2012-05-22 13:54:54 // Idealog
// The Idealog Blog
Got a fantastic business idea? Want to turn your startup into a successful enterprise? Have a business with great growth potential?
2012-05-16 14:31:02 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
New Zealand has all the basics to help businesses thrive – the challenge is to step it up a notch.
2012-05-11 12:49:28 // Hazel Phillips
// Idealog #39: interact
After noticing the explosion of artisan food and our thirst for more and more goodies, Greig Buckley decided to give it an e-commerce twist.
2012-05-11 12:00:25 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
Know of an outstanding entrepreneur deserving of recognition? Or think you have the chops to pass muster?
2012-05-09 14:32:25 // Esther Goh
// Idealog #39: now
| 4 comments
Up-and-coming company goodnature is revolutionising the way we kill pests to make the process better for animals, the environment and, in the long run, our wallets.
2012-05-08 10:00:17 // Idealog
// The Idealog Blog
Auckland Startup Weekend is back for a third year and it's slated to be hosted at the ecentre on the North Shore from June 15-17.
2012-05-04 12:19:22 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
| 1 comment
Graeme Fielder is mixing science and business nous in his new startup, an online market for used lab and technical equipment.
2012-05-03 16:06:23 // Richard Liew
// The Idealog Blog
| 1 comment
The one group that can help fix our housing mess is the one group that is consistently overlooked in these discussions.
2012-05-03 14:47:33 // Vaughn Davis
// Idealog #39: now
Auckland's second best-known goat farming aeroplane flying ad agency owner Vaughn Davis drops into the new but definitely not ostentatious offices of newborn events company Celery Productions.
2012-05-03 09:41:05 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
| 1 comment
Theo Paphitis has lost count of all the businesses he’s invested in, and his criteria for picking companies to bet on has changed over the years, but he says ultimately success all comes down to the people factor. It doesn’t matter how great a business idea is – without a good person behind it, it won’t fly.
2012-04-20 15:43:46 // Idealog
// The Idealog Blog
Ever had one of those lightbulb moments – that split second where you're convinced your brainwave could make you a fortune?
2012-04-05 13:52:34 // Idealog
// The Idealog Blog
Creative collective Draw Inc claimed the top prize at last week's Innes 48-hour startup competition.
2012-04-03 14:37:42 // Simon Pound
// Idealog #38: now
| 1 comment
Dion Nash, founder of the just-launched skincare company Triumph & Disaster, tells Simon Pound how metrosexuality translates to a hot new brand.
2012-04-03 09:29:23 // Jil O'Brien
// The Idealog Blog
| 4 comments
How to manage the conflicting needs of family and business? Take a serious look at the way you work and where you're spending your time.
2012-03-22 21:41:59 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
Kiwi tech companies will be first in line to benefit from Facebook investor Peter Thiel and the NZVIF teaming up to form a $40 million New Zealand-based venture capital fund.
2012-03-12 09:13:48 // Simon Pound
// Idealog #38: features
| 2 comments
It's a classic Kiwi story of little guy made good. And after being pitted against dairy giant Fonterra over perceived product similarities, the two blokes behind brand Nice Blocks are hanging off the back end of a tiger.
2012-03-06 15:02:37 // Jil O'Brien
// The Idealog Blog
| 8 comments
All over the country, new mums are shunning an early return to their corporate roots in favour of developing their entrepreneurial dreams.
2012-02-28 12:16:32 // Esther Goh
// Idealog #38: now
Incubator Creative HQ has pushed the go button on its inaugural gaming bootcamp. Thumbs at the ready...
2012-02-27 15:31:45 // Siobhan Leathley
// The Idealog Blog
| 2 comments
A fresh new Kiwi startup is out to help the local food movement by taking admin hassles out of the equation so farmers can spend more time growing their tomatoes and less time sorting out receipts.
2012-02-17 10:31:34 // Esther Goh
Wellington's Go Vocab, a language learning business that's barely a year old, has taken out the inaugural BNZ Startup Alley competition at Webstock.
