IPOing in NZ – notes from the NZX and Xero presentation

Posted on May 24, 2012 by

The NZX and Xero, along with Cameron partners and Bell Gully held a “Masterclass” on IPOing in NZ yesterday. Xero CEO Rod Drury wears two hats, as he is also a director of the NZX, but they were also represented by Tim Bennett, the new CEO and Andrew Harmos the chair. Ross Christie from Cameron Partners and Dean Oppenhuis from Bell Gully put their side of the story.

Here are my notes from the event, but you can also simply read the slides (Xero blog) Rod et al. used.

Should I list?

Advantages of listing that Andrew highlighted were providing capital and liquidity for investors/founders, transparency, ability for punters to invest.

Later on Rod put up a slide with: providing capital for growth, giving objective market value and market for shares, employee commitment, raising corporate profile, enhancing credibility with customers and suppliers and creating ability to make future acquisitions.

The negative issues with IPOing and plublic markets were not really covered, but to me are profound.  While it may create liquidity for employees and investors, the constant tracking of the daily movements of the stock price can be distracting for the team. How did we think the mood was inside Facebook as we met, after 10% then 7% daily price drops from the IPO? Stock markets tend towards driving the perverse incentive of  short term numbers, making them seem more important than long term ability to conquer a global niche, or doing every thing for customers. Great companies can rise above that, but I do feel that Xero, for example, is underinvesting because of pointless bleats from some shareholders who want short term profits.

Overall I see that IPOing on the NZX is a much better option now than it was 5 years ago, but it is for certain companies only. It’s great if you are already a success story, and need more capital to keep feeding a growing machine. It’s lousy if investors here are not sophisticated enough to understand your industry or business model. Xero has come a long way with investors, but it still amazes me that many local investors do not see the method behind their model.

Another downside is that continuous disclosure can be painful for companies. There are rules about what they can and cannot talk about, and the channels for releasing information. Not many companies can be as disciplined as Apple when it comes to talking to markets, but we are ‘lucky’ here in that we only require 6 monthly disclosure. The legals and logistics can be painful, but the worst thing is that you end up taking about yourselves and results too often, rather than focusing on the customer and products. All material releases need to be through the NZX rather than through other channels, and this can be a pain, although Rod also sees this as saving on PR.

Xero has been public for 5 years now delivering an impressive 33% annualised return to shareholders since 2007. Their market cap is now over $400m, but still small compared to the froth of Square at billions in valuation.

From NZX perspective Trade Me and Summerset raised about $500m between them last year, with both going on to deliver raised share prices. Both were sell-downs by a parent who still holds a majority stake.

Rod’s History

Rod and his partners sold Aftermail for $15m plus earn out which they never saw, and thought he was doing well. However shortly afterwards the Trade Me sale hit, setting a new benchmark set of what great looks like. He saw that as a challenge, and saw also that the next company would need to address a global market.

With Xero Rod wanted to ramp up from day one, with 50 staff working from the start. While with SAAS the money would come in from customers on time,  the payments were always going to be in smaller chunks, customer by customer, month by month. With 50 staff the burn rate would be about $500,000 per month, so Rod saw he needed to raise  $15m to raise. The VC industry here was too small and immature (my words) to deliver that, while VCs from the US West Coast were not considered for a couple of reasons. The IPO raised $15m for 27% of the company, selling on the growth potential and selling that all portfolios need a higher risk/return propositions. (Rod says you couldn’t buy risk at the time on NZX, but he was probably not thinking of finance companies in that way – plenty of risk there).

Rod went all-in with Xero – put $1m of his own money in up front, and being the persona with the most at risk. Xero had to have 100 customers before listing, stock exchange rules, and so there were a lot of cousins, family and so forth using Xero. The IPO process involved a lot of hustling, a lot of go/no go milestones, a lot of debates about the speed, with Rod as the most bullish.

Getting ready

An IPO is a big event, and life after an IPO is forever changed. The company needs to prepare for greater disclosure, and put a lot of time into preparation and IPO process. They need a highly probable growth plan, decent corporate structure with good people, a good story and the ability to convince an iBank or broker to help prepare for and promote the IPO.

