 Terrific. So what would love to do before I start asking each of you and all of you some questions and opening up to the group is Maybe just to go around and tell us a little bit about your your journey here Maybe for a minute or two And some of the things that get you excited about the entrepreneurial ecosystem in New Zealand Can I start? I can start. Um, so the journey here for me Interesting journey today actually this morning coming in from Auckland but the journey to New Zealand for me is really interesting on so I grew up in Germany spent a lot of time in in the UK working there and then Getting tired of the corporate world in the UK enough to be honest of life in the UK a little bit and But I've always had a strong passion for an English-speaking environment and being a bit of an angle file I knew that I I needed to go somewhere else and then Fortunately a good friend of mine told me about New Zealand and I pretty much just packed up my bags and shipped everything over to New Zealand and Just gave it a go and I thought well the worst thing that can happen is I could have an awesome time for You know a year and then I'll just go back to my other life But I've stayed so I've been here for 10 years now and one of the key things That I'm really passionate about is that I And I can say this as a as an as an outsider who's not got a Kiwi password, but sometimes feel like Kiwis put themselves down too much and always think they're Not quite on I don't know on par with everyone else always look at Australia so much better the US is so much better And you know, what would it be like if we if we had that here and from a European perspective? I think Especially from Germany like New Zealand is actually seen as paradise like everyone wants to you know make it to New Zealand and love New Zealand products and and love holidaying here and I think if we had that that Knowledge here and that and that spirit and just be a little bit more proud of that and say yeah Doesn't matter where we are New Zealand is a fabulous country Then you know be a lot easier to get some of those initiatives of the ground and and just be a little bit more confident in the world It's my take on it Thank you I'm Candice Kinzer. I moved here 17 years ago from Hawaii and It was meant to be similarly a year and then heading back to go to law school, which I escaped So so I ended up staying. I'm an anthropologist by training So New Zealand was actually kind of a natural fit in many ways Originally from Texas, so I come with a lot of interesting baggage Into an environment where it is complete dichotomy. It's absolutely opposite of what I grew up in in many ways But on the other hand grew up with a very strong Mother and female figure who always told me, you know go into the world Don't do what I had to do which was stay here and raise kids Bless her heart, but I've done that and within New Zealand. I think what I've been able to discover is that through a journey of some very interesting experiences both being an employee Being given the opportunity to run a really interesting software business a few years ago And then recently in the position of representing the technology industry of New Zealand internationally and I took that role very seriously and That is how I came to meet Yosef and the Monaheim brothers and Had some really exciting time. So now I'm a director of a number of companies Took one of the companies to listing in August, which was very exciting Kiwi tech company and Now also working as an advisor for a small little tech business at a Silicon Valley called Palantir Who are also doing some interesting things and that's about it for me. Thank you Yeah, I sort of fell into the world of entrepreneurship after trying a few other things that I thought I was passionate about But I was kind of wrong. I was originally going to be a policeman in New Zealand So I started down a quite a quite a different path and I did a Bachelor of Arts degree in First World War history Which just kind of naturally led me into technology entrepreneurship And So, yeah, it's kind of kind of a bit of a theme really so so my big things about about growth personal growth growth of other people and I Was fortunate to be part of a team of three of us that decided to go down the startup journey and kind of got it Right, fortunately six years and sold it to a US publicly listed company And that was a real buzz in terms of why I'm so passionate about entrepreneurship and helping others take the same journey hopefully with a much bigger scalar of success is that feeling of Creating something from nothing is like something I've never experienced at anything else And I've done quite a few dangerous things that were kind of adrenaline pumping But you know that that's the one that sort of sustains for me. So I spend most of my time now trying to help others I do have a little adventure been working on for a couple of years, which is about to surface in New Zealand I'm a recovering entrepreneur until that hits the that's the ground in about the middle of the year And yeah, I mean I really try to share my experiences and connections and networks to help Lots of other Kiwi entrepreneurs and Kiwi companies and the people that they support and and encourage by doing that and leading that Be more successful on the global stage and yeah, it's a real buzz. Hopefully we'll be for the rest of my life My first question is to Candace has been really fascinating to See the way you've really navigated the entrepreneurial ecosystem in New Zealand as part of NZ attack And you got to see and meet so many entrepreneurs and policy makers I'm curious to hear if we do a litmus test of where we are right now as an ecosystem what type of a dent are we making in the world and What is the potential you see for the New Zealand ecosystem to do so over the next few years? right well, I think that In terms of where New Zealand does if you start comparing, you know to other countries I think that's the first dangerous sort of tightrope to start walking because there's so many differences between us and Silicon Valley and you know Germany and any other part of the world that It's important to be aware of what else is going on in the world but we're in such an enviable position of Having a government that