2012-02-09 13:09:54 // Peter Kerr
// The Idealog Blog
Steven Joyce has the opportunity to spout a new mantra on behalf of all New Zealanders – have a go, and another after that.
2012-01-27 10:54:32 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
| 2 comments
Wellington company Educa is one of the new wave of startups out to shake up education by improving communication between early childhood providers and parents.
2012-01-25 09:52:02 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
Startup Weekend chief executive Marc Nager talks innovation, bootstrapping and community-building.
2012-01-20 13:57:02 // Siobhan Leathley
// The Idealog Blog
Six finalists are in the running to win $10,000 as part of BNZ’s Start-Up Alley, recognising new and innovative web ventures in New Zealand.
2011-12-19 10:51:52 // Ben Kepes
// The Idealog Blog
| 5 comments
For every crash and burn, it’ll be the Ma and Pa business that saves this country’s bacon.
2011-12-16 10:08:51 // Idealog
| 1 comment
After a hard-fought race, FaceMe has been crowned the winner of the BNZ Presents: The Virgin Business Challenge, after being judged best by some of New Zealand’s top entrepreneurial and business minds.
2011-12-08 09:24:04 // Hazel Phillips
// Idealog #36: now
| 3 comments
Professional skier Hamish Acland has turned his hand from shredding on the slopes to sewing together a merino brand that's plugging the gaps others aren't.
2011-12-08 09:14:14 // Idealog
Ten finalists have been announced in the BNZ Presents: The Virgin Business Challenge, a competition to find New Zealand’s best start-up talent.
2011-11-29 12:09:53 // Idealog
When Sir Richard Branson put out a challenge to New Zealand businesses last month, they responded in force. A total of 263, in fact, which have now been whittled down to 15 finalists.
2011-11-28 14:07:03 // Sarah Robson
// Idealog #36: interact
Eleven years after Sam Minnee co-founded SilverStripe as a 17-year-old, he's taken the reins of the 40-strong business as chief executive.
2011-11-21 09:49:45 // Vincent Heeringa
// The Idealog Blog
Israel's got a water problem: it has none to speak off. For sixty years it threw state money at the problem, but now it's out-sourcing the solution to a new generation of entrepreneurs
2011-11-17 10:15:32 // Vincent Heeringa
// The Idealog Blog
| 4 comments
As governments worldwide search for that elusive economic growth, some eyes are turning to Israel, the self-styled 'Startup Nation'.
2011-11-07 13:33:20 // Nick Churchouse
// The Idealog Blog
| 2 comments
Local startup uSnap.us, which provides a mobile and web application for guest-sourcing wedding photos, has been crowned winner at Startup Weekend Wellington.
2011-11-03 10:39:32 // Michael Elwood-Smith
// The Idealog Blog
The best teams are lovingly nurturing, brutally honest (or honestly brutal) and devastatingly effective together.
2011-11-02 19:00:18 // Esther Goh
| 2 comments
The Kiwi-invented Greenkeeper – a system that helps companies reduce their carbon footprint, not a golf maintenance pro – has walked away from the Bright Ideas Challenge with a cool $25,000 to accelerate its growth.
2011-11-01 15:21:25 // Dave Allison
// The Idealog Blog
| 1 comment
Why your nugget of brilliance needs to be shunted into the light of day and beaten to a pulp by everyone you know.
2011-10-27 12:24:50 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
The 2011 University of Auckland Business School Entrepreneurs’ Challenge has come to to a close – and the four winners hail from financial services, pet food manufacturing, tourism and photographic design.
2011-10-26 12:29:36 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
There's no shortage of great ideas emerging from New Zealand, but Kiwi companies need a stronger connection to the rest of the world, according to Alcatel-Lucent.
2011-10-21 12:34:43 // Idealog
| 1 comment
Sir Richard Branson has issued a challenge to New Zealand businesses: Prove you have the mettle to go global.
2011-10-13 11:03:11 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
| 2 comments
DesignCrowd, an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services through freelancers from around the world, has just launched its New Zealand chapter. And to mark the occasion, it's compiled a roundup of 20 'hot startups' from down under.
