around privacy and encryption, But what isn't
Speaker 2: going to change anytime soon is the fact there are
Speaker 2: a whole lot of people and businesses in the USA.
Speaker 1: Definitely. We've seen a bunch of New Zealand companies grow
Speaker 1: really quickly once they break into the US, like startup
Speaker 1: Parkable and INSIDEX listed Black Pearl Group.
Speaker 2: Mahesh Moeralda is a venture capitalist and startup advisor who
Speaker 2: runs Phase One.
Speaker 1: His experience across New Zealand, Australia and the US has
Speaker 1: led him to become a massive advocate for the potential
Speaker 1: for New Zealand's economy offered by the US market, particularly
Speaker 1: when it comes to software. Ben you spoke to him
Speaker 1: about what needs to happen to see that potential realized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got some strong feelings about the topic and
Speaker 2: we're more than happy to share them. So let's have
Speaker 2: a listen to that interview now. Hi, Mahesh, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for joining us on the Business of Tech podcast.
Speaker 2: How are you today?
Speaker 3: I am feeling pumped, really excited, great, energized.
Speaker 2: Excellent, and I'm assuming that's related to your recent trip
Speaker 2: to the US and what you've seen over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a very powerful, informative, insightful trip.
Speaker 2: Give us a little bit of information about your backgrounds.
Speaker 2: What's your interest in the innovation VC startup scene in
Speaker 2: New Zealand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, quick story, right, So I came to New Zealand
Speaker 3: on my own when I was fourteen from Singapore in
Speaker 3: the mid nineties when Nape boys from which is a
Speaker 3: very good cultural grounding. And you grew up in Auckland
Speaker 3: City and started work here. After that, I had a
Speaker 3: career professional services and NBA and then had my own
Speaker 3: startup in the early twenty tens in Sydney en route
Speaker 3: coming back home somewhat successful, but then was fortunate enough
Speaker 3: to be invited to be one of the first leaders
Speaker 3: at Canva. So number twenty five, I think business was
Speaker 3: probably about twenty mil and obviously now it's two thousand
Speaker 3: plus strong, well north of twenty billion. And then I
Speaker 3: was a C suite in a few other major startups
Speaker 3: and Ossie came back home. And what I've done for
Speaker 3: the last three years is cultivate a group of an
Speaker 3: early stage founder community called Phase one Phase one Ventures,
Speaker 3: and the target we have is six unicorns from that
Speaker 3: community community, right, and a key part of that is
Speaker 3: global ambition, right, and how we need to be braver
Speaker 3: and boulder because to be honest, we're an entrepreneurial country,
Speaker 3: two islands and the corner of the world. You have
Speaker 3: to be. But the truth is we haven't been able
Speaker 3: to see scale. And that's all we've got to do.
Speaker 3: We've just got to start reaching up and looking up
Speaker 3: and seeing that our skills and experience applied to the
Speaker 3: world's problems drives incredible even more innovation.
Speaker 2: So you've been part of the venture system in various
Speaker 2: places throughout the world, and you mentioned Canva there considered
Speaker 2: one of the world's you know start up. Darling's really
Speaker 2: an incredible success story. What are you seeing in terms
Speaker 2: of New Zealand's space at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, incredible opportunity and perhaps over the last couple of decades,
Speaker 3: perhaps we haven't taken advantage of the of our foundational
Speaker 3: entrepreneurial zeal And then some early wins like Navman and
Speaker 3: a few others, you know, we started. We've always been
Speaker 3: an entrepreneur and we actually have had a very strong
Speaker 3: electrical engineering background, which ellen electrical engineering is a base
Speaker 3: for software engineering. But for a variety of reasons, we
Speaker 3: didn't really hook into the software engineering and software and
Speaker 3: SaaS growth curve. And you need role models, right, So
Speaker 3: when I give a speech in Sydney, three hundred people
Speaker 3: show up and I'm there answering questions for two hours
Speaker 3: because there's a whole bunch of people who want to
Speaker 3: be the next Melanie Perkins from Canvas and safety culture
Speaker 3: and culture app we've got zero. We've had then to
Speaker 3: a certain extent, but we haven't had that role modeling,
Speaker 3: which then doesn't allow investor class to believe that Canvas
Speaker 3: secondary sale of two billion dollars of Aussie flooding back
Speaker 3: into the Sydney market last year this year can happen here, right,
Speaker 3: So you need those role models just both for founders
Speaker 3: and for the investor class so that it's really exciting
Speaker 3: companies like Tracksuit, Next Work, Kiki, there's a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of now New Quodis new new software scale ups that
Speaker 3: are startups that are coming through. So we need that
Speaker 3: role modeling. So we need a few winners to really supercharge,
Speaker 3: a few more winners to supercharge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. That's obviously, you know, a difficult thing,
Speaker 2: right because as they say, the hardest part of getting
Speaker 2: the boulder rolling is that first push. And in some
Speaker 2: ways we've kind of had that. We had a zero
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, and we've had trade me and are
Speaker 2: you starting to see the Jacob happening, do you think?
