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Speaker 2: When you're going up against one of the most capitalized
Speaker 2: companies in the world, you need to probably work smarter,
Speaker 2: not harder.
Speaker 3: Would put two grand in the business had no money.
Speaker 3: I've had a pretty sharking website and personal lag probably
Speaker 3: and chattered with an understatement.
Speaker 2: When somebody like your friends with your family tell you
Speaker 2: that you probably should give this thing up that actually
Speaker 2: puts a fire in your belly, that it's pretty hard
Speaker 2: to describe Currakoto.
Speaker 4: I'm Garth Bray. This is More than Money makes special
Speaker 4: mini series brought to you by Cheers Eas to help
Speaker 4: kickstart twenty twenty five. We're speaking with some Kiwis who've
Speaker 4: been through the mill and understand a few things about
Speaker 4: how to make wealth work for them. And today we're
Speaker 4: joined by a couple of young Kiwi entrepreneurs who run
Speaker 4: a successful nationwide takeaway delivery business that started nearly ten
Speaker 4: years ago in a garage in Mount vic and Wellington.
Speaker 4: Nick and Tim from deliver Easy, but first some important
Speaker 4: information you always need to consider.
Speaker 5: The experience is shared in this episode.
Speaker 6: Are not advice or a recommendation or opinion by guests
Speaker 6: to invest or act in the manner they have.
Speaker 5: An appearance on the series.
Speaker 6: Is not an endorsement by Sharesy's of the views of
Speaker 6: the presenters or guests. They're not financial experts and their
Speaker 6: views of their own.
Speaker 4: Let's explain a little bit for people what Deliver Easy is,
Speaker 4: maybe because most of the time people just are ordering food,
Speaker 4: they're looking at an app and they're just going that whatever,
Speaker 4: what is it that you guys do that's different? And
Speaker 4: how did you get started?
Speaker 2: Twenty fifteen was sort of where it all began. There
Speaker 2: were sort of a few things that happened concurrently back
Speaker 2: then that sort of helped the idea come to life.
Speaker 2: Our flatmate Blair and I is flat mate at the time,
Speaker 2: Bless his Soul, would would order takeaways every single Sunday
Speaker 2: morning without fail, and she would only ever order this
Speaker 2: one pizza place. And we just somehow were confused by
Speaker 2: this thing. How do you how do you do this
Speaker 2: every single Sunday? And she sort of replied, well, if
Speaker 2: there was something better I could get delivered, then then
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 5: And we thought that was a pretty fair comic.
Speaker 2: At the same time, a friend of Blair and Eyes
Speaker 2: had come back from the UK and living in London
Speaker 2: at the time, and we sort of naturally got talking
Speaker 2: about that over a few beers and different business ideas
Speaker 2: and hopefully not having to work for the man.
Speaker 5: For the rest of our lives.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he naturally brought up that this on demand
Speaker 2: delivery industry that was really taking off.
Speaker 5: The UK, and that also got us thinking.
Speaker 2: And so there's these multiple things happening at the same time,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I guess I was lucky enough to be
Speaker 2: working with my friend Timbo here at the same time
Speaker 2: at power Shop, as I mentioned. And again, over a
Speaker 2: few beers we've got talking about this idea and the
Speaker 2: fact that this industry didn't exist in New Zealand at
Speaker 2: the time, and Wellington felt like the perfect spot to
Speaker 2: maybe give it a crack, And Timbo bravely told.
Speaker 5: Me that he could build this thing with his eyes closed.
Speaker 5: But it looks like I said, it was nice close.
Speaker 5: I loved that all I did a great job.
Speaker 2: And yeah, sort of, yeah, Tim Blair and myself got
Speaker 2: together again over a refreshment.
Speaker 4: I'm sensing a theme here there.
Speaker 5: There's a little bit of a theme there.
Speaker 2: I came in trying not to talk too much about
Speaker 2: the beers, but I think naturally it helps the conversation
Speaker 2: flow in and now our case, it's definitely paid off.
