Innovation Community Blog

Ask a New Zealand university student what they’re looking for at the end of their study and the answer could quite possibly be: “a good job with a big corporation”. At Stanford University in the USA, the thinking is completely different with many of their students focused on using their education to formulate or join a start-up business and get stock options!

At Viclink, we’re working to develop a similar kind of entrepreneurial attitude and culture at Victoria University by making the commercialisation scenario more visible and attractive to students and academics.

As Victoria University’s commercialisation company, Viclink provides students and academics with the skills and resources they need to turn their cutting-edge research into potentially global businesses that have social, environmental and economic benefit – not just for Victoria University, but for New Zealand as a whole.

Our creative and entrepreneurial approach to innovation leadership means that we choose to build a diverse pipeline of projects across all disciplines within Victoria University.

The result is a broad range of spin-off ideas, licensing deals, joint ventures and businesses: from clean-tech companies such as Wetox (which turns liquid waste into water,) and bio-tech businesses such as Pacific Marine Bioactives (which turns marine natural products into anti-cancer drugs) right through to the resilience-boosting efforts of Umbrella Health, a business idea which originated from the School of Psychology.

Admittedly, innovation as a career option is not for everyone – anyone wanting structured hours and a guaranteed salary should probably steer well clear. But we want Victoria University’s students to know that careers around commercial innovation are an option – and an attractive and viable option at that.

Which is why our partnership with the Bright Ideas Challenge is such a good fit. Viclink is offering additional prizes solely for entrants from Victoria University in a bid to encourage entrepreneurial thinking on campus.

This is not the first time that Viclink and Grow Wellington have worked together. Because the commercialisation process is a complex one, it requires a wide variety of skills, and we often collaborate with associated networks of expertise such as Creative HQ, Grow Wellington’s business incubator.

At the end of the day, turning great ideas into businesses will create wealth for the country and the sort of opportunities that will give our bright and ambitious young people rewarding careers here at home. And as the father of three students, I’m all for that!

John Errington is CEO of Viclink.

For the Catalys90 team innovation is all about taking action. We love being in the ideas business, but we’ve also learnt the hard way that there is no easy way to launch a new business or a new idea and that planning is fundamental to success. But without action there will be no innovation: it’s in the doing.

Here’s how we action our innovation at Catalyst90:

Collaborate and share: test-drive your idea, put it in front of friends for an honest answer. Don’t be afraid to share, the number of times we’ve heard “oh yeah, I had a similar idea…” is staggering - the difference is that we take action.
Harness feedback and work together with others whose skills are complementary to yours so that you can trust their advice and build your dream.

Talk with your target audience and pay close attention: these are the folks for whom you’re trying to solve a problem. In listening you can uncover what’s important, which in turn helps you to create a solution that truly resonates with your audience.
Be prepared to learn: Failure is part of building successful solutions, whether it’s technology, machinery, or conceptual, if the idea has no market then reining it in early is important. A challenging process but with hindsight failures can, at the very least, provide you with a better understanding.

Don’t be too proud to pull an idea or change direction: the evolution of an idea or a business is as important as that initial bright spark.

Action is key: Grow your idea, test drive it, work with others as you build your information into a plan, and then take action! Without action there is nothing but idle dreams, and we Wellingtonians don’t do idle dreams.

At Catalyst90 we help companies grow processes, systems and sales as a technology marketing agency. Walking our own talk, we develop and action strategies, specialising in sales strategy, social media management and email marketing. We thrive on innovation and know the hard work that action demands, but we can see the rewards too!

Case in point - Catalyst90 collaborated with Idea Sauce and End-game.com to develop the snazzy new tweet4yourtee.com brand. Dreamt up over a curry at Roti Chennai, followed by sales planning and market research, and launched collaboratively – we don’t think it’s too soon to say it’s a success! Check it out for yourself: www.tweet4yourtee.com

Tom Reidy is Director of Catalyst90

While we may have only had an average of 82 minutes of sunshine per day in the last month, the Wellington region is living up to its reputation as a bright spot of innovation. Wellingtonians have kept the beacon shining by submitting over 650 ideas to The Bright Ideas Challenge.

Wellington, Wairarapa, Hutt Valley, Porirua and the Kapiti Coast are geographically more compact than most large capitals and their outer suburbs, and yet within the boundaries of this space stand a fantastic mix of Government, the arts, industry, science, corporate, entrepreneurs and small business. This mix of industries is reflected in the bright ideas we have seen submitted.

Ideas range from potentially world changing technology in the ICT sector, to plans to take Wellington’s wildlife to the world.

