StarNow is a Wellington-based company started in 2004 by three guys who all worked at Trade Me: Cameron, Nigel (who also started FindSomeone) and Jamie.

They had a good idea: to build a website where people who want to be famous can advertise themselves, and where reality television producers can go to find the next sucker star.

And, they’ve done a great job of executing and have grown the site into an excellent business, which they now call a “global talent casting service” covering actors, models, musicians, dancers, entertainers and photographers.

This is how Matt Cooney described their business in Idealog:

“For New Zealand, this might be the perfect business. Almost every cent is earned offshore. Start-up and infrastructure costs are low, there are almost no transport costs, no expensive offshore offices to maintain, no worries about import duties, foreign exchange hedging or oddball tax regimes. No factories, no shelves to stock, no resource consents. Marketing is largely through word-of-mouth and the business scales beautifully. It’s proof that three guys with some brains, a great idea and a couple of hundred bucks for marketing can literally invent a business in a few weeks.”

Disclaimer: that’s a bit of a vanity link, as Matt also interviewed me for the same article.

I got their latest newsletter and had to smile when I read that Cameron, who is now CEO of StarNow, was asked to be a judge in this year’s Miss England pageant.

It’s a tough job … but somebody has to do it, I suppose. :-)