is actually very supportive of the business sector in terms of funding and in terms of I mean the fact that Matt's here from immigration and we had Colin who was the head of DIA who was sitting and you know in the audience just just a few minutes ago that sort of cohesive Bracement that government gives to business is incredibly unique for this country and I think that as we start Our journey into the next phase of entrepreneurship for New Zealand We're kind of coming to the second cycle in the third cycle for some of the entrepreneurs It's all about taking what we've learned overseas using the best and embracing that and Rejecting things that we say that don't work but also creating a lot of the aspects like you know the funding and the support that we have Where we are fitting in I think You know, I've said it a million times that the New Zealand way of going about creating business is flying under the radar in many ways And finding very niche opportunities that either large corporates or other Organizations or people around the world may overlook or just say oh, it's not worth it or you know Why would we want to do that? There's already ten other companies in the world that are doing that but we tend to do it We tend to do it really well and there's people that are sitting in the audience today You know that like Vaughan with with Vendt, you know and point of sale software You've had the zero stories You've had a whole bunch of companies that they've just taken a bright idea and gone a little bit left of center and Really made an impact and made a difference on the world stage in that space So I don't think it's about creating a business like Nokia or creating an Apple or anything like that It's all about creating a whole bunch of small sustainable Highly actionable businesses in niche areas, and I think that's what we should focus on what we do best Any reflections or either of you? No If not, I can move to the next question Cool John you touched a little bit about Kiwi landing pad and From the virus conversations we've had in the past You seem very passionate about Building bridges and connecting the dots between New Zealand and our ecosystem here with Silicon Valley Which is where we see a huge gravitation of Entrepreneurs and technologies moving towards right now What do you see so important in building such bridges for our ecosystem to thrive here? So I think the biggest thing for me is that you know the There's kind of two aspects one is often the best path is the one that's most trodden And so for I think a lot of the base stuff that Most Kiwi entrepreneurs who want to build a global business need to do not necessarily just in Silicon Valley or the US There's a lot of merit and sharing and understanding how to do that fundamental stuff quickly So that you can get on to your point to the real stuff around differentiating sometimes a similar idea But in a different or niche or unique way, which is really what creates the value in the engagement with the marketplace So, you know, I think that cross-pollination of ideas Both in the area that you're working in but just generally around people who have taken a position on Growing something or standing up for something and that leadership position that they've taken and that resilience and that sustainability That they've had to have I think is one of the biggest things and so landing pad You know, we've just started this year actually trying to to proactively and sometimes accidentally integrate some companies From the local ecosystem into the pad so that Kiwi entrepreneurs can go there and see local folks doing and I think culturally It's still quite a big shift For people coming from New Zealand I see it still quite a lot and they land and it's you know geographically. It's a long way away It's a big plane trip and they kind of get a little bit of a knockback realizing that Nothing really gets any easier by actually making that move In fact, it's harder from the perspective of going out and meeting and connecting with those people So I think the more that we can do that on both sides and get that familiarity and that that social aspect and that learning going faster Coming back to your question. It's really a way of accelerating Our place and our growth in that particular part of the market around entrepreneurship and what time horizons are you looking at in terms of seeing real impact and At the scale that you'd like to see on the ecosystem. It's pretty short. It's about 20 years Yeah, I mean that's I kind of say that in people I think if we really want to make a difference around, you know the potential That being a serious consistent player in this space with all the creativity and all the innovation that we do have I think really that's the time frame to sustain and I you know Worked on a lot of corporate innovation projects and one of the biggest barriers right from the get-go is that the time frame to success is is generally not longer than about three years and The sort of impact and the sort of foundations that they have to lay for truly long-standing staff particularly we're in this world of Engagement where you know lifetime value in all aspects. It's just such an important metric the horizon the runways too short and For Many of our friends who are coming from the US who do not know about Q landing pad. It's creating a soft landing space in San Francisco for QE startups who are looking to base themselves over in the US and Helping them network with the whole ecosystem and it's been a great honor working with you guys for the last few months Stefan with the creative HQ You guys are Helping nurture entrepreneurs here and Providing a supporting environment in and space for them to flourish and thrive while they're here What are some of the lessons that you've you've learned over the last few years in doing that and? In the way, that's really best to actually nurture entrepreneurs here What are some of the best ways we can nurture our entrepreneurs here in New Zealand? It's a it's a that's a big question And I think it ranges from you know, the tactical and operational stuff just some some basic skills around How do you run a business? You know avoiding the mistakes that others have made all of that is probably the sort of the bread and butter