Rod was very demanding in speed and expectations. He also worked his existing media connections, meeting journalists and investment brokers who write articles seeking advice and involving them in the story. They needed more profile building, and so Rod wrote a whitepaper on broadband (on Xero formated letterhead) in particular. That particular paper went a long way. Being public is a necessary evil, but in NZ you can get in the public eye very quickly.

Key Rules

Generally there is no minimum amount to raise for an IPO, but guidance is to get 24 months of capital. On the other hand be careful in setting a minimum as you have to return the checks if you don’t make it. There is no requirement to state a maximum, though state it if you have one. State how you will deal with over subscriptions.

At least 25% of the shares after the IPO need to be with minority shareholders who have <10% of the shares (“the public”). NZX will waive this and other rules sometimes.

Prospectus and disclosure requirements will be replaced early next year after new regulation, though the feeling was that not a lot would change here. Companies need latest accounts that are audited and a summary of previous 5 years information. For those contemplating an IPO it is best to get into auditing accounts each year. A risk section boilerplate and specific risk section are required in the prospectus, as well as a forecast for end of next period plus one more period also required.

That prospectus is signed off by directors, who assume some pretty heavy liabilities if it is hogwash. The board itself needs to have at least 2 independent, defined as <5% and non-executive, directors for boards of 8 or less, and 3 for larger boards. Rod sought people who were well known and could help, with Sam Morgan in particular on the board before the IPO.

The directors and shreholders are typically prevented from selling shares for a lock up period after an IPO.

An NZX approved sponsor/organising participant is required, with sponsor investment banks working with brokers to sell through.

Xero shopped around, ended up choosing First NZ Capital and kept presenting to them, nagging them into it. There was not much money in it for NZFC to do small IPOs. Then Rod and co. presented to Rob Cameron from Cameron partners, and he just got it. Xero  engaged Cameron Partners to work on Xero side, do the work for FNZC to take on. Rod sees that smaller companies need investment bank to guide the process. Cameron Partners did Ecoya as well, and got FNZC and Craigs NZ to push shares to the market.

Pre-IPO planning

Ensure a high quality management team is in place and any outstanding issues like shareholder loans, litigation are dealt with. Get a PR strategy prepared, remembering that the IPO process requires a quiet period. You can say “we have an IPO” and separately you can “raise the profile of the company”, and journalists have to connect the dots. It’s a bit asinine, and Mighty River Power has just been granted an exception on this one, and forthcoming rules will be a lot easier. The new rules will just make sure you cannot say anything misleading or deceptive, and are consistent with prospectus.

Ross says it took 3-4 months to get to market, with a lot of investor meetings along the way, and the prospectus delivered at the end.

Due Diligence is a necessary part of the process, as you are making claims that need to be backed up. Form a Due Diligence committee, basically a  a board sub committee with investment bank representative and lawyers in it. The due diligence lawyers need to have reasonable grounds to believe statements in documents are true. Dean Oppenhuis broke the DD process into initial due diligence on the company, writing the IPO documents/risk report and financial forecast verification. Lawyers will look at all legal documents, such as contracts, in the first phase, so make sure they are clean. They will also interview management, using a detailed and customised questionnaire. They will ask management to verify statements made in financial forecast – so back key claims up by independent evidence. They will issue verification certificates, certifying that there is nothing false or misleading in the documents.

The verified document goes to NZX for approval, with a good degree of supporting documents, and once approved the IPO is good to go.

Well not quite. You still need to do the rounds of investors, and despite the existence of advisors, the lions share of the work will fall on the CEO and team. It is important to have very good advisors in general though, and you will need a lot of them. My own take is always that a deal happens when everyone in the room, including advisors, is smiling.

To get investors you need to knock off some key issues, including offer structure, financial information, capital structure and dividend policy, valuation and equity story and pre marketing.

Offer Structure

There is always a tension between the raise amount and price, and you need to get a balance. I increasingly believe that  it is smart to always make sure that investors see a bargain, and to value the cash being invested highly. Being greedy and having a price that is to high might make it harder to raise money in subsequent rounds.

Building a book, where you get investors to name a price, is for later stage companies only, such as Trade Me. The were apparently very happy with the price set by investors, and were oversubscribed. However start-up companies like Xero are better off with a fixed price approach, asking investors simply are you in or out.

