How to create a stronger New Zealand tech community
Observations by Bill Reichert (summarized by Alyse Opatowski)
Bill Reichert is a Managing Director at Garage Technology Ventures with over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor. Since co-founding Garage with Guy Kawasaki in 1998, Bill has focused on early-stage information technology and materials science companies. He has worked with government and private organizations to grow the global tech community and helped many New Zealand entrepreneurs.
Bill recently spent almost a month in New Zealand as the Entrepreneur in Residence at AUT and shared his observations with NZTE. Bill noted that New Zealand is the easiest country in which to set up a business, an advantage that can be capitalized on to attract global investors, entrepreneurs and talent. We wanted to share a few of Bill’s findings and recommendations to strengthen the New Zealand tech ecosystem.
- New Zealand needs to invest more capital through venture and corporate partnerships: There is little investment in tech besides some government support and a developing angel capital network. New Zealand should work to attract foreign and local investment funds and engage the corporate community to be actively involved in buying and testing products. KEA and other agencies should continue to connect international Kiwi executives to NZ tech companies as mentors and potential customers.
- Make New Zealand attractive to global innovators: New Zealand has an opportunity to exploit its advantages to attract the best and the brightest from elsewhere in the world to come to New Zealand to start their high tech companies. Other countries, like Startup Chile have invested substantially in attracting immigrant innovators to build their startup ecosystems and can collaborate with proven programs like LevelTwo in Parnell and AstroLab in Auckland.
- Increase support for sales training: Too much of the emphasis in accelerator programs is on pitch training and investor acquisition, and not enough emphasis is on sales training. Before any Kiwi entrepreneur talks with a Silicon Valley investor, they had better connect with several local customers and be able to prove they have a valid US customer acquisition model. Kiwis are not generally comfortable with selling; the culture emphasizes the virtues of self-reliance, not the art of persuasion. Good entrepreneurs are good salespeople. Most are driven to sell by necessity and passion. But it helps to learn the skills of selling, and to get practice in selling, before you talk to investors.
- Create an open professional network of startup companies: New Zealand has done a good job of providing basic training in starting up startups by supporting entrepreneur education and developing a strong base of incubator and accelerator programs. However, there is no public database of emerging technology companies that serves as a networking tool for entrepreneurs to reach out for employees, interns, advisors, partners, investors and customers. Nor is there a robust census of emerging technology companies for someone looking to participate in the startup scene to identify companies that he or she might be interested in joining, or writing about, or funding. Initiatives like the TIN100 and the Deloitte Fast 50 are a really good start, but they are not useful in building an interactive ecosystem around startup companies. In the US, the crunchbase website run by the Techcrunch digital magazine represents one part of this solution, but even CrunchBase does not offer a platform for startups to reach out for talent or build out collaborative initiatives.
According to Bill, the most important message for New Zealand entrepreneurs to be successful in the global company is:
- Increased confidence: Kiwis lack confidence when speaking of themselves or their company and need to be confident in order to grow their company and stand out among the vast international competition. Kiwi entrepreneurs need to work on confidence and to tell your story in a meaningful way to gain trust from customers and investors. If you are looking to improve this, you can start with Toastmasters class or checking out Bill’s WOW statements on how to discuss your product in a meaningful way.
New Zealand agencies and entrepreneurs should take Bill’s advice to improve their success in international markets. If you are looking for education on specific topics check out articles from NZTE international team and other basics about doing business internationally here as well as videos from Nasdaq or Kiwi Landing Pad online.