of what a lot of the incubation and acceleration programs Teach entrepreneurs, but I think so more recently we've realized that a big focus for us for example has become on resilience and You know sort of really You know getting the especially the younger entrepreneurs to get to a point where they they realize that it's gonna be a rough ride and in many ways and and you you can prepare yourself for that and and you there's stuff that you can do again coming back to this idea of being being balanced and looking after yourself because if you're If you're not, you know, if you're mentally out of whack and you're stressed and you're in balance Your business is gonna feel the impact of that and I think that's often neglected with all the hard skills that we teach It's it's all the soft skills that in the end make a big difference And so we've shifted focus a little bit from just focusing on the hard skills to now bringing all of those things in and including Yeah, some of the things that I mentioned earlier around You know doing entrepreneur retreats getting those guys to actually look after themselves looking into near their house You know Food and you know all those things It's it's really important and so that it becomes more of a rounded experience rather than just you know How do you get this business off the ground and and you know make a ton of money a question for all of you is around I'd call it equality when it comes to entrepreneurship and a candid you've been working a lot in supporting more women entrepreneurs and We don't have enough woman entrepreneurs in New Zealand We did a project with Kiwi Connect trying to tell the stories of women entrepreneurs and really highlight the potential and gaps that exist here But also during the course of the last few days some of the questions that have come up is how many Maori Communities are actually embracing entrepreneurship and what's the percentage of the entrepreneurship community? is actually coming from Maori communities and There's also, you know young students and people of various ages. How open is the entrepreneurship landscape to Individuals who want to get started in an entrepreneurial path That's a good question I don't think that there's a natural prejudice in New Zealand to say just because you're female or because you're from minority race Therefore, you cannot be an entrepreneur I think the problem that has existed and one of the projects that I did late last year was called shadow IT and We went around to about 15 different schools low-decel schools in South Auckland and selected two young women They're about 14 or 15 years old and placed them with a CEO of a high-performing tech company for the day To just shadow them and see what was going on and it was an amazing from the in the morning to see you know They're very quite quiet and passive and at the end of the day it was just a calcophony of noise and we all regrouped in MIT and One of the key learnings I think that everybody who experienced that day had was it's not about the fact that they're not good enough or You know, there's not the opportunity. It's about creating that interest and supporting that interest from a young age Regardless of your race or you know your gender So that's one I think step that New Zealand can really work on quite significantly is really fostering that belief in technology and Entrepreneurship from a younger age a Second area in starting when I started the women in tech about two and a half years ago It was more of an experiment to actually see how many women are in tech You know in terms of senior leadership roles CIO roles, etc And we started out with about half a dozen women that would come to a lunch in Wellington in Auckland at the moment There's over 215 members now that come regularly and that's growing and so In saying that when you try to transition these women who are CIOs, you know for your New Zealand or you know running You know previously Fujitsu, etc And say what would it take for you to actually step away from your safety net and go out and start a business? Well, there's two key catalysts for usually why women start a business one of which is out of necessity And you see that a lot in Southeast Asia for example, you know, they have to feed their families to survive And the other one is out of interest or boredom in what they're doing in their day-to-day job And hey wouldn't that be cool in New Zealand? We're kind of in the middle in some ways and so there isn't really the safety net and the catalyst That's well known and appreciated for women to step away from the safety net Kind of go into this purgatory for a little while and then be able to launch into an entrepreneurial type position But at the same time there's no real Desperation to have to go out there and earn a living as an entrepreneur because we do have the social environment that we have So it is a good question I don't actually know the answer But I think it really comes down to encouragement and just a real understanding of the drivers that create female entrepreneurs and minority entrepreneurs and try to emphasize The goodness of making that happen and that it will be okay to fail and it will be okay to take five or seven years To get your idea off the ground that we don't have to be the two-year turnaround for a startup different here So I just wanted to share some good news We've run our acceleration program landing lab for a few years in Wellington and one of the big criticisms was well You don't see many women participating in it There were a few female entrepreneurs, but you know the ratio was like 90 percent male and then so a Program that we finished last week, which we did with the young entrepreneur scheme with Terry here in the office and the office I Called venture up and the really cool thing to see there. This is a mini acceleration program targeting young young entrepreneurs aged sort of 16 between 16 and 21 and There were more women in the program than men and I thought that was fantastic and there were several all female teams and also You know Pacific Island. There's a really diverse group and so this is the next generation that we're talking about and I just thought sometimes a little bit depressing to look around you know and Big programs and realize that there