Speaker 2: Or are we still still kind of trying to get
Speaker 2: that first push.
Speaker 3: No, it's going to be an incredibly exciting time in
Speaker 3: the next ten to fifteen years, right, and it is
Speaker 3: well started as well. Started that likes of gd one
Speaker 3: and Samantha Wong from Blackbird coming into New Zealand and
Speaker 3: going hey, let's play like a global game and New
Speaker 3: Zealand VCS ice House has been an incredible pioneer in
Speaker 3: kicking off the space but having global counterparts. So Vicnation
Speaker 3: from GD one came from Apple in the US as
Speaker 3: Kiri come back home and I think your question regards
Speaker 3: to one is the Jacob happening? Absolutely? It is? How
Speaker 3: do why is that happening? It's not a surprise a
Speaker 3: group of overseas Kiwis who've gone overseas and done some
Speaker 3: stuff and seeing some stuff coming back home and going hey,
Speaker 3: so maybe we could do this differently. We can have
Speaker 3: a different horizon, a different We need to think about
Speaker 3: early stage differently, like myself. Right, So when I came
Speaker 3: back home three years ago, all I've done for the
Speaker 3: last three years, and I started in a living room,
Speaker 3: is give free strategic support to a group of early
Speaker 3: stage founders, going hey, let's get the foundations and fundamentals
Speaker 3: right if you really want to go big. So that
Speaker 3: ecosystem is now expanding with a Kiwi diaspora that's coming
Speaker 3: back home and a group of early founders listening, what
Speaker 3: could we do to help is actually make even more
Speaker 3: space for that Kii diaspora to come in because sometimes
Speaker 3: in a small country, when you hit the ceiling, there
Speaker 3: is a desire to maintain that ceiling. You know, that's
Speaker 3: a normal thing. So if we can be more open
Speaker 3: to hey, people overseas and you've come back home, let's
Speaker 3: listen a bit more and understand what you've seen that
Speaker 3: I think would accelerate things even further.
Speaker 2: What are us What would you say are some of
Speaker 2: those key things you mentioned? You know, there are things
Speaker 2: people have seen an experience and they're bringing that home.
Speaker 2: What you what are the lessons that you've seen overseas
Speaker 2: or that you've seen other people bring back that are
Speaker 2: really important that we should be capitalizing on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we discussed this just before we chat it. Right,
Speaker 3: like a tech company, you could argue, let's break it
Speaker 3: up into three tiers, right, a tech company that wants
Speaker 3: to reach some sort of exit or ceiling at one two,
Speaker 3: one hundred mil, right, and then you have the one
Speaker 3: hundred mil to a billion ceilings second swim lane, and
Speaker 3: then the third swim lane is a billion two billion
Speaker 3: north right. And it's very important that any one of
Speaker 3: those swim lanes is equally cool, right, But it's they're
Speaker 3: different founders with different constraints and different ambitions that work
Speaker 3: in each of those swim lanes. And it's really important.
Speaker 3: There's a set of different conditions. But let's talk about
Speaker 3: that last swim lane, right, like that two billion north
Speaker 3: world changing company. And again I can't state this enough.
Speaker 3: The other two swim lanes and entrepreneurs are equally cool.
Speaker 3: What's cool is doing what's right by you. But that
Speaker 3: last swim lane, what's important is a founder that wants
Speaker 3: to change the world that has unheralded like ambition, right,
Speaker 3: I want to six fix a global problem. Right. So
Speaker 3: something conversation I have with all the Phase one founders
Speaker 3: is you know what's your why, and you know when
Speaker 3: you as you as you gain in influence and so forth,
Speaker 3: what are you going to do with that? And you
Speaker 3: have that conversation early on. Outside of that what's really important?
Speaker 3: So and you actually have to have a US from
Speaker 3: day one customer approach because it's the largest homogeneous market
Speaker 3: that works. And finally you have to build. You have
Speaker 3: to have customer and problem obsession, right, because you're trying
Speaker 3: to build a love product that scales the world, and
Speaker 3: the only way you do that is by having an
Speaker 3: incredible thesis on a deep problem with this huge ambition
Speaker 3: that said, and that delta is really hard to manage.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely a couple of things that I want
Speaker 2: to pick up on there. The first is that you
Speaker 2: said you need to be US from day one, and
Speaker 2: traditionally we've very you know, talked about it in terms
Speaker 2: of being global from day one. Obviously, you know, you
Speaker 2: pointed out the benefits of the US that the homogeneity
Speaker 2: the last size of the market. But is it the
Speaker 2: only option? Like, obviously you've got the UK and Europe
Speaker 2: as well, where if the Europe has a really large
Speaker 2: English speaking group and the UK is a great entry point,
Speaker 2: you've got Australia which is a great launching pad for scaling,
Speaker 2: So why the US.