Speaker 4: So for nearly ten years, you guys have been going
Speaker 4: up against some pretty stiff competition. I would have thought
Speaker 4: more recently, so were you there from the start? You
Speaker 4: feel like you had that early advantage and that helped.
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely, Different bike regions started on until we had
Speaker 3: a really good crack here and got pretty stuck in.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think a key factor was that no one was
Speaker 2: actually doing it at the time that we started. But yeah,
Speaker 2: when you're going up against one of the most capitalized
Speaker 2: companies in the world, you need to probably work smarter,
Speaker 2: not harder, or both at the same time. In our case,
Speaker 2: probably with not a lot of money behind us, but
Speaker 2: a lot of determination and.
Speaker 5: Sweat, tears and all of that.
Speaker 4: So it's the execution as much as having a great idea.
Speaker 5: Probably more. Yeah, and pimbing definitely as well. I think
Speaker 5: of the big player you mentioned before was already here.
Speaker 5: I don't think we probably would have had the balls
Speaker 5: to dive head first. Probably fair, Yeah, pretty fair.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you mentioned wealth before and maybe not having the
Speaker 4: wealth that one of those big players has. Can I
Speaker 4: get each of you to tell me what does wealth
Speaker 4: mean to you?
Speaker 5: I think freedom and ability to be happy and life
Speaker 5: is probably wealth.
Speaker 2: And if you can work hard to get yourself in
Speaker 2: a position where you can you can apply those things
Speaker 2: to your life.
Speaker 5: I think that's probably a good place to start. Yeah.
Speaker 3: OK, I think it's the freedom and the independence of
Speaker 3: what you wanted and sort of follow your passions that
Speaker 3: what we actually want to be doing is it's kind
Speaker 3: of it's I don't think it's a cash thing.
Speaker 4: Because you mentioned before you both were working for another company,
Speaker 4: good company, you said. But it's that ability to make
Speaker 4: your own decisions maybe rather than having to toe the
Speaker 4: line and follow someone else's plan. Is that what you're
Speaker 4: driving at?
Speaker 5: I think so. Yeah, having the.
Speaker 2: Having a will and a purpose I think is really
Speaker 2: important in life. And if you can chase that and
Speaker 2: if you can make a little bit of money along
Speaker 2: the way, then that's obviously a help.
Speaker 5: But that's never been the goal for us.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 2: It's probably to make something of ourselves and not have
Speaker 2: to work for the man forever.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's a beautiful.
Speaker 2: Feeling about working for yourself and growing a business and
Speaker 2: giving people opportunities and seeing something grow and trying to
Speaker 2: foster a culture that's you know, that people believe in
Speaker 2: and want to work hard.
Speaker 5: It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 4: If I'm trying to think about great financial decisions, some
Speaker 4: people can just hit on that straight away and go, yeah,
Speaker 4: this was the moment where it all turned or this
Speaker 4: was the great piece of fortune that I had, or
Speaker 4: this was the call I made that was great. Is
Speaker 4: it too soon to tell whether setting this company up
Speaker 4: was and chipping into it was the best financial decision
Speaker 4: you ever made, or is there something else you'd break
Speaker 4: down from that to try and help understand how you've
Speaker 4: been able to get where you are.
Speaker 3: I think in retrospect, it probably was like at the time,
Speaker 3: we all quit our jobs for a business that was
Speaker 3: losing money and to a lot of peop pri didn't
Speaker 3: have great prospects. So like, in a lot of ways,
Speaker 3: it's a stupid decision. But I think putting itself on
Speaker 3: a spot, we've got to make something of it as
Speaker 3: actually and the Lauren became a really good decision because
Speaker 3: if we had it made such a lousy financial decision,
Speaker 3: we wouldn't be so driven to make it come good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think age and stage and all of that
Speaker 2: carry on. We were mid twenties at the time with
Speaker 2: no other responsibilities, and once we were in head first,
Speaker 2: we kind of had no alternative. We had to make
Speaker 2: this thing work. And if you ask a mid earl
Speaker 2: year old that same question, I think there'd be a
Speaker 2: little bit more apprehension. But yeah, for a long time
Speaker 2: it was pretty touch and go financially there. And that's
Speaker 2: not to say we've we've made it now, but the
Speaker 2: business is obviously looking at a much better position now,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it was probably a pretty good
Speaker 2: decision enough in hindsight, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think a financial plane would have endorsed
Speaker 3: it at the time.