are not many women in the room, but Just wanted to share some good news that the next generation is getting that and and I think they're a lot more Confident about going into business and the culture shift is beginning to happen, which is awesome Often higher the ones that do succeed Sorry, sorry I was also saying that there has been a lot of research that's come out that investors are finding the returns that they're receiving Off of you know female owned businesses particularly in the tech space Are significantly greater Over a four to five year time period Not sure why It just is just happening and trending that way and in the US They have a lot of VC firms that are now being created to solely invest in women owned businesses, which is quite good too Yeah, I just find it intriguing from from a number of aspects why we have this sort of imbalance And I guess the encouraging thing sort of follow up on what you were saying is that it feels like there's more Balancing but still a big gap The most intriguing thing for me is just purely capitalistic is like, you know Decision makers and a lot of consumer product and you know a bunch of markets are way way Predominantly sitting in the female side of a household or decision-making Capability and I know when we built a software company servicing the HR market human resources and corporates. I mean That was in 2006 and one of our big frustrations is we grew that company was trying to find Female board members and executives To give us that perspective because our bio was you know 42 to 52 years old female almost 95% of the time and you just can't kind of think in the same capacity or ask the same questions And I think the other thing from an entrepreneurship point of view put myself out there Sorry guys as I think that you know the successful female entrepreneurs and corporate executives that I've been fortunate to be involved with It's been a long time at HP under Working directly for their first female CEO and first external CEO to HP ever So that was a pretty intriguing experience and in a bunch of ways in terms of understanding how tough that is Just just generally speaking then taking on the diversity side of things But the resilience side, you know, which has come through quite a lot here I sort of if I was asked to vote one way or the other in terms of Gender resilience I'd have to go strongly that you know, that's a quality that I think we see More consistently or certainly I see more consistently on the female side and that's such an important makeup of all aspects of these businesses So it's not surprising to hear that you know VCs are kind of seeing those those trends as well So we have about 50 or so guests who have joined us from the US and Are really interested in Passion about one learning about the New Zealand ecosystem and finding ways to support and plug in So I'm curious to hear from each of you. What are some of the biggest challenges that you see in the local ecosystem? And how can we help? One thing is actually making it easy for others who want to come in from other parts of the world To help us in New Zealand and it's great to see immigration here I've been trying to engage with you a number of times and and successfully as well But what we really need is An easy way for for those who want to come to New Zealand with a lot of skills Especially to help us further build the ecosystem and and benefit from the experience And make it easy and sometimes I think We have this this mindset that are certainly what I've picked up from immigration in some of the categories It seems to be this Well to be here in New Zealand is a privilege and we kind of have to guard that a little bit And we we have this there's a hurdle that you have to jump over And I think we need to look at it from the other way, which is well people who want to come here For all sorts of reasons with with their skills. Let's make it as easy as possible Let's not let them you know fill out hundreds of forms and and get all of this stuff Let's you know bring them in and deal with that later and and let them stay here for a few years And they may want to stay for longer or they may want to go back, but we can Benefit so much from just a sheer experience of people coming over and I think If we had a way and I'm appealing to immigration to to make make that a lot easier than it is for us at the moment To bring people over that would be my one big ask and it's totally in our control So let's do it if I could quickly comment on that Yesterday we actually had Nigel Bickel the head of immigration here and we had some really interesting conversations around possibilities of making the immigration Process a lot more appealing to entrepreneurs and we left with some few action items on some ideas that we can propose to Make it a lot easier for entrepreneurs to come here, which is looking to propose to the cabinet and Prime Minister as well So look, I'll steal some thinking from the landing pad in terms of what we're trying to instill in that ecosystem and community Which is really boils down to sort of three areas, which is is confidence Credibility and connections so those are the sort of three Verticals that we're trying to build out and I think you know everybody Can help us with You know confidence is something I think that you know We probably underplay a little bit here Especially with the whole sort of moving into a much more fast-paced concentrated environment if we're talking about Silicon Valley So just having people share experiences and and you know actually make it literally as simple as saying you know this is We're all human beings here And you know there's only 24 hours in a day and there's some constants here that sort of I think a lot of Kiwi entrepreneurs go in a bit Overlord About the experience so certainly engaging with people this side and you know Giving that confidence by engaging them and sharing things and then that sort of leads on to the second piece Which is this credibility. I mean everybody only has the same number of minutes in a day In an hour, so you know to be getting in a useful interaction with people You need to have some endorsement or or credibility Ideally from your community or other individuals that the person you're trying to connect with on a first-time