Speaker 3: So there's a few reasons for that. So global from
Speaker 3: day one is effectively either US, China, India and Russia. Right,
Speaker 3: it's a large market. And let's discuss the homogeneity piece.
Speaker 3: So Europe doesn't offer homogeneity right the minute you solve
Speaker 3: for let's say it's a problem for real estate agents
Speaker 3: of this size, of this size and some workflow automation tool,
Speaker 3: or it's for couples who have this sort of lifestyle
Speaker 3: problem issue. Right the minute, say you're operating in the
Speaker 3: United Kingdom. Oh wait, if you want to scale to Italy,
Speaker 3: to France, to Czech Republic, suddenly the rules, regulations, culture, food,
Speaker 3: everything changes. So then there's additional cost to manage that change.
Speaker 3: Right while say you just operated in India, US India
Speaker 3: or China or US Russia for example, or Brazil, maybe
Speaker 3: then there is still a culturally, there is a homogeneity,
Speaker 3: and US of those options is the only one that
Speaker 3: offers sort of law contracts signaling. All of that works
Speaker 3: to a large extent. Now, the other question is, but
Speaker 3: when we have a launch in Australia fest right or
Speaker 3: United Kingdom. First the issue is if the truth of
Speaker 3: the matter is, hey, we're building a global business and
Speaker 3: part of that we have to win. Well, we're only
Speaker 3: able to win build a global business if we win
Speaker 3: the US, right, and we're talking about software scale ups generally. Right,
Speaker 3: Oh the minute you have any other entity like an Australian,
Speaker 3: United Kingdom and d that's in the back of your
Speaker 3: mind because that's starting to put food on the table
Speaker 3: for some early employees, etc. When if you want to
Speaker 3: go global, I have to go all in on this,
Speaker 3: and I need to put one hundred and fifty of
Speaker 3: my thought and energy, the CEO's thought and energy on this,
Speaker 3: and I can't carve out any other energy because the
Speaker 3: minute you do that, you're defeating that first priority goal
Speaker 3: of hey, we need that large foundation and there's nothing
Speaker 3: wrong in launching in Australia. But I then founders and
Speaker 3: entrepreneurs need to be circumspect and investors need to understand, Okay,
Speaker 3: so this is going to be This may de risk
Speaker 3: the venture, but it risks scale right right. So then
Speaker 3: from a strategic and commercial perspective, you can make sure
Speaker 3: you manage expectations even better. The wonderful thing that we
Speaker 3: have is culturally Kiwi's and Aussies are even the American
Speaker 3: culture is incredibly accessible to us. That truly, we are
Speaker 3: absolutely comfortable and confident with a US cultural base. In
Speaker 3: my recent trip to the US, a learning was capital
Speaker 3: is easy, talent's easy, and QWE founders who make it
Speaker 3: to the US are better than the top tier American
Speaker 3: founders because American founders feel they have optionality right because
Speaker 3: they are like, hey, if this doesn't work out, I'll
Speaker 3: go work in big tech or I'll start something else
Speaker 3: and I know that credit's kind of easy and I'll
Speaker 3: be fine, while a QWI founder who makes the US
Speaker 3: knows and believes they have one shot and then they
Speaker 3: go all in. Like there were countless times I was
Speaker 3: working with Toby Thomas Smith from KIKI over the weekend
Speaker 3: for three weeks on end and we'd be the only
Speaker 3: people and the we work, I was stunned. And there
Speaker 3: were you know, the iconic Y Combinator founders all around,
Speaker 3: and they were not around, and I was like, wait
Speaker 3: a second, what's going on? And I have conversations with them,
Speaker 3: and I was like no, Like, I know a huge
Speaker 3: group of QI founders that are hungrier, better and even
Speaker 3: more purposeful. So that's really exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, cool. Capital is easy in the US and
Speaker 2: you know, more available and more plentiful. The question is
Speaker 2: how do we get US investors who might be used
Speaker 2: to investing in the US companies because it's easy. You
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about where's my money going into
Speaker 2: this country in the South Pacific. How do we bridge
Speaker 2: that gap? How do we say, as a first time founder,
Speaker 2: you can trust me with your money, mister San Francisco.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's a few things. Firstly,
Speaker 3: I think your first check is coming from Australian New
Speaker 3: Zealand and that's the truth of the matter, right, So
Speaker 3: then what do you need next? You need again role modeling,
Speaker 3: And there's an increasing number of founders who have gone
Speaker 3: to the US, who've been successful that are now through
Speaker 3: back channels and cultural norms going no, no, you can
Speaker 3: do this, let me connect you. Lastly, I think there
Speaker 3: is a real opportunity and the likes of GD one, Blackbird,
Speaker 3: ice House are doing this like ice House in San
Speaker 3: Francisco when I was there, where they are making sure
Speaker 3: that they are partnering with US VC firms. Right, So
Speaker 3: then the vcs here have a part to play in
Speaker 3: regards to hey, let's nurture and then who are we
Speaker 3: partnering with? Who are us counterparts? And I've seen again
Speaker 3: the likes of GD one, Blackburn and ice House do
Speaker 3: that around hey, how do we like nurture our founders?