Regardless of all the marketing efforts, Rod did say that it all comes together in the last 2 days.

Staff and management

Trade Me gave a lot of thought to executive and employee components of the IPO to make sure they were personally aligned to deliver forecasts.

Xero meanwhile had some directors who could invest directly, and gave loans to others so that they were invested as well. They sold as much as they could to staff at pre-IPO rates.

Financial information

Make sure forecast period is appropriate as a long one increases prospectus risk for directors. Some of the detail about how the numbers work might be commercially sensitive.

Capital structure and dividend policy

Investors like conservative structures rather than optimal structure. Investors like dividends, but the market is beginning to understand, with Xero’s burn money to increase revenue approach becoming obviously good for them.

Valuation and  equity story. The key is to have a strong IPO story. Develop an IPO story and investor presentation, and show momentum building through the process. Get analysts to cover the company, now that we have one or two. However you basically need to build your own investment book and brag about that.

Market considerations

Trade Me cross listed into the ASX, which avoid the small size of NZ market. The NZX guys think, naturally, that this is not really necessary, but it is still hard for people in Australia to physically buy NZ shares.

Over the last 5 years things have changed in international funding, with VCs and Angels taking up a lot of the early stage funding requirements. That means the larger and smarter players are looking offshore (from the US), and Xero is one company in the target range. Rod is now more comfortable to stay on NZX for a while longer, 3-5 years, but Nasdaq an option later. NZX market more accepting of an early stage listing.

One comment Rod made stood out – launch the IPO knowing it will work.

Costs

Costs are non trivial for an IPO, but you can back load them so they come out of the capital raised. The costs are higher as a percentage for smaller IPOs, say 6-7% of funds raised for them versus 3% for larger raises. (Facebook was ~1%). Rod says you need to budget a $50-100,000 retainer per month for advisors as you go through, and pay the rest when you deliver. The second raise once you are listed is fairly cheap, say 2-3%.

For their retainer the investment bank gives credibility, but also writes the offer documents and so on.

After Listing

After listing you become a “real company” and it’s easier to build a global business. Xero management tend to be older than peer companies and investors in Silicon Valley, and see they are doing well versus them.

Xero’s IPO was at $1, but the second was $0.90 which is when Craig Winkler (MYOB founder) invested heavily. That was almost 2 years later, with a GFC in between and the share price had not exceeded $1 for most of that time. After the Winkler raise the Xero share price stayed at about $1.50, until Peter Theil invested another 2 years later. They raised more again this year at $2.75 per share, and the share price has risen nicely subsequently. Xero has used shares and cash to purchase 2 companies.

Key rules once you have listed

Companies can raise up to 20% of equity without shareholder approval in any one year. Shareholder disclosure is required for ownership over 5%, while you can issue employee share schemes of up to 3% of issued capital each 12 month period. NZX has a share purchase plan (rights issue) which cuts down on documents and allows up to $15000 per shareholder. These are usually taken with larger investor coming in and are typically done in 21 days.  (I have an issue with these as the larger placement can dilute existing shareholders with more than $15000 pro rata share.)

Investor relations. Get out there and talk to people, have a thick skin, but continually thank shareholders. AGMs are a good opportunity to sell the message to investors so make them high quality. Regardless of the PR efforts there will still be millions who have never heard of you – something we can forget in the online community. Keep marketing announcements factual and blog posts more

Rod talked about, and it is clear, that Xero is on a different curve now, and has a professional team to deal with the public company compliance, employees with ESOP and so on. They bounced through the awkward start-up phase into the professional phase courtesy of the IPO. I wouldn’t think that many others could manage the IPO trick so early, but it is certainly a much better opton than I had thought in the past.

Well done to NZX, Xero, Cameron Partners and Bell Gully, not only for the IPO but also for an excellent session.

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Buyers and Sellers guide to Web Design and Development firms

Posted on May 10, 2012 by

A few weeks ago I requested visits to Auckland Web design and development firms, receiving a healthy range of responses. I didn’t get to visit everyone, but thanks to everyone who replied, and to those who suffer my visit.