2011-10-11 13:48:26 // Idealog
| 2 comments
Waikato business incubator SODA has joined forces with NZTE to increase the number of high growth startups in the region.
2011-10-03 08:32:48 // Idealog
// The Idealog Blog
A young New Zealand entrepreneur has taken out the top prize in the 2011 AUT Venture Fund with his concept for a tablet app that enables children to create their own picture books.
2011-09-28 10:18:52 // Esther Goh
New Zealand entrepreneur Michael Green is heading to Chile in November after his goal-setting social network, Day Zero Project, was selected to take part in a government-supported initiative intended to grow the country's startup ecosystem.
2011-09-26 11:01:29 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
| 1 comment
After spending 35 years building a world-beating business, 67-year-old Bill Buckley is "still in his overalls" and loving every moment on the shop floor, as evidenced by his win at the Ernst & Young New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year awards last week.
2011-09-20 12:36:36 // Idealog
// The Idealog Blog
A maturing startup scene and the recent success of several Kiwi software businesses are paving the way for local tech companies to go global, the head of Massey University’s business innovation centre says.
2011-09-14 15:12:21 // Idealog
// The Idealog Blog
| 4 comments
It comes wrapped in plastic, but the content is definitely G-rated. Taschen's new tome on making wicked websites is helpful, but also heavy.
2011-08-29 09:27:01 // Idealog
Nearly half of Kiwi business owners are working to reach a lifestyle goal and believe they can maintain an appropriate work-life balance, a new MYOB Business Monitor report suggests.
2011-08-25 10:14:27 // Idealog
New Zealand businesses have a positive attitude both towards expanding internationally and the support they get from government agencies to do it, says a Victoria University professor.
2011-08-23 11:35:05 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
It was a dream prize for any tech startup, but ultimately there could only be one winner of BoosterSeat2011 – and that's IntuitionHQ, soon to be taking a free trip to San Francisco thanks to a group of Kiwi entrepreneurs paying it forward on the back of their own Silicon Valley success story.
2011-08-23 11:00:42 // Mark Tomlinson
// The Idealog Blog
| 1 comment
What's social media got to offer a budding entrepreneur? Mark Tomlinson blogs from the eSprint programme.
2011-08-18 09:33:38 // Esther Goh
| 2 comments
Tech entrepreneurs are the target of a $2.8 million talent development programme on track to launch in the new year in partnership with the private sector, designed to bring various players in the innovation space closer together.
2011-08-11 10:10:00 // Andrea Rush
// The Idealog Blog
| 3 comments
New research puts the Maori economic base at $36.9 billion and Maori as the world's third most entrepreneurial indigenous people.
2011-08-01 12:06:13 // Andy Kenworthy
// Idealog #34: features
A combination of Kiwi practices, verdant land and cash from clued-up investors like Sam Morgan yields Leitíssimo three times the production it would generate in New Zealand. Is this the end of our dairy industry - or the next step for IP?
2011-07-27 09:50:19 // Esther Goh
A Masterton man’s plan to sell his patented steel-mesh safety goggles worldwide has been awarded a $60,000 prize package to further expand his business.
2011-07-22 17:48:17 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
Wellington freelancers, contracts and entrepreneurs now have access to to a collaborative workspace with the launch of BizDojo
2011-07-11 10:39:51 // Idealog
The Icehouse strikes again, this time with a “KICK ASS” initiative with a vision of 3000 internationally competitive kiwi companies by 2020.
2011-06-24 09:25:00 // Vincent Heeringa
// Idealog #33: features
Everything is wrong with this business: wrong place, wrong product, wrong people. So what makes an entrepreneur, a chef, Jim Bolger and 31 of their friends think that Mt Cook Alpine Salmon will become a $60 million export success in the next five years? Vincent Heeringa investigates.
2011-06-21 17:05:58 // Esther Goh
// The Idealog Blog
BNZ and NZTE have announced a new funding venture to assist SMEs in completing the Icehouse's programme for owner-managers.