Speaker 3: And then in some ways like shake hands to shake
Speaker 3: hands with another venture part venture player going hey, okay,
Speaker 3: you're now playing it even larger capital. How do we
Speaker 3: pass the song?
Speaker 2: If you will, how do you tap into it? If
Speaker 2: you're a founder. I mean, are you relying on your
Speaker 2: VC investors to go and make those introductions? Do you
Speaker 2: know You've got like the likes of nz NTE, but
Speaker 2: they've got limited resources as well, So you know, how
Speaker 2: do you actually make those connections to these other founders,
Speaker 2: to the to these experienced kiwis these you know, because
Speaker 2: there is still a limited number compared to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can tell you this. It's actually being quite
Speaker 3: pointed about the questions you ask and who you ask,
Speaker 3: who you hang out with. So how many QII founders
Speaker 3: who want to go on this global journey are actually going?
Speaker 3: Who has been on this global journey? And I want
Speaker 3: to speak to those people because one of the things
Speaker 3: that's quite distracting is there are so many people with
Speaker 3: the best of intentions that start offering support, advice and guidance.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So for example, somebody who is currently a senior marketing
Speaker 3: leader at Meta a, Facebook or Google does not have
Speaker 3: this experience. That is a different experience like AKII is
Speaker 3: doing that, right, that's big tech, that's a large company experience.
Speaker 3: How many other is a KII founder going. I'm looking
Speaker 3: to speak to other kiris who have gone through this
Speaker 3: early seed to scale up experience either as a founder,
Speaker 3: as an early breader, or as an investor. And I
Speaker 3: know the connections, the language, et cetera. So if that's
Speaker 3: be my biggest advice to keep founders going on this journey,
Speaker 3: one of around, please be quite clear about the question
Speaker 3: you're asking and who you're asking it too, because most
Speaker 3: of us have the best of intentions, but then really
Speaker 3: tap into those with the legitimate experience that you are seeking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that can be kind of a cultural thing with Kiwi.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we don't want to ask the direct question, right Like,
Speaker 2: we don't want to say, hey, I know you did this,
Speaker 2: how did you do that? There was a sense of
Speaker 2: a transactional nature about that in terms of I'm willing
Speaker 2: to share with you what I know, but we're gonna
Speaker 2: it's gonna be purposeful. In New Zealand, maybe doesn't quite
Speaker 2: have that meeting oriented perspective to those kinds of things.
Speaker 3: Right, But I'd frame it a little bit differently, right So,
Speaker 3: I think again, because we're a small country, we don't
Speaker 3: have we don't know how to signal security safety excellence
Speaker 3: through very well formed badges. Right Like, so someone who's
Speaker 3: worked who's run a division at g Capital or Boeing
Speaker 3: or Canvas, et cetera. Oh, I can see that badge
Speaker 3: and I know what you've done and I know what
Speaker 3: you experience it. So that's a small country thing, and
Speaker 3: it's not a bad thing. It's not a negative. It
Speaker 3: is what it is. So then we want to sit down,
Speaker 3: let's get to know you as a person. While in
Speaker 3: a large country you can look at the discrete signals
Speaker 3: and you can form opinions. You can see the stories
Speaker 3: much faster. Right, and so if a KIP founder wants
Speaker 3: to go play that game, Okay, so this is the
Speaker 3: context that culture that you're now executing on. Let's be
Speaker 3: a little bit clearer. I'm here for this. There's my background.
Speaker 3: It's made this and I have to kind of explain
Speaker 3: because most Americans won't know much about New Zealm. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but they're really curious. So share some tidbits, get them excited.
