The energy in the room at last night’s Audacious showcase was buzzing, with our Ōtepoti startup ecosystem coming together again to celebrate the amazing work from this year’s cohort of hardworking Audacious students! This year, a massive 72 students from all areas of study at Otago University and Otago Polytechnic were involved in Audacious. With drinks in hand and the best spicy tortilla chips in the world (quote us on that - go on), we took our seats to cheer for the hard mahi, pivots, reworks, and new beginnings of our Audacious participants.
3 top tools to help prioritise your time and give you more headspace when starting a business.
The first thing to remember is that the best way to reduce your time money and resources is to focus on validation.
Validation can be seen as three parts of a Venn diagram; where all three parts overlap is the “sweet spot” that indicates the best chance of a successful business. The three parts of the Venn diagram are Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility.
Kia ora to our vibrant and ever-growing Startup Dunedin community! You might have noticed a little bit of change around the Startup Dunedin space lately. As our General Manager Rachel Butler has begun her parental leave, we’ve welcomed some friendly new faces to the team.
So, as we prepare to say goodbye to 2023 at the end of this month, we reckon this is a great time to introduce (and reintroduce) the dedicated individuals you’ll meet with - or run into at Strictly Coffee - behind the scenes at Startup Dunedin.
One of Startup Dunedin’s core values is that innovation requires success and failure.
That failure part? Turns out it’s pretty important. In fact, failure can be just as much of a success as, well, success. The lessons you learn, the skills you pick up, and the connections you make can be the spark that ignites the next big flame.
For Cameron Templer, who founded the npw-closed startup Yezmac, the journey has just begun.
We sat down with Cam for a quick Q&A on the ups and down that came with his entrepreneurial journey and the decision to close Yezmac.
Perspectives and learnings from local female founders at the second ever Electrify conference.
Recently, three women currently in Startup Dunedin’s Distiller Incubator had the unique opportunity to attend Electrify Aotearoa, presented by the good folks at Ministry of Awesome. Conferences like Electrify are a part of that solution. Just as a series of amazing wāhine took the national stage to share their wisdom, we’re excited to see how our local startups take that knowledge and turn it into real and tangible progress here in Ōtepoti.
Let’s recap some of that wisdom!
In the dynamic and ever-evolving world of entrepreneurship, Steph Benseman and Mason Bleakley have already had quite the journey - from helping fledgling startups and young entrepreneurs find their feet, to ending up listed in Forbes 30 under 30 Asia for their work with First Cut.
Customer personas are a helpful tool to understand a startup's customers and target audience. We recommend them as a great task to help startups with their process of market validation.
When developing a customer persona, it helps to think of one specific customer (and name them), rather than a stereotype (plus, it’s more fun that way). If you are unsure who your customer is- this blog may be helpful.
Grace is the newest member of Startup Dunedin, having taken over as Programme Facilitator a.k.a startup lead, this week following her move from Tauranga.
This role will see her engaging directly with our startups, providing support for founders and delivering workshops right here in Ōtepoti, Dunedin.
Despite the obvious drop in temperature, I was keen to learn more about how Grace is adjusting to her brand new (she’s 7 days in!) spot in Otago, and what excites her about the road ahead.
For any entrepreneur, setting the price for a product or service is a crucial step in building a successful business. Pricing impacts sales, profitability and overall brand perception. It can even influence your business model. To ensure you make informed pricing decisions, there are several key factors to consider.
From Queen Bees, to Series Bs - introducing Scott Clifford, a fresh new face on the Return on Science team.
Scott joined Otago Innovation in September 2022 as a commercialisation analyst and a Momentum Programme Intern. Then in January of 2023, he changed to full-time with Return on Science as a programme analyst, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table - and some of it is pretty eclectic!
This isn't really an annual report; it's a compilation of the stories, the humans and the ups and downs of our community in 2022.
One thing that's hard to capture when reflecting on the year is the unseen hours given by alumni, mentors, and supporters. We hope when reading about the dedication and creativity of those starting up, you can also sense the hundreds of hours given by our community unaccounted for.
Mostly though, we hope reading it leaves you incredibly optimistic about the Dunedin ecosystem.
Tēnā rawa atu koutou.
The future is looking incredibly bright.
Last week, our GM Rachel had the privilege of judging the Otago Regional Young Enterprise Awards last week. The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) is an opportunity for students to unleash their inner entrepreneur and experience the start-up world first-hand, nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs and community leaders.
The best part? Throughout all of the teams, the pitch quality was so consistently impressive; it was clear that the teams had spent a great deal of time this year validating, understanding their customer and solving some unique problems in Aotearoa. Pay special attention to their Quadruple Bottom Line; this is a new way of thinking about business, ensuring startups are making sustainable profits, but that they are also factoring in social and environmental responsibilities.
You’ll want to make sure you’re on board for this journey - make sure you get a slice of the action on their Instagram and Facebook.
Can you believe it?
Audacious Semester 2 for 2022 is already done and dusted. After 8 weeks of prototyping, pavement-pounding, and polish, we've seen our Audacious students turn their emergent shower-thoughts and business brainwaves from “that could be cool” into “this is actually happening”. We’re stoked to officially bring you the results for this semester’s showcase.
Chances are you didn’t start a business because you LOVE doing finances and filing tax returns. For most founders, the thought of diving into their tax obligations is enough to either frighten them or put them to sleep.
Not to worry! We’re here with tools and tips to help you get started with understanding tax.
A little over 80% of New Zealand businesses make it through the first year. Extend that by five years and less than 40% will be left.
Why?
SAFE (or simple agreement for future equity) notes are documents that startups often use to help raise seed capital, a.k.a the initial amount of money an entrepreneur uses to start a business. Essentially, a SAFE note acts as a legally binding promise to allow an investor to purchase a specified number of shares for an agreed-upon price in the future.
Today we highlight one tool and one tip we give founders in our programmes when they’re considering raising capital.
First time raising capital? Checkout this free guide. It will help with the mountain of jargon heading your way.
Award-winning marketer, published author, and stalwart of the Dunedin startup ecosystem, Leanne Ross has a lot of serious accomplishments under her belt, and with those accomplishments comes good wisdom (and some great stories). A recent alum of the Startup Dunedin Board and originally from Ireland, Leanne began her career in Dunedin as a freelancer in Digital Marketing. Within 6 months she had given that up to take a role with a games studio in the city that was growing fast, citing it as just too exciting and too welcoming to not get in amongst it.