basis or for a specific reason Can can relate to and you know That then allows people to be very comfortable making those connections and And endorsing those so I think around those three areas is a fantastic opportunity To work more closely with our with our business and tourist You know visitors who have those sort of understandings and networks I mean the one thing I've learned about this world is it's truly a village You kind of bump into people all over the place but to turn that into you know a more entrepreneurial more specific goal I think that you you need to have some some more help There's some more worldly knowledge and connections and community stuff happening all the time to just keep you primed up for that I guess Given I'm an American who've moved here I'd say from an anthropologist perspective coming to New Zealand was much more of an experience in trying to find acceptance in a world that was a lot more Difficult than I thought it would be when I came here and it was the little things that really got me in the beginning English but not you know morning tea after nature just little things and this one I was 25 so it was a while ago But where I think you adapt and how you come to appreciate this environment is to understand The protectiveness you know that New Zealand has over the wonderful things that it does have hence, you know yes sometimes Barriers are good from the perspective that it makes people work for something that they really want and I agree with you You know there could be other aspects to get through it But in living here and in working here I've never been around an environment or an ecosystem of people that are so interconnected that truly believe and want to help others Succeed and it is a very foreign concept in many ways But I think that it's one that if we can get more interest and diversity I mean Auckland just passed 51% Mark last year of the population of Auckland 51% is from another country Which is unheard of and you know that to me when I moved here 17 18 years ago I was pretty much the American girl in town, you know that I knew and now You know I can't go to a meeting where there's not another American or Canadian or I mean even on stage I think you're from here. Yeah, okay, so we've got one out of four. That's actually from New Zealand So it is it is pretty special just to echo you talked about The willingness to help and that's something that I've experienced so much since I moved out here and a lot It's just actually relationships as many of you and that is how even this event came to be is just through that openness and desire and willingness to help someone and One of the reflections from my end has been coming here is there's always Benefit of the doubt when you meet someone first So you always created with your good and less proven otherwise rather than your bad and less proven Otherwise, and that's just been so warm to experience here in New Zealand. I Love to just open it up for questions from the crowd I'll give my microphone to Rebecca questions Reflections Thanks all for yeah, your thoughts and reflections I guess going back to that idea of inequality and having more women in entrepreneurship and in tech What do you see the roles of of companies and of entrepreneurs in actually Coaching women to feel like they can step into those positions of leadership Because I think you touched on it John and that all the time people who are organizing Conferences and events they run up against the same problem We can't find enough women entrepreneurs who are wanting to come out and speak So what do you think is the role that you can all play and actually Actively mentoring and coaching women to feel like they can take that position Look, I think it's it does I'm quite proactive, but once again, I sort of default to the to the more selfish company reasons for that around getting that perspective into Into a business So, you know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, you know leading companies looking at assessing talent and making those decisions probably need to take a Diversity view You know Equally or maybe even slightly head in some cases of a of a close run kind of skills and experience gap It's really the only way in my mind to just start, you know bridging a numbers issue You know, I sit on a number of boards and it has been good to see in the last probably 18 months that a lot of our shortlisted Candidates for executive roles within those companies have included a woman, but it's still very very light So I guess the second piece of that is probably a responsibility of taking up, you know, some of those second-run candidates You know people Who do look like they have a lot of potential and and encouraging them and kind of thinking just that much harder about where else they might Might fit for the next career move and one of the coolest Approaches that I've seen is from Vaughan here from Bend. We were organizing a conference When Scott and Sam were coming over at the end of last year and Vaughan We were asking him to speak was like Where are the cool chicks on this on this panel with me here's a bunch of names These are some people and I think just as far as you know through connections and suggesting people is a good way to go as well so further comments reflections I was just another comment on the You know what we can do and Absolutely would reiterate that sometimes it just it needs a little bit of leadership of just prompting that okay What else can we do and rather than sort of go for the Usual suspects and going further. No, they're actually a number of really Inspirational, you know women around and leaders. It's just for us and many of them are here It's it's just really taking that I don't know being mindful about and say right What would ask me to another thing that I wanted to say was just Well, we recently got to a creative HQ is that our job is we see our job as Normalizing entrepreneurship and normalizing the startup experience Because what we've heard back from a lot of people is that when they have conversations with their peers and they say so What do you do? I've got my own community. I'm an entrepreneur and they go that's that's a bit weird and you know I've got a normal job, but you know wherever and so Actually, I think