Speaker 3: They trust it. It's Western, etc. They've heard of the
Speaker 3: All Blacks and the America's Cup and thank God for
Speaker 3: the Lord of the Rings. So they're like, Okay, we
Speaker 3: know this, So now what would you like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, gotcha? Yeah, So I guess like being in the
Speaker 2: same way that you have, like an elevator pitch for
Speaker 2: your company, have an elevator pitch for you as a
Speaker 2: person that you can just drop in fifteen twenty seconds
Speaker 2: and then be like, now it's a business guy.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I wanted to ask you about
Speaker 2: is the dials in New Zealand's innovation ecosystem. So what
Speaker 2: do we need in terms of the support around it
Speaker 2: to actually make it sing? And one of those things
Speaker 2: is the conversation on going around ESOPs. And recently the
Speaker 2: government came out and said they're going to up the
Speaker 2: threshold about five thousand to seven and a half thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Do you think that's enough?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And as you're aware, I ran for the National
Speaker 3: Party in the recent election and excited about furthering that
Speaker 3: journey another day. And let's be clear to all the listeners.
Speaker 3: ESOP is the equity share program that high tech companies,
Speaker 3: especially high growth companies, need to offer, because the argument is, hey,
Speaker 3: take a discount on your salary and instead a big
Speaker 3: part of your conversation that will be equity. So yes,
Speaker 3: we do need to reimagine equity visas Erica Stanfords come
Speaker 3: out talking about this as well, So there is an
Speaker 3: opportunity to reimagine all of this. The government's obviously dealing
Speaker 3: with a few different priorities, so taking one thing at
Speaker 3: a time, and I'm excited to see that progression in
Speaker 3: that space as well as be part of that conversation.
Speaker 2: In summary, I guess on the ups in particular, you
Speaker 2: said it was a good first step, but you do
Speaker 2: think it needs to gook further.
Speaker 3: Oh of course. I mean, if you want billionaire unicorn
Speaker 3: businesses coming from New Zealand, it has to be like
Speaker 3: there's a template, like there's no, this is not like
Speaker 3: a crazy idea like ye, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I mean because the thing is as well,
Speaker 2: it's going from five k to seven and a half
Speaker 2: k year, which is nothing really in the grand scheme
Speaker 2: of things. When you're talking about if you're bringing on
Speaker 2: a CTO and you know you want to say, well,
Speaker 2: we're going to pay you niney K and no you
Speaker 2: could go and get one hundred and fifty k elsewhere,
Speaker 2: but we're going to try and top you up with
Speaker 2: some of that. Like seven grand a year is pittance
Speaker 2: for them. So but your your argument is that is
Speaker 2: a signal that they're taking it seriously and just working
Speaker 2: through things.
Speaker 3: Of course, I mean the country has seen better days
Speaker 3: and we are working through quite a few things to
Speaker 3: get us to a better place. And government's been obviously
Speaker 3: very good with getting stuff done, and nobody's denying that
Speaker 3: in regards to hey, we said we're going to do
Speaker 3: this in one, two, three, four, So as part of
Speaker 3: a long to do list, I definitely appreciate the signaling.
Speaker 3: But definitely if the ambition is to have more high
Speaker 3: powered software and high goro tech companies, this needs to change.
Speaker 3: But to be fair, this is not the most important thing.
Speaker 3: The most important thing is a group of more and
Speaker 3: more Kiwi entrepreneurs believing that they can go big.
Speaker 2: So if I'm a business leader, what are some actions
Speaker 2: that I can take as a business leader in New
Speaker 2: Zealand to actually help this progress.
Speaker 3: That's actually a really interesting question. I think first, almost
Speaker 3: acknowledging your risk profile and risk framework right, which is
Speaker 3: absolutely okay, right, and because it's really important you have
Speaker 3: so many employees and things your vital entity and and
Speaker 3: and and really be really happy about that. The other
Speaker 3: pieces do you want to tackle global markets right? I
Speaker 3: was recently of speaking to one of the head of
Speaker 3: strategy at one of the energy companies and and uh
Speaker 3: and they were like, you know, but you know, our
Speaker 3: board may not want to you know, grow right. I
Speaker 3: think there's an opportunity to know that middle and large
Speaker 3: New Zealm companies. If we do not grow our GDP
Speaker 3: per capita in New Zealand, we can't have the imagination
Speaker 3: that we have of ourselves of being done. Marks we
Speaker 3: to nowhere, right, and we have a desperate desire to
Speaker 3: address inequity small country compassion, Absolutely, we are compassion our call.
Speaker 3: But we have to all a GDP per capita. We
Speaker 3: have to for us to have the hospitals and schools
Speaker 3: and all of this stuff. Okay, so then as a
Speaker 3: as a as a as a middling company. Wait, maybe
Speaker 3: we have a responsibility to tap into global markets. How
Speaker 3: do we tap into global markets? Maybe we should set
Speaker 3: like a higher revenue goal. What could we do there?