Speaker 5: Hindsight is the beautiful thing you mentioned.
Speaker 4: It's in a better position. Now. What do you mean by.
Speaker 2: That, I mean early days, probably for the first three
Speaker 2: or so four years.
Speaker 5: Like to say we.
Speaker 2: Bootstrap this thing is probably a massive understatement. We started
Speaker 2: this thing, I think we put in about seven hundred
Speaker 2: dollars each between between us which doesn't go very far. Yes,
Speaker 2: the three broken scooters, Yeah, three broken scooters and three
Speaker 2: broken men. I think looking back, like we just hit
Speaker 2: milestones and the goalpost kept moving, and so we just
Speaker 2: kept following this path of chasing, chasing the next thing,
Speaker 2: and then before we knew it, I think we were,
Speaker 2: you know, delivering enough volume that we're supporting ourselves from
Speaker 2: a financial perspective, Like we did a few rounds of
Speaker 2: investment along the way, friends and family largely speaking, but
Speaker 2: apart from that, we've been largely self funded. So we've
Speaker 2: always been call us old school, but we've always considered
Speaker 2: that you should be able to fund yourself for the
Speaker 2: for the most part, a lot of businesses these days,
Speaker 2: as you'll know, I tend to go down this ultra growth,
Speaker 2: large investment upfront sort of approach, whereas we.
Speaker 3: Were probably a little bit more old school in that fact.
Speaker 3: I think it made us be really focus and what
Speaker 3: we did, which was really helpful. So like you had
Speaker 3: to be really clear about what you could Actually you've
Speaker 3: got no reasonce it's going to be pretty clear up
Speaker 3: when you put it. But over time, I think it
Speaker 3: helps the bins a lot that can move quickly in
Speaker 3: that because you've kept the control and you've kept the
Speaker 3: I guess, keep the power of the business, which is
Speaker 3: something that if we're diluted massively early, for example, trying
Speaker 3: to raise money, it probably could have been pretty detrimental
Speaker 3: long term for that business.
Speaker 4: And what's something I think I read some were something
Speaker 4: like six million meals delivered? Is it about right?
Speaker 3: Ten?
Speaker 5: Yeah, we just got ten million last month.
Speaker 4: Ten million.
Speaker 5: Yeah, went way off.
Speaker 3: Turn about three million, just over three million a year now. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's grown quite a bit from a garage in the
Speaker 3: Mount of verk here.
Speaker 2: You would say that probably the first first ten orders
Speaker 2: were probably the most exciting though oh really what the
Speaker 2: hardest and the most excited.
Speaker 4: Can you still remember any of them?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a bit of a blur.
Speaker 2: But we we were doing deliveries, so we would build
Speaker 2: these boxes for the back of the scooter out of pellets,
Speaker 2: so wooden pellets. Yeah, we would go down to liquor
Speaker 2: stores and ask and if we could have a few
Speaker 2: of the pellets. And this is an example of the
Speaker 2: extreme boots.
Speaker 5: Trapping I was talking about.
Speaker 2: And yeah, we'd literally build these boxes that were far
Speaker 2: too heavy and probably not the safest things to have
Speaker 2: on the back of a scooter, but they seem to work.
Speaker 2: I held together by a few nails and a few
Speaker 2: cable ties, and we were running on red Ball.
Speaker 5: So I think we've always.
Speaker 2: Sort of had that mancher that this business is the
Speaker 2: foundation of the business is built on cable ties and
Speaker 2: red Bull.
Speaker 5: And a few beers along the way.
Speaker 4: Outstanding, that sounds like you've encapsulated some of the hard times.
Speaker 4: I mean, what was there a really really tough moment
Speaker 4: there where you thought we can't carry on with this
Speaker 4: and you know, or were you always of the belief
Speaker 4: that you could sort of still stick it out.