that Showing especially the younger generation that running your own company starting your own business and being an entrepreneur Is you know just as great a career option as anything else and so that that sort of normalization of it I think will make it also more accessible and What we've seen was that next generation is that they are taking that on and they go. Yeah, well, I'll just do it And you know, I'll learn a lot and in the end no matter what happens I'll either be a much better employee than I would have been or I'm enjoying my life in that company that I've created and so I think that'll that'll make it a little bit more accessible as well I have a question So so I sort of look at New Zealand as small but powerful But one of the biggest problems that we have in San Francisco is where does our pipeline come from? So we've got a lot of great co-working spaces and incubators and programs But we don't really have the people to put into these programs So there's amazing people here, but where do those people come from? So I guess I'm interested in what age you think we should really be targeting people so that the future generations Become the people who we are mentoring and growing and you know other future in New Zealand success stories Thanks, that's a really good question and one that we personally love It's really interesting. There was a really great study that came out of a university in California about 20 years ago Which said that five if you look at the kids at the age of five One third of five year olds have the traits and attributes naturally to be entrepreneurial By the time they graduate high school or secondary school, that's down to three percent So what we like to say is that we actually trained it out of our kids And if you think of a lot of traditional schooling a lot of traditional education It's all about following what everyone else does So we kind of flip it a little bit on its head Which says the earlier the better and it's never too early to start but worse yet It's not like teaching somebody the basics of adding and subtracting before you get to calculus It's actually embracing what's naturally in a five-year-old who thinks they can do anything And helping to develop it before you lose it as well Terry could just tell us a little bit about the organization you run because I don't know if everybody would be aware of that Okay, thanks so I have the privilege of running an organization called Young Enterprise Trust and it's a charity designed to Develop business skills entrepreneurship and financial capability in young people Most people within New Zealand are probably familiar with us We've got very good brand awareness Most people are familiar with our flagship program the lion foundation young enterprise scheme or yes as we affectionately call it We're senior secondary students get to set up and run an actual business while they're still in school real products and services real profit and loss What people don't necessarily realize is a there's a charity behind the scenes that make it to happen They think I don't know schools do it or the Ministry of Education does but they don't They don't realize we start our programs in year one and staircase up to year 13 They don't realize we do financial literacy and they don't realize that in addition to doing a delivery model through the schools We have about 1100 business people a year that volunteer with us as a coach or judge as men or mentor And so that's actually bringing real business experience into the classroom And I guess to the point you guys are making earlier one of the challenges We see is that if you look at diversity or people that are in a more privileged position It's not about capability. It's about two things. It's about expectations So if you grow up in an environment where you're expected to do well, you're more likely to achieve it And it's also about the the network. So, you know, if you go to a DSL 10 school That's kind of a way of saying wealthy school In you know a private school, you know, print chances are you've got a school community around you of not just your parents But other parents who come from business backgrounds and can encourage you if you come from a low-desert school So a very a school in a very poor economic area Where parents don't have business experience, you're not gonna have those same networks and connections So I guess my challenge to everyone else here is we see so many New Zealanders wanting to give back But are you thinking of giving back within your immediate community or going to a community that would I guess benefit a bit more Then where your kids go to school We've got time for two more questions And I guess this is kind of directed at John and Stefan as people who run programs to maximize the impact of small companies starting out and I guess I'd love to hear from you too, Candice, but How do you I mean we heard a call this morning from Matthew about thinking deeply about impact and that not all impact is the same and we need to be conscious about Positive impact and I'm wondering how that fits into your decision-making about which nascent companies to support or Maximize the impact of like where does social impact fit in your decision-making? I Think it's a great question I was actually thinking about it in the previous sort of scenario about growing the the pipeline where you start that is because It's kind of a really unusual area and you know, we we kind of run a proper community more than a program But we do have to make some decisions around Who we support because you know There's tacit, you know tangible costs involved and so forth And You know, it's just shitty playing God to a lot of these things To your point because a lot of them one the entrepreneur is incredibly passionate about what they do But you know, we I guess have a quite a Fortunate lens and that we can say look we we really only have a fit for certain things that we think we can advance and help That's our sort of mandate, but there are certainly lots of things where we see people Absolutely passionate often socially often, you know, just just down a path of solving a real problem that they're obsessed with So I don't have an answer as to how we do it and the other piece of it is You know this entrepreneurial