We understand that starting a business is really hard work, as Dave Moskovitz says “Think of the hardest job you've ever done, and raise it to the power of difficult”. He says the most important thing to realising your dream is to build a team, and we agree with him. So if you have an idea that needs polishing, make sure you come along to our Brighten Your Ideas workshop this Thursday 17 June at 5.30pm.

Top Wellington business people will give their tips and advice and discuss originality, working together, commercialisation potential and listening to what your market really wants. There will be the chance to discuss with the speakers and other experts the best way to brighten your business idea.

Part of succeeding in business is knowing when to ask for help; that is why we have a new part of the challenge called Solve My Problem. Here companies are able to ask the public for bright ideas for new products and services or to help find solutions for problems. Vehicle Testing New Zealand has asked for ideas and is offering $1000 for the best.

There are only 10 days to go until entries close so make sure you enter your bright idea. The process is easy, submit your idea in 100 words or less and you could win $25,000 worth of seed capital, a place on the Bright Ideas Kickstart programme worth $1,200, and the opportunity to connect with business experts and investors.

Nigel Kirkpatrick is the CEO of regional economic development agency, Grow Wellington.

Speed kills. For us at SilverStripe, speed is always a problem as well as an opportunity.

Our business model: we make money by building websites and web applications for clients around the world. We built a rock-solid open source web framework which we use as the basis of the work we do for clients. And we are venturing into Software as a Service territory with our new website monitoring product Dawn.

So why is speed a problem? There are the obvious problems around web page load time and the occasional bump in the road when you have a tight deadline. And as Kiwis, we're also facing a problem unique to our island nations. We're on a few islands in the middle of the ocean, and our internet connection out to the rest of the world is woefully slow. But SilverStripe's biggest issue is related to the speed of innovation.

At SilverStripe innovation is our lifeblood. If we don't innovate, we die. Simple as that. Our clients pay us because of our ability to create innovative solutions for them. The web industry itself is changing so fast that we must innovate, and innovate well, to be competitive on a global scale. Therein lies the problem.

The Kiwi "number eight wire" mentality is great, but as a company how do you sustain systematic innovation over the long term? That is one of SilverStripe's biggest challenges. We think a good way to solve that problem is to focus on the people who use our technology. Our mantra "Be more human," is a reminder to us to keep human communication needs at the centre of what we do.

We have an office in Melbourne, 14 partners, and around a hundred SilverStripe web shops spread across the globe. But our headquarters is in Wellington. We love it here.

We think Wellington is the centre of the creative web in the southern hemisphere. For those who share this creative spirit, there's no better place to be. The closest thing I've seen to Wellington in this regard is the city I come from, San Francisco. And San Francisco may have a big fat internet pipe, but there are a lot of smart people here in Wellington working on improving our bandwidth. When they do, we'll rival San Francisco in connectivity... and still have much better coffee.

And how is speed an opportunity? Simple: if you can be nimble enough, you can out-manoeuvre anyone on the planet. There's a big advantage your business can gain if you can innovate well, and sustainably.

At SilverStripe, we assume we compete globally, and that drives much of our thinking. Are you innovating in New Zealand? Are you willing to take on the world? Let your speed kill what holds you back.

Brian Calhoun is the CEO of SliverStripe.

The key to Trilogy’s success to date is undoubtedly the result of innovation – coming up with new ideas and applying them commercially in new ways.

Innovation in all its forms is a creative process. It’s all about ideas and one of the most important things I’ve learnt over the years is that ideas can come from anyone and anywhere.

The Trilogy story, for example, began with a discovery. While manufacturing ingredients for the natural supplement and cosmetic industries I discovered the remarkable skin-loving properties of Rosehip oil. My sister Catherine de Groot and I immediately saw an opportunity to create skincare range around this ingredient.

At that time the natural skincare market was largely dominated by old fashioned formulas with overpowering scents and heavy textures. It was a market in need of a contemporary make over. The opportunity was obvious.

So Catherine and I decided to launch a natural skincare range that not only performed better, but which was better environmentally and ethically. Trilogy launched with five products in New Zealand and Australia in 2002. Today the range consists of nearly forty products distributed in 16 markets world wide.

As we’ve grown Catherine and I have made sure innovation is at the forefront of our thinking for all parts of our business.

At Trilogy innovation lies behind:
• the products we create to meet changing consumer needs
• our product formulations - so that we consistently deliver on our promise to produce high performance skincare
• the business practices we use to increase efficiency and productivity
• our marketing methods
• the logistical processes that take our product to market.

We look both within and outside our organisation for this innovation. We encourage all Trilogy staff to share their ideas and to find new ways of carrying out their work. We also look to our customers, suppliers and other businesses for ideas. Rather than looking for stimulation from other skincare brands, however, we observe the work of businesses we admire in different fields to give us fresh ideas.