Speaker 3: Oh, it was pretty I think it was pretty scary
Speaker 3: when whenever the first came to the country, We've been
Speaker 3: here for eighteen months, We'd put two grand in the business,
Speaker 3: had no money, I had a pretty shrinky website, and
Speaker 3: there was a few failing relationships as well. Probably yeah,
Speaker 3: the personal lives are probably and tattered would be an understatement,
Speaker 3: and so to have that coming it was pretty Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was the moment. It was probably pretty daunting in
Speaker 3: the long run, Like I obviously got through and looked
Speaker 3: at really well, But I.
Speaker 2: Think that's as a drive that comes from I think
Speaker 2: to myself and Blair probably all have the same approach
Speaker 2: to when somebody like your friends with your family tell
Speaker 2: you that you probably should give this thing up or
Speaker 2: maybe think about something else or a different business venture
Speaker 2: that actually puts the fire in your and your belly
Speaker 2: that it's pretty hard to describe. So in some ways
Speaker 2: I think the impossible made it more exciting and more Yeah,
Speaker 2: have us more drive to people wrong.
Speaker 5: Maybe rippling anxiety is a great motivator.
Speaker 4: Well, so actually Uber turning up was possibly one of
Speaker 4: the best things that happened because it gave you that
Speaker 4: extra challenge.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say the best mat I'd love they bug
Speaker 3: it off, But in a lot of ways, like it
Speaker 3: obviously set the industry, So like I put a lot
Speaker 3: of awareness. When someone from most of these comes in
Speaker 3: and sort of established it, it's a lot easier to
Speaker 3: sell that model.
Speaker 2: And competition breeds, you know, As I said, that kind
Speaker 2: of created this fire to prove people wrong and maybe
Speaker 2: allowed us to think of it harder at our strategy
Speaker 2: moving forward and where we wanted to go and if
Speaker 2: we're going to be first to market, do we then
Speaker 2: try and beat these bigger players to parts of New
Speaker 2: Zealand where they're not going to go first of all,
Speaker 2: Like if they're concentrating on Auckland, do we concentrate on
Speaker 2: Napier and Hastings for example.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think with it's negly to have competition,
Speaker 5: but in.
Speaker 2: Some ways it forces you to work harder and to
Speaker 2: think smarter or think outside the box and worked your advantage,
Speaker 2: which is I guess being the local player, having the
Speaker 2: local knowledge and having that face to face relationship with
Speaker 2: your clients.
Speaker 5: I think it's been pretty pretty powerful.
Speaker 4: You've been on a bit of a journey. Then, how
Speaker 4: has this changed your understanding of money?
Speaker 5: There's a hell of a question. Money is there, whether
Speaker 5: you like it or not.
Speaker 2: Right, it's this thing that keeps society moving and countries
Speaker 2: moving and all of that stuff. And I know it's
Speaker 2: just pretty cliche to say, but the money side of
Speaker 2: things was never the main driver. I think it was
Speaker 2: to work for ourselves and.
Speaker 5: To have a purpose that's wildly.
Speaker 2: Different than if you're working for someone someone else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's probably more just realized something like
Speaker 3: that's not what makes you happy, like you like when
Speaker 3: you haven't got it, like you work really hard to
Speaker 3: get it, and then I think you kind of realize,
Speaker 3: you know, but the journey you kind of go that's
Speaker 3: actually like not having money's really painful. We've been there
Speaker 3: some pretty broke, pretty tough times. But then on the
Speaker 3: cover is that like not being sure I was taxing
Speaker 3: problems away, but like the more you've got doesn't make
Speaker 3: it happier. I think definitely in the latest ages too,
Speaker 3: trying to find out what actually you know, you're learned
Speaker 3: that it's not the solution to your problems in life,
Speaker 3: and it's yeah, it doesn't fact things a lot of things.
Speaker 4: All right, Thanks very much, guys, it's been really fascinating
Speaker 4: hearing your journey, and thank you all for listening. If
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