journey. It's not like a standard career where you're sort of moving someone through You know levels of accountancy or or legal proficiency. I mean there are some realities around some entrepreneurs who you know May show all the attributes who just not going to make it Time one time two time three but possibly massively time for so it's it's a very difficult line to draw And I guess, you know probably from from our example the social impact side of it To be frank, you know probably takes a second place to a lot of the assessments because we're driven by, you know prominence of a different set of of metrics rightly or wrongly And you know, I think it's probably something that it's it's time to have a good look at Yeah, I agree and I mean also that the thing that I've been recently been concerned with is that from a you know as an organization That's funded by you know government mostly There's currently this distinction between social entrepreneurship and you know everything else and I think that's unhelpful because a lot of what we see especially through the venture our program and that the younger entrepreneurs Pretty much everything they do has got this social aspect baked in it's actually not like coming in from a Oh, I want to do good in the world So I have to start a charity or I have to start a social enterprise every idea they come up with already has that Engrained it's it's part of it. It's not a separate thing and I think sometimes by you know Government programs labeling this and all this has to be a social enterprise This is a program to support this We're almost making it more difficult because then it creates this artificial competition With some organizations, which was is absolutely not helpful. And so from our perspective, we don't actually distinguish at all like for us it's about the team the entrepreneur and the validity of their idea and their approach and helping them You know, I don't know help them fulfill their potential and then if you know The idea is a good one and an impactful one from a social perspective, then that's great There's probably a few areas that we would Stay away from for our organization where we can tell that something is it's gonna be extremely Unbeneficial to everyone like you know gambling things or I don't know just ideas what we go Well, we we don't want to be involved with but everything else we don't distinguish at all. So yeah I don't think it's a matter of we can't particularly Encourage them, but if they come they'll be supported through the programs that exist Thanks, that's really cool And I what's really exciting me in this space is as the understanding of the measurement and metrics of true value I kind of rapidly accelerating all over the world at the moment. I think we're going to be able to see some ways that we can Take these things into consideration as far as our our screening in a positive way Rather than just negative screening as you were mentioning with you know, tobacco or alcohol or what have you so I'm really excited about that space So final question from Vaughan. We really honored and humbled that you could join us today Vaughan Thanks So entrepreneurship is pretty hard right and there's At least the entrepreneurs. I know often get the balance out of whack and you having to balance up all the expectations of investors and Board and team and there's a certain Level of stoicism that comes with being an entrepreneur, you know, everything's always great and everything's gonna be okay, and I'm fine But like just lately I've kind of been a bit over the whole services and thing and been actually talking to entrepreneurs But how's it really going and in the reality is everybody has their their battles that they that they're fighting But they don't have a support network around them that they can talk to about so my question is Where are these support networks and what have you seen whether it's here? domestically or abroad, you know, if if EA entrepreneurs anonymous doesn't exist then How do we kick that off? How do we get that going? I? Just dive in there. I think that's a really good point. I gave a talk a few months ago That was actually quite emotional for me It was at the University of Auckland I was particularly on that subject it was when I was running bio matters Which actually wasn't founded by me, but I was able to step in and and take it from woe to go and during the course of six years I Ended up getting married losing my marriage You know having my life pretty much fall apart because it was just this hell-bent attitude of you know I've got to I've got to I've got to be away for another six weeks sweetheart I'm sorry you got to run the ship again, you know, and you can only do that so many times as well as being emotionally unavailable and Exactly that and I found that I've spoken to a number of entrepreneurs particularly in the previous role that I was in within Zed Tech in Silicon Valley and I shall not name names who were kind of going through the same thing and one of the guys that I Spoked in particular he was saying look Actually, I don't think he'd mind Scott Houston, you know when he was doing green button And I've known him since I worked at telecom and we started up You know the grid and that became eventually green button and the whole nine yards and he'd been away from his partner in New Zealand for months on end. He'd sold his boat. He'd sold his house I mean those who know him he basically did the hard yards and I was walking back during America's Cup at about 1 a.m From the village to our hotel and I get emotional about it because he was very like I don't know what I'm gonna do I don't have any more money, and I just said just stop I said just stop and he's like I can't I can't stop. I can't stop and I said yes You can and from that point I think about two three months later is when they ended up selling Green button, you know and the stars aligned and I think it was almost that release of just saying I haven't got any more left to give I'm not willing to give anymore and I totally a hundred percent agree with you because I've also spoken to other particularly male entrepreneurs who have also really put their relationships in jeopardy and It's really just getting that fundamental understanding and that coaching that