The Two Year Journey of Mum’s Garage

Natalie Robinson
Aug 9, 2017 · 5 min read

Mum’s Garage turned two on 1 August 2017.

I wanted to write this post to give our community a glimpse of what we looked like in the early stages vs. where we are at now, and the journey in between, because I want people to understand that most things are possible — you just have to start small, and keep going through the tough times and then eventually you become a company that know’s what it’s doing.

Mum’s Garage (literally)

Companies two years old look and sound a lot different from ones who are just starting out.

The beginning:

I caught up with a friend the other day who had been at the Mum’s Garage launch on 1 August 2015, and she told me that she was launching her new project.

Mum’s Garage Launch

She didn’t entirely know what it was going to become, but she was having a launch event at her house in a months time regardless. She remembered when I had stood up at the Mum’s Garage launch and explained that I was starting a thing to change the way we start businesses, and I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but that I knew that it had to be done because something had to change.

Mum’s Garage Launch

I remember the very awkward moment. I was standing in the tiny garage, jam packed with people, and I was trying to give an “epic launch speech”. My epic launch speech (which I was terrified about doing) came out as a babbling, passionate mess. I had no idea how to communicate what I was doing, because I didn’t really know what it was at that point. Afterwards people came up to me and said, “this is awesome, but what exactly is it?”

At this point I had just quit my corporate banking job, and had never built a startup before….and I was starting a startup to teach people how to build startups. I had spent the last week by myself DIY’ing a very old, small garage into a workshop space.

Our first workshops in the garage:

‘Find your Purpose’ workshop

They started out as “Find your Purpose” workshops, which I co-facilitated with a friend. They were intended to help people in corporate jobs figure out what they really cared about so they could either find a more fulfilling job or start their own thing.

Patrick, who was one of the first workshop attendees, is now part of the Mum’s Garage team.

We pretty quickly outgrew the garage — mostly because it was cold, small and the internet was unreliable — and started to run a bigger event.

Entrepreneurs Unleashed was born:

Paul Organ & Nelson Shaw at the first Entrepreneurs Unleashed (Oct-15) // Tim & Luke Burrows, & Charlie Meaden at our most recent Entrepreneurs Unleashed (Jul-17)

Years 1–2:

It took about a year to make sense of what we were creating. It took another six months to get certainty and confidence on the true value behind Mum’s Garage; what we were good at and where our place was in the world.

Along the way, we made most of the mistakes early stage founders make. All of these mistakes have helped us to make our products better, because instead of just talking about the mistakes, we understand the fundamental concepts behind why these mistakes happen.

We teach these fundamental concepts so founders can apply them to their own views, beliefs and experiences associated with what they’re creating. We find this helps to empower them, rather than making them feel more uncertain.

Where we are now:

We’ve come a long way in two years. There is still a long way to go, but it’s nice to reflect and appreciate what we have managed to accomplished in this relatively short period of time (which I almost never do).

We’ve become thought leaders in the startup space, and we’re starting to see our influence rub off.

We’ve built one of the larger startup communities in Auckland.

We get more request from people that we can currently manage.

We’ve co-developed NZ’s first digital pre-accelerator, The Validator, which developed some highly capable founders.

We’ve built and run a 12 week entrepreneurial program, as part of a University Masters Program, which produced remarkable results.

And we’ve just launched the first version of a scalable product, which we plan to grow globally.

Digital Marketing Deep Dive, I WANT GROWTH, Wellington ICT Grad School Pitch Night

Me personally — how I feel now:

  • My beliefs about people and how the world works has been transformed. I now learn more in a month that I would have in a year working in a corporate job.
  • I get to do work that I love, most of the time. And it’s meaningful. I’m not just a small cog in a big machine that I don’t care about.
  • There are hard times and my week is more challenging that ever, but I love it because I am in control of myself. I set the challenges myself and experience the payoffs.
  • Everyday I get to go to an inspiring space and work with other awesome people (my team), and we’re able to create something that is truly valuable.

And the thing is, there is nothing special about me. I am an ordinary person from a small town in Northland. I grew up on a farm with no deep ambitions. I wasn’t that great at school, I didn’t win awards or become a prefect. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for most of my life and I was unhappy in a job for a long time.

If I can do it, so can you…

…but you have to learn how, otherwise you never will.

Natalie Robinson

Written by

Founder @MumsGarage. Passionate about value creation and making more ideas a reality.

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