2011-05-06 09:49:12 // Rowan Simpson
// Idealog #33: features
| 1 comment
An online idea that’s snapped up for squillions—it’s the modern fairytale, but tech startups don’t always have a happy ending. Rowan Simpson has been a key part of startups-done-right Trade Me and Xero, and as a tech investor he’s been pitched some great ideas and some real dogs. Along the way, he’s learned a few things about building teams, raising cash, learning from mistakes and getting customers who pay.
2011-02-24 12:16:55 // Duncan Greive
// Idealog #31: features
Campbell Hooper and Joel Kefali’s design
house Special Problems became a music
video powerhouse quite by accident.
But as they tell Duncan Greive, they’re
counterintuitively resisting expanding their
business
2011-02-17 12:29:08 // Rebekah White
// Idealog #31: features
| 2 comments
The long summer days, the idle time,
friends, a change of pace—it’s the perfect
time to think up new ideas for the New Year.
To get you started, we talk with some of
New Zealand’s most serially creative ideas
people. By Rebekah White
2010-11-03 11:05:58 // Matt Cooney
// Idealog #30: workshop
A good Central Otago pinot is imbued with the dust and the scrub of its provenance. Alan Brady, like his fruit, turned out to be the right grape in the right place.
2010-10-19 17:28:08 // Vincent Heeringa
// Idealog #29: now
This year, US angel investor Bill Payne spent five months touring New Zealand, dishing out wisdom about early-stage companies. The engineer, recovering entrepreneur and active investor reflects on his stay downunder.
2010-10-15 10:42:43 // Mitchell Hall
// Idealog #29: features
| 1 comment
Derek and Geoff Handley created The Hyperfactory, a high-tech Kiwi business that competes with the world’s best, and in July they sold it for megamillions. Mitchell Hall asks what they’ve learned about entrepreneurship and dreaming big—and why New Zealand needs more like them. Plus: An investor speaks.
2010-09-24 06:00:00 // Ulrika Hedquist
// Idealog #29: features
| 2 comments
Glenn Jones’ t-shirt designs are designed in Auckland, printed in Texas and popular all over the internet. Ulrika Hedquist tracks the success of Glennz Tees.
2010-09-10 09:36:58 // Matt Cooney
// Idealog #29: now
Eighteen thousand kilometres from home, wandering through the 2,000-year-old ruins of a Roman city, Glen Barnes had a vision of the future.
2010-08-23 15:18:01 // Cassie Doherty
// The Idealog Blog :: The Idealist
Got the mid-winter blues, stuck in a rut, don't know where your life is going? Don't worry: this could be Your Big Year. A worldwide competition that's part of the UK's Global Entrepreneurship Week in November, Your Big Year's extremely lucky winner will embark on a 12-month, all-expenses-paid tour of the world, meeting celebrities and entrepreneurs, learning new skills and rolling up their sleeves for some volunteer work. Attend a conference in New York, take a limo ride in Vegas, learn photography in Africa, scuba dive in Australia, teach English in Ecuador, visit the Taj Mahal ... The aim is to encourage global citizenship and social responsibility through entrepreneurship. Whatever: it would sure beat surfing the net, watching telly and wondering how long till Labour Weekend.
2010-06-17 12:52:15 // Mitchell Hall
// Idealog #27: features
| 5 comments
The world’s biggest companies have a new strategy: outsourcing innovation. At the forefront of this new industry
is the founder of New York-based Fahrenheit 212, Geoff Vuleta from Timaru.
2010-04-23 11:48:21 // Matt Cooney
// Idealog #27: interact
Eric Ries has watched promising companies burn, accidental ideas succeed and bad products turn good. Working out why has led him to his own methodology, the Lean Startup. But will Silicon Valley’s rules work in Enzed?
2010-03-11 16:20:53 // Peter Griffin
// The Idealog Blog
| 2 comments
An entrepreneurial dream team is set to finally give Kiwis the internet as it should be—fast and uncapped. Oh, and lend a hand to our Australian cobbers too.