I managed to get to, in the self-imposed two-week deadline, 11 companies: 3Bit, Marker Studio, OnFire, Pitch, TheWebCompany, Studio Alexander, Silverstripe, Young and Shand, Gravitate,  Swaytech and Starsoft. Thanks also to Lee ter Wal Design, whom I work a lot with and also recommend. I have emerged far more knowledgeable about the scene in Auckland and the business in general, and am impressed with what I saw.

Every firm had strengths which lent them to a particular niche, or made them better for a certain kind of client. At the cheaper end the game is about selling to clients who are fairly unsophisticated, and while the websites are fairly basic, their main service to us all as end customers is in actually getting their clients to have a half decent website in the first place. Many of those clients will later graduate to more sophisticated websites and development companies, and these early experiences will set the tone.

At the very top end firms are performing complex work for high traffic sites owned by very large businesses. And stretching from the bottom to the top are a vast array of firms (over 800 in Auckland I am told), from small, medium and large generalist firms, to firms of all sizes that are stronger in one area, such as heavy duty technical work, branding or marketing.

Despite the competition, there are thousands and thousands of local and not so local businesses demanding quality work. Businesses understand that websites are critical, and a little sales effort and a record of quality work will help you find them.

There are a number of ways that I can sum up what I learned, and I’ve settled on this:

The Buyers and Sellers guide to Design and Development firms in Auckland.

Buyers Guide

Designing and building a website can be done at a range of costs and benefits:

  • $3,000–$5,000 will get you a very basic WordPress website based on a pre-existing template. It will be roughly acceptable but probably not inspiring.
  • $5,000–$15,000 will get you a well-designed functional brochure-ware website. You’ll use a smaller, younger firm to do so, and you’ll need to be very clear on what you want. This isn’t the time to iterate too much, but you should get something that represents your small business well.
  • $15,000–$50,000 gets you a well-designed website with a degree of capabilities. It may include eCommerce, or even hook into one or more of your legacy systems. These are for growing and medium sized businesses, and are well worth the investment.
  • $50,000 and above, and that can be over $1m but is typically $100-200,000, gets you a range of websites/updates for serious businesses. This is a space populated by advertising agencies running multiple campaigns, or large companies with very complex requirements and legacy systems.
  • Anything over $200,000 and you should be working on the principal website for a huge business (by NZ standards). If you are paying more than this for a marketing website then you should let me handle it and I’ll split the difference with you 50/50.

Prices

Firms charge between $90 and $200 per hour to external clients. $120 is the acceptable limit for an up-and-coming firm, while $120–$150 is what most professionals are charging.

If you are paying $90 to $120 an hour then you are either very lucky, or you have ordered up thousands of hours of work in advance. For those huge commitments you may pay low rates, but be prepared to enter into a binding contract, as the biggest shops make money on time and margin, and with lower margins you need longer commitment.

If you want (or are) one of the smarter eggs around and can do complex work that others can’t, and incredibly quickly, then look to $150 and above for the right rate. Like a great mechanic they will make it up in time saved and better results.

Note that these are prices firms charge to end clients. Retaining an individual directly or is often cheaper, though you may not get the same time commitment. Firms that are selling services to clients at one rate do need to make a fair margin on any contractors they hire, and also need to be amply compensated for the overhead, risk and brand strength that comes with a larger more established firm.

Intermediation

The industry is in parts very fragmented and layered, with some specialist firms receiving work from agencies who in turn hold relationships with clients. Sometimes there are three or more layers, and I wonder whether the end-clients even know about the people who do the actual work.

I must sound a warning here. Retaining a master agency who then retains other firms is a very good way to spend a lot of money and get a lousy result. This layering pushes the end client further away from the designer and developers who do the work, and it becomes a game of Chinese whispers.

Meanwhile the client may have internal ‘run by committee’ issues, so that multiple voices from agency, development and design firms and clients are driving the results. The results are generally a mess, and a quick scan through this blog will show a few of them. Ferrit is a classic example. A large number of people and firms were associated with that disaster, yet very few are willing to acknowledge that now.

The new digital agencies are pretty good, but I would recommend that you understand and stick to what they are good at, and retain direct relationships with firms to fill the gaps.

Good clients

As a client you need to get a range of tasks done to build and maintain a great website, and not every firm can do everything well. Choose between an integrated firm, one that can outsource some pieces to others or choose individual firms yourself.