Innovation doesn’t come easy, it takes continuous work by me, Catherine and our staff, but it’s the only way to succeed as a business today. Keeping innovation at the forefront of business practices helps ensure a business thrives and work remains stimulating. It also means that everyone has lots of fun along the way. Now that has to be a good thing.

Sarah Gibbs is the director of Trilogy advanced natural skincare.

It might have started out as a bright idea in Sam Morgan’s head, but one lesson from the Trade Me story is that there’s no shortage of bright ideas. The key is to bring the idea kicking and screaming into reality quickly, and then back it up with great operations and decision-making.

To help choose the best bright ideas and implement them well, we have a set of principles. There are seven in total, but four in particular are often front and centre when ideas are being batted around the pool table at Trade Me HQ.

First, focus on the consumer. These are the people who ultimately pay your wages, so you have to do something useful and valuable for them. It sounds really basic, but many businesses seem to forget it. For Trade Me, it means providing a website that’s fast, easy to use, helpful to people, safe and reliable.

Second, decide and act on merit. Again, a pretty simple idea. There are loads of things about websites that are easy to measure, and you’d be a fool not to take advantage of this. More generally, there’s value to businesses of all sizes in collecting data to separate fact from conjecture, and help shape their decisions.

For us, there’s another equally valuable facet to this principle – smarter decisions are made on merit, not on company hierarchy. We value good arguments from people, regardless of their role.

Third, hire talented people, and give them the room and resources to grow and contribute across lots of different areas of your business. This includes not being afraid to hire people smarter than you.

The fourth principle is related to this – not only do the people inside your business have ideas to throw into the pot, there are plenty of great ideas in the heads of people who use your service or buy your products.

At Trade Me, our community of members is a vital part of our team. Not only are they our best marketing force, but they effectively extend our customer service by helping each other out with issues and questions. We pick up lots of good suggestions from them, they keep Trade Me safe by reporting misbehaviour, and they let us know when things are broken.

As people get more comfortable conversing online through forums and social networking, people will only be better informed about your actions and their collective experiences of dealing with you. Ignore the community around your business at your peril.

Jon Macdonald, is the CEO of Trade Me

Don't do it alone

In his Innovation Community Blog post, Ralph Higham talks about the ups and downs of being an innovator. I agree with him that the path is full of exhilierating highs, and soul-destroying lows, but I will come out and say what he only implies: starting a company is really, really hard. Think of the hardest job you've ever done, and raise it to the power of difficult. It requires unusual and often contradictory personal attributes. You'll need to combine stamina and dogged determination with the ability to listen, empathise, and be self aware. Your technical prowess, a methodical analytical approach, and financial skills are worthless without creativity, sales nous, and management flair.

You need to be Albert Einstein, Oprah Winfrey, Henry Ford, and Nelson Mandela all rolled into one.

Or do you?

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to turn their ideas into reality all by themselves.

Going it alone is a bad idea for a number of reasons:
• You become a single point of failure for your company
• Very few, if any people have all of the skill sets necessary to make a high-growth business successful
• As you scale, the job will quickly outstrip the capacity of a single person
• You don't know what you don't know, and your Reality Distortion Field can grow to infinite size if unchecked
• In the cruicible of start-ups, having support is essential and may literally save your life.

At WebFund, we engineer start-up success by cultivating ideas, people and resources as well as providing incubation, seed capital, strategic advice, governance, access to networks, technical know-how, and plenty of elbow-grease. It's rare that we'll consider investing in a singleton inventor – in our experience having a great team greatly increases your chance of success.

There's a word for people who “do it” alone.

Finding the right co-founder(s) is an essential first step in turning your idea into a real business. You're going to have to give a bit of your dream away, but hey, if you need to give a little to get a little than it follows that you need to give a lot to get a lot. If you can't form a good relationship with a co-founder, chances are you won't be able to form lasting relationships with other key stakeholders in your business on whom you will come to utterly depend: your customers, your employees, your suppliers, your distribution channels, your investors ...

So build a team, share your dream, and hand in hand you'll be able to scale up to meet the world.

Dave Moskovitz is Chairman of WebFund, is on the board of Angel HQ, and blogs about angel investing at nzangels.com

Ever had a bright idea which has so captured you that you cannot sleep for nights on end? Ever had a realization that you have gained an insight into a problem that no-one else in the world has seen? And that maybe your solution can transform the lives of millions of people? Welcome to the world of innovation and welcome to the roller-coaster that is transforming your idea from a piece of paper to an everyday reality for those millions of people.