Speaker 3: Could we send services? Could we start a services arm
Speaker 3: and me let's start off with Australia. Let's do it
Speaker 3: like a pilot thing. Could we could we maybe extend
Speaker 3: our products to one other niche tier in the US.
Speaker 3: And can we set aside a small little amount of money,
Speaker 3: even if it's two hundred k a finer k just
Speaker 3: as an experiment. Actually you don't do it with even less.
Speaker 3: Start super lean and can we get one overseas customer,
Speaker 3: two overseas customers in the pursuit that building more powerful small,
Speaker 3: medium sized and large businesses in New Zealand with a
Speaker 3: global perspective is valuable for all of us. Right, So
Speaker 3: it's hard, This is a hard thing. It requires leadership
Speaker 3: within those businesses. But my only pitch is, hey, if
Speaker 3: you guys become more valuable and start to have a
Speaker 3: few more global customers, it's actually good for all of
Speaker 3: us because suddenly your employees, your productivity because now the
Speaker 3: dollar of our effort that you're putting in is being
Speaker 3: spread across a few towns in the US, you know,
Speaker 3: and suddenly productivity levels, everything goes up. Right, So I
Speaker 3: think that's a good pitch.
Speaker 2: So the idea is in the same way that you
Speaker 2: might put aside, you know, whatever one percent of revenue
Speaker 2: for R and D, do the same thing for global efforts,
Speaker 2: like just say this is part of how we operate.
Speaker 2: As you know, we got a little bit of money
Speaker 2: where we're trying to build new products or trying new things.
Speaker 2: Now we're going to have a little bit of money
Speaker 2: where we're actually trying to target new markets as well.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And my suggestion if you were to
Speaker 3: do that is focus on revenue. Like with five dollars,
Speaker 3: we need to generate revenue. With ten dollars, we need
Speaker 3: to generate revenue. The most powerful thing you can do
Speaker 3: is not research, is win a customer. I don't care
Speaker 3: how you do it. Just win one customer, because in
Speaker 3: the pursuit of winning that customer, the amount you learn
Speaker 3: is so much more than Hey, let's just understand the market.
Speaker 3: Let's go hang out. No, just win one customer, h
Speaker 3: then win two, then win three. Do the unscalable things.
Speaker 3: Do not worry about scale. Right, cool, we wrap up.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about your time in Canvas.
Speaker 2: So you said you were employee number twenty five. That's
Speaker 2: very early in a massive company's journey. How long were
Speaker 2: you there.
Speaker 3: Altogether closing in and around just around three years?
Speaker 2: Around three years, I mean in the growth of Canva
Speaker 2: was extraordinarily quick, so you would have seen quite a
Speaker 2: lot in those three years. What did you learn? What
Speaker 2: is the most valuable thing that you learned from your
Speaker 2: time inside a company growing that quickly.
Speaker 3: That you have to have a love product. I remember
Speaker 3: even when I joined on Twitter, it was I love camera,
Speaker 3: love can I love Cana love Cana love camera like
Speaker 3: you could hear the customer voice singing its praises right,
Speaker 3: and which is why I keep saying one of the
Speaker 3: most important things is customer and problem obsession like mail
Speaker 3: for mail, people who designed was her tribe. These were
Speaker 3: the people she lived for and when it gets to
Speaker 3: solving that problem the other pieces. I remember walking to Canva,
Speaker 3: a small group of people and walking to the office
Speaker 3: the first time, and I had my own tech startup
Speaker 3: at that point, and I remember straight away thinking something
Speaker 3: was different, and looking back now is that everything was intentional, right,
Speaker 3: So where the laptop was that Cliff, who is co
Speaker 3: founder and Mel's partner and a billionaire, was the first
Speaker 3: canvas for chef. He would make the meals and it
Speaker 3: was intentional that from twelve to one everybody came back
Speaker 3: and had had a meal together. How we celebrated birthdays,
Speaker 3: It was a very peculiar ritual, fun amusing ritual that
Speaker 3: we did and a quick story. So I was responsible
Speaker 3: once on a Sunday to do. We were like at
Speaker 3: about seventy or nearly closing it, one hundred people about
Speaker 3: making sure that a company riorg was done properly. So
Speaker 3: I'd worked through the weekend and about Sunday two o'clock
Speaker 3: I'd come up with a plan and I'd said, okay,
Speaker 3: so people would come in and then there's clear instructions.