However you also need to make sure that you are a good client, as only good clients can help firms make great websites, and deliver excellent business outcomes.

  • Good clients have a defined mission, vision and values for their company, which will guide the purpose and design of the website. If you are not certain of your mission, vision and values then the project will almost certainly fail. Seek help from a business or branding consultant if you have not done this step, and everything thereafter will become a lot easier. I’ve been exposed to this sort of work many times over the years, and in NZ have worked with Ray Labone, founder of Designworks, who has done this for dozens of decent sized NZ companies.
  • Good clients also have a brand strategy, based on the above and on awareness of the positioning of their company and products in the market including  with users. If you have not done this, then seek help from a branding firm, making sure you understand what they need to be briefed. Ray Labone and Grant Alexander are both excellent choices for this sort of work, as is Brian Richards (BRR). Grant, is also part of our Equip BBD team with Ray, while Brian and BRR have their own team delivering Better By Design work.
  • Good clients are clear on the purpose of the website, which build from the mission, vision and values, the brand strategy and a healthy does of business strategy. Great web development firms will help you tighten this up, but make sure you are aware of the need beyond “we need a new website” before you engage.
  • Good clients know what good looks like - they have favourite websites, understand what competitors are offering and have strong yet flexible ideas on the feel of the website.
  • Good clients listen to great designers, knowing when to step back and the the design process take its course. Jumping in too often can lead to poor outcomes, but leaving it all up to the designers can lead to poor business outcomes as well.
  • Good clients have one point of contact who is responsible to the business for the website. That person is ideally a nerd, designer and business person combined. The design process takes input from others in the business, but the final outcome has to be driven by this one person, not by a committee, and not with anyone else having a veto. If you want a veto, then get involved. And sorry, not every product or division, or indeed almost no products or divisions, gets to be on the front page.
  • Great clients allow developers to use an iterative approach, and expect to hear words like “sprints”, “weekly reviews” and “ship”. They have an over-arching scope, but are happy to pay on a time and material basis versus an estimate.
  • Good clients don’t dramatically change the scope, dither for too long on decisions or go out of contact for days.
  • Good clients allow the time and money for the firm to use the appropriate design tools to deliver a high quality product
  • Good clients form lasting relationships, understanding that websites need constant maintenance and development to stay fresh and usable.

Sellers Guide

While a track record is your best sales promotion tool, I observed that too many firms rely on word of mouth to generate sales. That’s great when it works (it works for me), but I strongly encourage all firms to have a sales strategy that is a little more mature. You may decide to blog, attend conferences and do stunts, or you may hire sales professionals and account managers who enjoy meeting new clients and door knocking. Those firms with the sales professional (hunters or gatherers) were easily out-performing the teams of just designers/developers.

I was generally very impressed by the description of the design and development process from firms, showing a mature industry approach. It’s a continual struggle in general to ensure that clients understand the value of what they are getting, and my cynical view is that paying too much is often worse (Ferrit, Localist) than expecting to pay a few thousand. Work done up front to help clients understand the value of the process is good, and you can price it in such a way so that the client sees the full process as a better deal.

Pricing seems all over the place, so I’ve tried to help with the list above. Like anything, an hourly rate is a poor indicator to clients of what they are going to get for their money, so the best forms are very god at setting expectations or even using fixed price approaches. Make sure, you smaller firms, that your real hourly rates are not getting diluted enough.

We went through what good clients should do above, so here’s my take on what good firms are doing:

  • Good firms start their first workshop or pre-sales process with understanding the company mission, vision and values and step through from there. If there is a gap in the process (e.g. website purpose) then they help the client get through that part.
  • Good firms know what they are good at, and what they are not good at. They outsource or recommend other firms for parts of the process where they are not strong, or for clients that are out of their zone.
  • Good firms are superb at estimating time to spend on projects, at understanding how painful clients will be during the pre-sales process, at reconciling the hours actually spent versus the original estimate, and learning from the process. (They often use Workflowmax.)
  • Good firms use clickable wireframes, do usability testing and grok Rocket Surgery Made Easy.
  • Good firms are superb at listening to clients, reflecting their needs while also giving standing reasonably firmly on the things that really matter.
  • Good firms educate clients so that they increasingly understand what great websites are, and give clients books to read, recommend conferences like Webstock and otherwise help them be great.
  • Good firms ensure that clients sign off on various stages through the process
  • Good firms deliver beautiful and beautifully functional websites that meet agreed business outcomes.
  • Good firms use well supported content management systems that are widely used and appropriate for the use case.
  • Good firms test several times. They have a testing team, test scripts and they also conduct regular user testing.
  • Good firms have long lasting relationships with clients, and help client achieve their business goals through continuous development and maintenance.
  • Good firms know how to sell. Almost all of the firms I visited had no active sales function, preferring serendipity and word of mouth. Responding to competitive tenders takes time and effort, and for only a percentage chance of rewards. Waiting for clients to walk in the door is foolhardy. Forming lasting relationships and producing high quality work wins in the end, but don’t be afraid to pick up the phone.

Summary

I know this is wrong, in places and perhaps overall. I saw a biased and small sample of firms. Biased because they were the firms that somehow saw my tweets and blog post, and small because I allocated only two weeks to the effort.

So please let me know what is wrong, what I should add, change or tweak from a client and firm perspective. I am happy to keep editing this in public — it was gestating for long enough as it is.

I feel I was very lucky to both meet a great range of firms and to be allowed to ask and get frank answers often very probing questions about the business. I really enjoyed the process, and despite my sometimes blunt observations and questions, I hope everyone I met did as well. I have emerged with a lot of respect for the individuals, the companies, the industry, and for whoever is educating you all.

My thanks again to everyone.

Finally — yes — I can recommend all of the firms that I did meet. But before you pick up the phone make sure you understand what your own strengths and weaknesses are, and what sort of firm you are looking for.

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , | 14 Comments

Linked-in spam

Posted on May 9, 2012 by


linked in spam, originally uploaded by LanceWiggs.

I increasingly don’t understand the purpose of Linked-In. They were a nice way of connecting to business contacts, but are and will always be a lousy way of doing anything else.
As they add ‘friend’ updates, news and so forth the real messages (which is who doing what) becomes lost, and the entire business less useful.

Posted in NZ Business | 6 Comments

Our Far South – more pictures

Posted on May 8, 2012 by

It’s hard to describe how beautiful and how cold it was in Antarctica, so here are some pictures to help.
Click on them for giant versions.

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The NZ Klout and Klouchebag chart

Posted on April 29, 2012 by

Klout purports to measure online influence. Apparently I’m worth 45.34, with those two decimals implying a degree of science beyond the measurement.

It’s all hogwash of course:

The problem with Klout is that a higher score is very often a measure of a higher level of painfulness for the rest of us. Higher scores can be generated from more followers, but also though more tweets and Facebook updates, more retweeting, cheerleading and other sometimes douchelike behaviors. It’s difficult to tell when a tweeter goes too far, but we all have our own internal standards, and choose not to follow when they are broken.

Klout is working on improving their measurement system, but for now it stays opaque and largely discredited by the tech community. However like it or hate it Klout dominates the personal social media measurement space for now, and people pay attention to it, sadly.

Enter Klouchebag, a site which did the rounds a few days ago. Klouchebag analyses your Twitter stream to see how annoying you are to fellow Twitter users. The site is a bit of fun, and is in response to Klout’s measurement flaws. It uses the ARSE rating system, measuring Anger, ReTweets, Social apps (like 4Square) and English usage. Here’s my score – apparently I’m a “bit of a prat”:

One nice thing about Klouchebag is that you don’t have to login to see your score. Tweets are public, so any site that demands a login to analyse your history should be rightfully treated with suspicion.

So is it possible to score highly on Klout and low on Douchebag? It was a wet Sunday, and I had plenty of other things to avoid doing, so here’s a handy chart for selected New Zealand tweeters. I pseudo-randomly picked names from the NZHerald and Computerworld lists and as well some from my own tweetstream. (Click on the chart it to see the enlarged version). Source data is here.