2010-02-23 22:44:00 // Vincent Heeringa
// The Idealog Blog
| 1 comment
A new report by IBM and the Univerity of Auckland into the state of Kiwi innovation reveals two surprising facts, and one dismally old one
2009-10-13 10:57:04 // Tara Jahn-Werner
// Idealog #23: features
… but can you turn it into a business? Meet four New Zealand women who have turned their love of dance—and the skills they learned—into their own creative ventures. By Tara Jahn-Werner. Plus a rich and energetic tradition.
2009-09-07 15:59:37 // Frances Chan
// Idealog #23: interact
Whatever your Big Idea is, pitch it to the Icehouse and you could win $15,000 worth of prizes, including three months in the Icehouse business incubator to develop your product and offer to investors.
2009-09-04 13:28:52 // Felicity Monk
// Idealog #23: celsias
| 2 comments
He took Bendon from a knickerwear manufacturer to a global lingerie brand; she holed up in a Wellington yoga studio before deciding it was time to join the ‘real world’. Felicity Monk asks how Stefan Preston made the leap from Stella McCartney to Jyoti Morningstar, and how Morningstar moved from teaching yoga to launching an ambitious fashion eco-label.
2009-08-13 14:47:39 // Deirdre Robert
// Idealog TV
Walking through the supermarket with wires running through your cheek and a camera in your mouth may sound odd to most, but for AUT Colab resident Matt Kenyon, it's all in a day's work. Seeking to challenge the 'powers that be' through the appropriation of popular culture, Kenyon not only challenges it, he throws it on its head and turns it inside out.
2009-07-27 09:00:00 // Deirdre Robert & Vincent Heeringa
// Idealog TV
Todd Wackrow spent just 3 months at the Icehouse and now look, he's really tall. Idealog asks why.
2009-07-21 15:17:41 // Deirdre Robert & Vincent Heeringa
// Idealog TV
James Madelin had an idea. Now it's a global business. Vincent Heeringa meets the man from Orbis.
2009-07-17 12:27:49 // Deirdre Robert & Vincent Heeringa
// Idealog TV
The Icehouse Business Growth Centre is opening its doors to all tyre-kickers and wannabe billionaires at an Open Day on July 29. Idealog asks startup director Ken Erskine what it takes to become the next Sammy Morgan.
2009-07-17 10:04:05 // Anya Kussler
// Idealog #22: features
| 1 comment
A dry, stony bit of Hawke’s Bay, once a speedway and a quarry, now produces full-bodied red wines the equal of thousand-bucks-a-bottle Bordeaux. What’s the secret? Anya Kussler discovers what lurks in the once-unwanted soils of Gimblett Gravels. Plus beau Bordeaux and the top six.
2009-07-03 15:25:08 // Matt Cooney
// Idealog #22: now
| 5 comments
It seems Lance Wiggs is always on a journey. Even home in Godzone, he’s not standing still: he has companies to mentor, connections to make and, on his blog, clueless corporates to skewer. So just what is Wiggs looking for?
2009-05-26 16:04:03 // Simon Young
// Idealog TV
| 2 comments
Tim Chang, Principal of Norwest Venture Partners in Silicon Valley, sees New Zealand as a source of unique and refreshing ideas, born out of our distance from easy capital. Being a VC from Silicon Valley, you'd expect him to advise Kiwi businesses to chase American money, but you may be surprised at his answer.
2009-05-26 15:11:10 // Simon Young
// Idealog TV
Vishal Gondal's business card says he is God-in-Chief at IndiaGames. A business owner since the age of 16, he’s got a lot to say about the Indian business philosophy of Jugaad. Kiwi businesses are more creative than Vishal expected, but do we need a healthy dose of Jugaad?
2009-05-24 19:09:44 // Simon Young
// The Idealog Blog
X-Media Lab was all about companies getting one-to-one advice, but some advice is true for all entrepreneurs.
2006-07-06 00:00:00 // Eleanor Black
// Idealog #4: features
| 2 comments
Tanya Thompson’s transformation from ‘waif-like graffiti artist to mini-corporate’ has some predicting that it’s just a matter of time until she has her own fashion empire. Thompson—better known as Misery—is turning her cute-but-creepy creations into a global business. By Eleanor Black