Speaker 3: They'd moved their laptops from here to here, right. And
Speaker 3: mel walked in at about two thirty on a Sunday,
Speaker 3: and you know, she was happy with the work and
Speaker 3: all the thinking that had been done. And they said, oh,
Speaker 3: what do you mean people are going to come in
Speaker 3: and you know, move stuff, And I said, yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean it's the most efficient thing. So no, that's not
Speaker 3: the experience camera team members get when they come in.
Speaker 3: They should feel like, hey, like we are here for them. Right.
Speaker 3: So for the next four to six hours, Cliff mel Zach,
Speaker 3: who's one of the top leaders of Canvan still is
Speaker 3: and myself spent wiping down the tables, moving each laptop,
Speaker 3: connecting each thing, making sure everything was done properly. She
Speaker 3: was so clear and intentional, this is my house, this
Speaker 3: is my farey and this is how it's going to be, right, So,
Speaker 3: and I think there's there's an opportunity again when you
Speaker 3: think about these global founders, this takes a lot of
Speaker 3: like internal thesis around like who am I, what do
Speaker 3: I want? Et cetera. Right, So, uh, it's it's again
Speaker 3: that you know again that customer obsession and that like
Speaker 3: who are you? Because if you're going to play in
Speaker 3: the global markets, the market's going to ask, right, so
Speaker 3: you really have to have that thinking done. Now, that's
Speaker 3: that didn't require any money. But when when an early
Speaker 3: team member gets that, that is such powerful cultural signaling around, Hey,
Speaker 3: this is really meaningful to me, and I want to
Speaker 3: share this with you. It's not it's not a fast
Speaker 3: you know, table tennis table you know it is. This
Speaker 3: is important. You are important, We are doing great things.
Speaker 3: Let's do this. My suspicion is Team New Zealand the
Speaker 3: All Blacks talk about cleaning the sheds, right. It's those
Speaker 3: like very intentional, time consuming, unscalable things initially they then
Speaker 3: scales so powerfully as stories and signals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. I think the key you said there
Speaker 2: is time consuming, right, Like yeah, and there's that old
Speaker 2: adage with kids. Don't give them your money, give them
Speaker 2: your time, right, that's what they really want. And it
Speaker 2: sounds like that's a very similar thing to what you're
Speaker 2: saying about employees, is that obviously a good compensation is nice,
Speaker 2: and having a table ten and stable is nice, but
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, they want to know
Speaker 2: that they're being thought of as humans with needs and
Speaker 2: support it and made it be comfortable.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the single most important thing, in my opinion for
Speaker 3: a great culture is that it's winning. Right. Everybody that's
Speaker 3: a mess. You have a bunch of humans together, it's
Speaker 3: going to be challenging, right, everybody's good opinions insecurity is
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But if as a team you go, hey, these are goals,
Speaker 3: and you continuously surpass the goals, then people come into
Speaker 3: the team go, oh great, when I do work, which
Speaker 3: is the primary point of this activity, it is valuable
Speaker 3: and that is the leader's base level responsibility, right, And
Speaker 3: then are you being treated fairly, is it a safe environment,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And to do what I've just said at
Speaker 3: world class levels is hard, right, but that's all you
Speaker 3: got to do. You got to make sure it's winning
Speaker 3: and an a startup that's like a hockey stick curve, right,
Speaker 3: it's a love product go nuts, and then it's it's safety,
Speaker 3: growth and the added Are you being treated fairly right
Speaker 3: from a compensation term external perspective? And again all of
Speaker 3: that requires deep work, not frills and short term cash.
Speaker 2: But a nice coffee machine also helps, a.
Speaker 3: Scaby machine and you know the occasional night out.
Speaker 1: It's good, fantastic entrepreneur and great you know to have
Speaker 1: him here with Phase one and New Zealand, this sort
Speaker 1: of network for startup founders as well as the investment fund.
Speaker 1: Interesting that political career that hasn't quite come to fruition yet,
Speaker 1: but he is really a sort of a blue green
Speaker 1: sort of guy. He really likes the environmental aspect and
Speaker 1: he's trying to marry that obviously with tech and entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: and innovation. And he has been very close to the nets,
Speaker 1: helping them with their tech strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do actually think what he was saying about
Speaker 2: the potential for New Zealand's economy taking some of that
Speaker 2: you know, sweet us money and bringing it back home.
Speaker 2: I think that is a very apt thing. And I've
Speaker 2: often spoken to people who are like, you know, we
Speaker 2: focus too much on the US. You know, we need
Speaker 2: to look at Europe, we need to look at Southeast Asia.