So what’s going on? Let’s add Klouchebag’s score descriptions to find out (and again click on the picture to see a larger version):

The left hand side, at the top, is the place to be – showing huge Klout and no douchebaggery. And right up there sits @rww, the twitter identity of ReadWriteWeb, started by Kiwi Richard  McManus. Richard’s own score is also high on Klout, but he is in the “A bit of a prat” Klouchebag ratings. He’s not at all like that, and this serves as a reminder that deeply analysing these scores, as I am doing,  is both meaningless and dangerous, although it is fun and can be insightful. @rww  is a broadcaster, spitting out tweets referring to ReadWriteWeb articles, while Richard’s tweets are more of a mixed bag – and more interesting for it. However that pushes him up the Klouchebag rankings.

Also on the far left side of the chart, though in territory accessible to mortals with only a NZ audience, are @theNBR, VodafoneNZ, @TelecomNZ, @BNZBank and @AsbBank. The NBR only tweets articles, and is a broadcaster for a website, just like @rww. Chris Keall, the man behind most NBR twitter action, is almost in the center of the chart – with a little  more Klout than @theNBR, but “a bit of a prat” along with Richard.

The four major corporations are all doing very well, delivering service without annoying people. Well done. TelecomNZ has more Klout, but is up in the “mostly alright” category. That should serve as a gentle warning that they may want to think about changing their approach. In general we see individuals associated with the big broadcasters and companies take a Douchebag hit, along with, one assumes, a Klout benefit from being associated with the big company.

But the best of the bunch are @barnaclebarnes, @robyngallagher, @jadetang123, @toxaq, @nikz, @gnat, @davidfarrier, @ri and @szechuan. It’s very hard to not be a star or broadcaster, and still manage the trick of influence and non-douchieness. I follow all these fine folks, and so should you. Their scores (and yes – this is all based on rubbish analysis I know) show that they are insightful and influential without being painful, and I concur.

Actually you should look to hire @Robyngallagher or @ri, engage @szechuan (Sacha from Buddle Findlay) as your legal advisor for technology, start-up and M&A work, use @gnat as your advisor on all things tech, give @barnaclebarnes money to keep growing  mytours, use @nikz’s 200square to sell your house, start something with @toxaq as your tech co-founder, try to keep up with @jadetang123, starting with Creative Mornings, and, well I don’t know @davidfarrier, but I suppose you should watch him on the news, if that’s your thing.

In short the K vs K chart has managed to filter some pretty awesome people out on the left hand side, which shows that something is working. Well done to everyone.

The mass in the middle are normal humans, and while we should take a little warning from the Klouchebag scores (I’m a “bit of a prat”), I would suggest that being under 40 is fine, and that between 40 and 50 is generally acceptable but one should think about moderating behavior.

Above 50 and things start getting interesting. @benkepes is up there, high in Klout and Klouchebag scores alike. Ben does tweet a lot, and a good chunk of it on stuff I am not that interested in. Perhaps the answer is to do as RWW and the corporations do, and separate the personal and professional accounts.

Twitter allows us to have lists, and while I generally follow NZ based humans back, I do have a private list of people who I more closely follow, while dipping into the firehouse now and then.  On that right hand side I was surprised to see that two or three (including Ben) on my private list. However a score above 50 could be considered as a hearty shot across the bows and taken as a warning. Or not – it’s all hogwash as I said.

So there you have it. The point of Twitter and these other social media tools is to have fun, to learn, to be part of a community, to help customers and each other and to not be a douchebag while doing it. Any help we can get to avoid douchebaggery is good, and we have all seen people change, to the benefit of the community. So if you feel you are drifting to the right, then perhaps lighten up a little. And if you are way over on the left hand side; stop gloating, these scores are all rubbish remember.

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Boy for sale – partially

Posted on April 29, 2012 by

I just checked the iTunes NZ store, and sometime between my blog post last September and now, the movie Boy was placed on NZ’s iTunes store. Excellent.

Not so excellent is the price, and that when I opened the link somehow both the SD and HD versions of the movie started automatically downloading. I have no idea why – but these sorts of things tend to happen to me.

The other issue is that Boy is still not yet available on the US iTunes store, which is where the real market resides.

Posted in NZ Business | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Sorry Mum

Posted on April 25, 2012 by


Sorry Mum, originally uploaded by LanceWiggs.

Not this year. Apple seems to have a very strange perspective on Mothers’ day.

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