it's not worth it You know it's not worth losing everything in your life for the success of a business But at the same time you don't have to go there, you know There's a better path and there's a better way and von and I were just talking right now It's like for the first time in my life I've actually Gotten myself in a position of being a director on some good boards and doing an advisory role and I am working Maybe 20 hours a week 30 hours a week and it's freaked me out for the past two months because I'm like having the shakes going I need more to do I need to fill my days I need to have these 60-hour weeks again And I've just really internally tried to start breathing and calming down and saying There's more to it than that and just open yourself and open your mind and relax and and you know open yourself to new opportunities But I think EA would be fantastic particularly from New Zealanders who are not conditioned to admit that there's any difficulty going on and This environment doesn't really allow it either because you've just got to keep going and the VCs don't want to hear that You're falling over your directors don't want to hear it. Your employees sure as hell don't want to hear it But we need to find a way of creating that outlet and helping people Admit that they need some help So you mentioned action points from the other day I think this would be a great action point to take from from this day is to actually create something like EA and And and just make it happen Yeah, because I couldn't agree more Entrepreneurs are under a lot of pressure Investors, you know employees and all that and it's it's hard to open up and it needs a special environment And I think it needs special. I don't know Guidance around how to do that because it doesn't come natural to a lot of them And so maybe a request to take that add that to the action list and get it going with me So to be happy to help facilitate it Yeah, it resonates man. Hello, I'm John and I'm recovering entrepreneur And and I'm a Kiwi entrepreneur, so I'm always good Um, I think the only thing I'd say additionally is I mean, it's a great action point, but Talking to people outside of your industry You know my first career I had a boss who always used to end every kind of drama and crisis with the same question You know has anybody died? And it kind of gets you thinking about, you know, well, you know, it's probably not actually that bad Unfortunately, someone did die, but Only once So, you know, I think there's I've seen groups and stuff Over the years, but the amazing thing is that everyone found them really valuable and they were kind of Chatham house rules and you got together in a In a room usually facilitated. This is probably why they they stopped usually facility facilitated by somebody like an advisor or a you know a consultant who wanted to you know Do a good thing but also have some return. So I think it has to be started by by us and kind of, you know Organically curated somehow so that there's some continuity or at least a kind of point from the underground where people can can come in But it's really hard also because of the nature of of what entrepreneurs do to get them in one place For for any period of time and any sort of quorum and I think those quorums are the really valuable things And I think this is a fantastic, you know seeing the lot of the faces. I haven't seen for a long time here today I'll get a bit of that So, yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a great question and and one I'd love to help try and answer from the selfish reasons as well as other I like to ask Matthew perhaps to tell us a little bit about How inflection has incorporated concepts of mindfulness? Because some of the things that we've been doing there Haven't seen much around here. I don't know people about finding quite interesting Yeah, I mean I think So there's kind of two notions one is how do we create more mindful workplaces that recognize the whole individual and Create more of a holistic sense of balance because entrepreneurs aren't the only ones that face this I mean engineers are being asked to to work in St. Ours and designers and and I think we all face it and it's it's kind of an outgrowth of the Startup demands and the cultural demands that we're all feeling Within our culture. We've just really tried to respond organically to what we feel is emergent Qualities of recognizing, you know people as humans first the way Yosef started today and thinking a lot about families thinking a lot about time outside the office How we structure vacation and and kind of time off? We do in all hands every Monday morning meeting and someone kicks off the all hands We've been doing it for for many years now of with a minute of mindfulness where they just share something That's really important to them and and it's just completely volunteer based popcorn across the culture And it absolutely boggles our minds all of the time in terms of the different types of diversity of Perspectives and things that people present into the space and field and it's just really about you know returning to this notion of community rather than You know employees and bosses and managers and all this type of stuff But I just wanted to also respond to this notion around entrepreneurship Support networks. I'm lucky to be part of a small group of seven individuals where we've been meeting every six weeks for about two and a half years and they're fellow entrepreneurs and investors and There's a really safe space and container that's created in terms of being able to share some of the issues and challenges that we all face in an intimate way And really getting To to have this this up leveling so I just want to really plus one the notions to find and We'd love to throw our weight behind anything in terms of facilitation as well And how we can see that we know some really great trainers and facilitators in Silicon Valley that maybe maybe we can bring out here and Share their thoughts about how we can create these types of containers I feel like we're just scratching the surface and we can continue this conversation more We're just about to break for lunch, but I would like to thank three few for taking the time and sharing some of your thoughts with us Thank you very much