Over at Fairfax columnist and mate Mod O’Donnell* writes that last year there were 782,000 changes of registration for cars, and that 58% were private to private sales. If you are going to buy a car privately these days, there is really only one place to shop: Trade Me Motors. (Please let me know if I am …
Continue reading “Trade Me’s $30 Billion classified businesses”
A few years ago I met a bunch of revolutionaries who were working on a new way to sell power – a marketplace to sell electricity called Powershop. Ari and the team were about to launch their shop to the public, but I noted that they had no independent power retailer, and needed someone …
Many of us are already there – living in a world without Sky TV or terrestrial broadcasts, as well as abandoning newspapers, books and magazines. My own setup is all- Apple, using iPads small and large to read books, an Apple TV to watch movies and programs and phones, computers and iPads to browse the …
We hear a lot of numbers about survival rates, so it’s gratifying to see some quality statistics from Statistics NZ, via this MBIE infographic. It measures 3 year survival rates, and to me three years is about the time it takes to figure out whether a business is going to enjoy sustainable growth or not. …
Continue reading “Survival Rates are high – so why not start something?”
Ryan Baker and Andrew Schofield have done it before, building BookIt and then selling it to Trade Me in 2010. It’s 2013, and the pair were still spending time at Trade Me up until a few months ago, but were also working on a new company – Timely. Timely is an online service for companies …
Continue reading “On the growth curve – from Timely to Trade Me”
I’m struck that there are some basic things that those of us from the Internet sector just take for granted, and yet sometimes appear to be new ideas to those used to other sectors. We learn these basics by being founders, being embedded in the start-up and growth ecosystem, taking part in events like Webstock …
Continue reading “Ten things we know, and we assume you know”
After much agonising I’ve decided to stand again for the InternetNZ council. It’s an important organisation, and we have seen excellent results over the last three years. While the demands on my time have sometimes been very high, the cause is worthy, and it has been rewarding to meet and work with a wide range …
Today we saw an announcement that Optimizer HQ has raised $4 million from local and offshore investors. They are apparently considering an IPO, but needed cash to tide them over for the next few months. For me Optimizer HQ, who have 60 staff here and offshore, comes out of nowhere, from the non-aligned community or …
I’ve just re-compiled the Posts I like page. That meant trawling through three years of posts. I’ve typically avoided highlighting the ones about businesses, but a few are in there. Three that were older favorites: Blame directors for failure, CEOs for success – because I really do believe this is the case. Xero’s second round – because …
It always amazes me to see just how many apps that Lingopal has on iTunes. There is a similar number on the Android Play store. We launched a couple of apps recently (Maid and Handyman) and have more coming over the next few weeks and months.
I’ve written at LWCM about focussing on the end users, not the customers. While customers may be good for short term cash, lasting value comes from making end users happy through delivering to them valuable services and products. In turn, companies that create a culture of over-delivering to end user needs, who execute well, and …
Continue reading “Much ado about strawberry jam: End Users please Air New Zealand”
Punakaiki Fund issued this press release just over a week ago. Pre-registrations are going along very well. We are meeting with selected accredited investors in the coming weeks, so get in touch if you would like to be included. I cannot really say more than this due to securities law. Punakaiki Fund Limited (Punakaiki) is pleased …
Some early stage investment is speculative, and other investment is into a steady growth curve. Christchurch based mass spectrometer company Syft seemed to never want to emerge from the speculative early stage, absorbing over $30m of investment and revenue without ever lifting out of the starting blocks. But now things have changed. There’s a new …
NZX – MRP – Mighty River Power, originally uploaded by LanceWiggs. A lot of people are visiting the NZX.com site today, with one thing on their mind – the Mighty River Power float. How delightful when we see in NZX an organisation that understands what its visitors want. A hearty well done.
No – they are not the same company. Sadly Kiwi Melissa Clark-Reynolds’ MiniMonos is closing down. It’s a virtual world for kids full of monkeys, and seems to have had a good run, so this is a tough time for Melissa and her team. The tag line is “love to play, love the planet” and …
Continue reading “MiniMonos is closing; MinoMonsters is hiring.”
Lance Wiggs 