Essays

Don’t be scared to stand out from the crowd. But fight the urge to constantly present yourself as more successful than you are.

Choose what you’re going to focus on, and then have the conviction to say “no” to everything else.

Think about the intersection of the things that you care about, have authority in and are prepared to take responsibility for.

How do we decide what technology to embrace and what technology to avoid?

Do you leave your ideas to fend for themselves in the wild or keep them in a safe place?

Startup teams often grow suddenly, in bursts. Can we anticipate these points where our ways of working together typically break?

How can we build an ecosystem of innovative technology startups in New Zealand?

We can choose to be busy or remarkable, but probably not both

How do we build on Paul Callaghan’s vision for New Zealand, and update it for our current reality?

Do our metrics help us to make decisions, or do they just make us feel good?

A startup that goes well can be very rewarding. How do we ensure that everybody involved gets their fair share?

What do we gain and what do we lose when we treat the world as binary?

How do all of the programs designed to support startups actually help?

Conquering challenges requires understanding our relationship with pain

A portfolio approach to early-stage venture investment doesn’t really help and probably hurts.

Those without naturally want more. Meanwhile, those who have a lot want less. How do we all decide how much is enough?

Be more explicit about the sort of feedback that is useful, right now.

Here is some unusual advice for people working on a startup, or thinking about it: swim.

Is it fun in the moment or when you reflect later? Or neither?

How do we break luck down into its component parts, so we can create luck for ourselves and for others…

What are we prepared to compromise in order to get what we want?

How do we create an ecosystem? We plant a seed and let it grow!

It takes a long time to become an overnight successs. But to get there we need to be growing from the beginning.

There are actually only three ways to be wrong about our impact: neglect, error and malice.

When we’re faced with a difficult Yes/No decision, how do we choose?

We only get to be each age once. How many will we waste trying to be something that we’re not?

We realised that the most effective investment pitches we receive all start with the same two words…

What a founder in one of the poorest areas in Kenya taught me about how to start and how to scale

How well does your team understand your plan to win? When was the last time you wrote it down or said it out loud?

Rather than trying to copy what others have done, what can we do first?

Why is it so hard to articulate and document shared team values?

Here are four simple but uncommon ideas about investing…

It’s important that we don’t confuse risk with uncertainty. We need to be clear about what we know is true and what we hope might be true.

Use the Metrics Maturity Model to improve how we measure and report our progress.

Let it go. It’s what you learn, after you know it all, that counts.

Lie, cheat or spin, and we allow a gap to develop between perception and reality.

Stay curious about how things work, and how you can use them to make things of your own.

How would treating time as a variable that we can influence change the way we behave and the choices we make?

There are so many different ways to measure a startup. It’s easy to drown in metrics. How do we know what we should focus on?

How do we know when something is actually working?

What rugby teams and rowing squads can teach us about building and managing diverse boards and executive teams.

To be considered successful we just have to do those things that most people don’t.

When we ask the best startups what’s holding them back they all point to the challenges of finding and keeping great people.

Imagine objectively selecting companies to receive government support, without the bureaucrats or consultants?

Be honest: can we get to the next milestone with the resources we have?

Should we categorise ourselves based on the conversations that are comfortable and easy or uncomfortable and hard?

Try to complete as many loops as possible, getting a little bit better each time.

Rather than looking for reality television inspired short cuts, maybe we just need to embrace sucking while we get started?

If you had to choose, would you rather be rich or famous?

Rather than complaining about how difficult it is to raise venture capital in New Zealand, we need to start being honest about why it’s hard.

Anywhere I would have followed you. But I’m giving up on you!

Working on a startup is much more like racing a BMX bike than riding a roller coaster.

Trying to decide how to fund a startup? It’s important that we ask the right questions.

To encourage more people to work on startups, we often try to make them fun. How does that hurt?

Why do the most interesting bits of startup stories always get airbrushed out?

How do we get beyond complexity?

Can we update the fairytale version of how a technology startup becomes a success?

It’s not what the software does, it’s what the user does that matters.

As we grow, take the time to understand unit economics.

New Zealand is often condescendingly described as a small island a long way from anywhere. Is it, though?

When a startup is sold, in part or in full, it is just a trade. As a country that is entirely dependant on trade for our prosperity we should understand this better.

Be specific about where we are going and what it will take to get there.

Simple polite rules we can use to improve our video call experience

Need help empathising with users? Just imagine they are all in the room!

The world is still divided, between you and me, baby, you and me.

The expression “world class” gets casually thrown around, like a frisbee at the beach. But what does it really mean?