Innovation is not an easy ride, and if you prefer working 9-5 and shifting paper from pile A to pile B for a guaranteed sum of money, it might not be for you. But if you want to live life on the edge and if you want to experience the highs of first funding, first prototypes, first commercial deals, and first users then it might just be that you need to start working up those ideas of yours and seeing if, just maybe, there’s enough substance in one of them to run with.

Don’t, however, expect your idea to magically come to life, or for your path to be smooth. The road to market is full of potholes and along with your idea you need bucket loads of perseverance, belief and good advice. Just like any of Wellington’s wonderful walkways, you are going to experience steep up-hills, steep down-hills, and every now and then breathtaking views of where you heading to.

Matakina is a “born global” company but with a beating heart originating from that living on the edge feeling that we all enjoy in Wellington, and a body and soul that’s being forged by the sense of innovation and togetherness that Wellington uniquely offers. We have a vision of helping the millions of women who are screened for breast cancer each year, and although the barriers to success are high (medical devices are highly regulated) we believe we can overcome those barriers and succeed as a business, and when we succeed as a business, then millions of women each year will be better off for it.

Ralph Highnam is the CEO of Matakina Technology who use digital imaging to revolutionize breast imaging enabling breast cancer can be detected earlier, diagnosed more accurately and treated more effectively.

Wellington is the innovation capital. The local software and design industry is flourishing. I’m often asked why we grow great software companies from Wellington. Geography and weather are the key ingredients. The compact nature of the city means that networks grow quickly. Put simply people in Wellington bump into each other more, at work, on the town, in the gym and walking around the bays.

With people working and socialising in the same area cross discipline friendships are created. For instance lawyers flat with computer geeks who play squash with their accountant who flats with the girlfriend of the designer who when to Otago with….

The weather means we spend a lot time with other people talking, hanging out and hatching schemes. Back in the early days the perfect Sunday for me was brunch with the flatmates, a windsurf at Plimmerton and then back to work for a few hours coding up an idea before catching up with mates for tea.

As a Government town many in the ICT industry have cut their teeth working on large scale projects, gaining their base experience before joining start-ups or creating their own businesses. When it comes time to build your team, linking up with people with a wide variety of skills is easier because they are already in your network. I often compare the breadth of skills we have in our team at Xero and think how hard it would be to build the same team in San Francisco as your network, and the people you see during the week, is likely to be more limited and often just your existing work mates.

Restaurants and café’s are world class in Wellington. That’s because we look out to see what is happening overseas and bring back the good bits then adding our own spin. In our digitally connected world we do the same.

One of our secrets at Xero is to seek innovation from within. While keeping a close eye on industry trends we make a point of really listening to our customers and encouraging staff to own features or take ideas and make them better. It always makes me proud when we brainstorm a problem and the solutions that come back are far better than we first imagined. And our team gets such a buzz when we hear that people now ‘love’ to do the books. Innovation changes attitudes.

Xero is a product of the culture of innovation growing in Wellington. Wellington is well poised to continue being the innovation capital and the opportunity is growing significantly as technology reduces the barriers to going offshore and using our distinct competitive advantages in larger markets.

By Rod Drury CEO. Xero

All great discoveries began with an idea, a sense of inquiry and the unrelenting desire to push further, create change and not to be happy with the status quo.

Right here in Wellington people are pioneering ideas that have the potential to change how we live and do business. People are analysing and testing natural products to determine if they have any bioactivity potential for natural or pharmaceutical therapies, Cloud Computing’ solutions are being developed for the creative digital community in North Asia. World first are being created in design, technology and science.

It is no secret that Wellington is a place of ideas; that it is a place where ambitious people collaborate to make ideas a reality. And what really invigorates Wellington’s innovation culture is the combination of ideas and investment. Ideas without support are just that, ideas. That is why we have set up the Bright Ideas Challenge.

The Bright Ideas Challenge is a chance to transform your bright business idea into reality.

We are interested in all stages of ideas, including dynamic initial ideas, ideas at research and development, prototype, or pilot and revenue generating stages. We will help take your idea to the next level by providing the right support and the right time.

We know that Wellington is a place of possibilities, where intellect, creativity, commerce and governance thrive in remarkable proximity. We know that Wellingtonians share their stories and on any given day, some of the world’s most interesting and varied conversations take place here so as part of the Bright Idea Challenge there will be opportunities to network with other entrepreneurs, business experts and Wellington investors.

It’s no accident that in the last 20 years, this area has transformed from a windswept, soul-less bureaucracy stop into one of the most sought-after and highly respected regions on earth.

It has been done by harnessing bright ideas and commercializing them. We have come this far but we know there are other ideas out there. Let’s keep the beacon shining. Enter your bright idea at the brightideaschallenge.co.nz