Speaker 2: But his argument for the US fairly convincing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we spent a lot of time in Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley in San Francisco, obviously was very early in Canva,
Speaker 1: the biggest success in recent years in this part of
Speaker 1: the world. And you can tell from his discussion here
Speaker 1: he's really interested in founder talent and how to foster it,
Speaker 1: how to identify it, how to foster it, and how
Speaker 1: to tap into that diaspora of key we talent overseas,
Speaker 1: how to bring some of that money and capital human
Speaker 1: capital as well that they have access to and bring
Speaker 1: it back to New Zealand. So a lot of this
Speaker 1: is real music to my years and years being. You know,
Speaker 1: we took to Black Pearl group on the podcast recently
Speaker 1: and they were saying exactly the same thing. We went
Speaker 1: straight to the US market because that has the homoganity
Speaker 1: to allow you to go wide and broad very quickly.
Speaker 2: And then Black Pearl just raised a huge investment around
Speaker 2: in New Zealand, specifically with New zeal Island investors. So
Speaker 2: they raised ten million and off market and then they've
Speaker 2: got another two and a half million and share placement
Speaker 2: foreign existing investors in New Zealand. So a really clear
Speaker 2: example of how that can really work for people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so phase one is a great addition to the
Speaker 1: startup ecosystem. I think he talked about the ESOP thing,
Speaker 1: you know, the share schemes for startups, which Judith Coms
Speaker 1: I believe is working on, so some action will happen there.
Speaker 1: He's also quite an advocate for reform of the Foreign
Speaker 1: Investment Fund taxation, which is this I don't quite understand it,
Speaker 1: but basically, if you're an investor and you have overseas investments,
Speaker 1: if you're in New Zealand and have overseas investments, they
Speaker 1: can effectively tax you five percent of the unrealized gains
Speaker 1: of that investment. Which, say you're a big American tycoon,
Speaker 1: you come and live in New Zealand, you've got tens
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars in investments overseas, that's going to
Speaker 1: be not a very attract of things. So he's basically
Speaker 1: saying if we reform that, we're going to be more
Speaker 1: likely to get these high networth individuals locating here and
Speaker 1: investing in New Zealand, so saying a lot of I
Speaker 1: think quite sensible things, and clearly he wrote a really
Speaker 1: good column we'll link to in the New Zealand Herald
Speaker 1: back in March, and I think he's got an eye
Speaker 1: on the next election, and who knows, by then, Judith
Speaker 1: might be sick of having seven or eight portfolios and
Speaker 1: maybe she'll be thinking of someone else for the tech portfolio.
Speaker 2: Could be Yeah, yeah, he could be a candidate, that's
Speaker 2: for sure. I don't know his view on the ESOPs,
Speaker 2: saying that what they have put in place with that
Speaker 2: seven thousand dollars cap increase is just the beginning. I
Speaker 2: hope so, and I'd like to believe that, but I
Speaker 2: do also know that it's a government that is kind
Speaker 2: of struggling for money at the moment that it would
Speaker 2: be interesting to see whether they can really do what
Speaker 2: needs to be done with those ESOPs in the long run.
Speaker 1: I mean, it wouldn't be great if we had a
Speaker 1: Canva like success. And I think he's obviously so inspired
Speaker 1: by what he saw there working with that founder group
Speaker 1: that he is going to try his hardest to do it.
Speaker 1: But you know, really, when it comes back to it,
Speaker 1: reading that founder story. It was the passion of the
Speaker 1: founders for that particular thing, making graphic design simpler. They
Speaker 1: designed a whole way up to tackle the problems they
Speaker 1: were facing. It really comes back to that problem solving.
Speaker 1: What is the problem that you're trying to identify and
Speaker 1: is a market for it? And that's just universal. And
Speaker 1: I've got to say a lot of our entrepreneurs have
Speaker 1: become a lot more laser focused on that so called
Speaker 1: product market fit and identifying the problem and validating the
Speaker 1: market for solving that problem. So I think we're getting
Speaker 1: a lot more sophisticated. But having people who've actually been
Speaker 1: in these really successful unicorms coming to New Zealand living here,
Speaker 1: spending time and willing to impart that knowledge is really valuable.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, bring on the hockey stick growth.
Speaker 1: I say absolutely. Well that's us for another week.
Speaker 2: It is, And thanks very much to Mahash morale Da
Speaker 2: for coming on the Business Off Tech.
Speaker 1: You can find the stories we talked about today and
Speaker 1: links to other interesting tech stories over on Business Desk
Speaker 1: dot co dot nz and you can subscribe and listen
Speaker 1: to all episodes of the podcast over on iHeartRadio or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Drop us a line with suggestions for future guests. Can
Speaker 2: email me Ben at business desk dot co dot nz.
Speaker 2: We'll find both of us on LinkedIn and ax.
Speaker 1: And another episode coming your way next Thursday.
Speaker 2: Until then, have a great week,