Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Recently BCC pitched the Young Enterprise Scheme to the council as well as some key people in Horowhenua and convinced them to run the programme for their local schools for the first time. This is great news as it means 110 students from Manawatu, Horowhenua and Waiopehu colleges all get to go through the process and reap the benefits of the competition.

We are excited to bring on board Lucy Robertson, a YES veteran who will help us run the competition both here and in Horowhenua.

“I took part in YES in 2013 while I was at Palmerston North Girls High, my team designed onesies – back then they were a lot less common than they are now,” says Lucy.

“I was quite lucky because I was the director in my group and I got a heap of opportunities like EIA (Enterprise in Action), which is where 80 students go to Auckland for four days to take part in an international challenge. This gave me a real foot in the door with people up there and the connections I was able to make got me a job doing coordination for YES (before joining BCC).

I just love being part of the whole YES experience again, since I can’t actually go through it again myself it’s great to just be involved. Seeing the students on their first day is really cool because they develop and change so much throughout the year. I wasn’t really interested in business before YES but now i’m studying it at Massey!

We are replicating everything we do in the Manawatu, down in Horowhenua: Pitch Heats, Dragons Den, Trade Fair and their own Regional Final.

I am also hoping to organise a ‘CEO Day’ down there, with every CEO from each team to attend. We will organise speakers (preferably CEOs/Managers from businesses in the region) to give  talks with advice and tips and finish with a Q and A.”

With Lucy on board we are confident that the Horowhenua YES programme will be a big success!

Find out more about YES here.

 

Louise Cooper, Business and Communications Administrator at the Tararua District Council had the following to say about the Tararua Business Network.

“We have over 1800 SME’s (small and medium sized enterprises) in the Tararua District and we recognised that if we can grow business by one employee, we have a substantial business platform.  These small businesses have a distinct role to play in our economy and often provide a means of entry into business, new entrepreneurial talent and a career for those who value economic independence.

We facilitate their growth by enabling, linking and capturing the opportunities that can be derived by leveraging off local talent and the expertise available through our regional partners.   With a collective group of enthusiastic experts available to support small-to-medium-sized business in the district, the Tararua Business Network focuses on enabling, facilitating and linking our businesses to experts in order to support their growth and sustainability.

The relationships we have grown and developed with our business partners are vitally important and we have been referring both new and existing businesses to Dave Craig from the BCC on a fortnightly basis, for almost a year now.  Indeed one of the businesses referred to Dave, will be based in our Incubation Office in mid-April 2016 and is using the business model canvas to develop his value proposition.

Our office in Dannevirke opened in December 2014 and we could see from our geographical stats that we were missing opportunities to assist business in the southern part of the district, and therefore opened our satellite office in Pahiatua in February 2016.
We aim to replicate the services we provide in Dannevirke to Pahiatua and are currently targeting the agribusiness sector and encouraging them to contact us. We are keen to promote to this sector the support available through the BCC from their individual consultations, Sprout programme and the Innovate competition, which we are proud to sponsor each year.”

Earlier this month, BCC held a boot camp at Massey University in Palmerston North for their External Relations Department.  Staff from the Wellington and Auckland campuses as well as from Manawatu attended.  

Assistant Vice-Chancellor for External Relations and Development Penelope Bar-Sellers and her team enlisted the help of BCC to run a day and half event for staff members to troubleshoot some problems/opportunities they had already identified in an innovative and effective way, as an alternative to more traditional approaches such as senior staff member meetings.

Dave Craig, Roger McEwan and Nick Gain from BCC designed a programme for the external relations team, borrowing some of the methods BCC use to run Startup Weekend and Innovate to accelerate problem solving, and teach some valuable skills.

After running through some MBA style workshops and being introduced to the social lean canvas, the teams worked on clarifying the main problems that the staff wanted to address. The different groups started breaking down each issue on the social lean canvas and formulating ways of implementing improvements in both their own workplaces and Massey-wide. Each team presented a five minute pitch to the group which was ranked by everyone else based on their innovativeness, pitching prowess and use of the social canvas.

To wrap it all up, working groups were formed to implement the most creative and practical ideas and continue development on the solutions. “We have extensive experience in early stage start-up practices and have found a way to successfully implement some of these procedures to get groups to work together in a new and effective ways,” says Dave Craig.  “Team work is critical not only with start-ups but SMEs and big corporates like Massey.  Our boot camp pushed everyone’s comfort levels and the final result was outstanding.”

The Sprout companies had their last block course in Invercargill from the 12 – 14 February, focusing on Capital Raising and Finance. Guest Speakers included Al Monro, Marcel van den Assum and Alex Wong. They had opportunities to talk more in depth about their company’s next steps with our Sprout team during this course and for most, had their first taste of pitching.

The teams gained valuable feedback from the guests in the room about what was good and what needed improvement in their pitches. Steven Bird, from the Shepherd team, came away with top honour’s for the best pitch of the day.

The Sprout companies have just under three weeks prepare for the Sprout program’s culminating event – the NZTE 2016 New Zealand Agribusiness Investment Showcase* in association with ASB. This showcase, being held on the 16 March, is designed to help New Zealand agri companies raise money to grow internationally, and promote the sector as a vibrant investment destination.

They are working hard on their pitches, as well as continuing to develop their product and service offering. Dean Tilyard recommended the teams practice their pitch a minimum of 100 times before they should feel comfortable their pitch is close to perfect. Based on this recommendation we can see there’s going to be a lot of minutes spent speaking in front of the mirror in the coming weeks.

*The NZTE Agribusiness Investment Showcase is part of NZ Agri Investment week, being held from from 14 – 19 March in Palmerston North.

Read a short description of each of the Sprout companies here.

 

BCC is excited to announce a new team member, , in the role of Entrepreneur in Residence. His main focus will be supporting Sprout companies.

The Entrepreneur in Residence role will encompass:

* Supporting Sprout companies through both strategic and operational activity

* Working closely between company and market to ensure rapid progress to product/market fit for Sprout companies

* Assisting Sprout programme with curriculum and strategy to provide best value to agritech entrepreneurs and wider sectors

“I’m excited to get the chance to work with some of New Zealand’s most interesting and innovative minds and learn about their successes and challenges. I hope to help by looking at things from a different perspective,” explains Stu.

Stu has extensive experience in commercialising products and services in the agricultural sector and has developed strong exit planning skills. He was the founder and CEO of ‘Where’s my Cows’ which was acquired by Lindsay Corp USA in 2010, and is the current Managing Director of Agrioptics, a Precision Agriculture (PA) specialist with a focus on crop sensors and farm and field mapping.

“I’m looking forward to helping companies bring their ideas and prototypes to the New Zealand and global markets,” says Stu.

The Young Enterprise Scheme is a year long competition that takes secondary school students through the process of beginning with a seed idea and trying to develop it into a functioning business. It’s not uncommon for teams who have done very well in the competition to continue on with their business outside of school, or to go on to start new ventures. One case is Jamie Beaton, who did YES in 2011 and founded Crimson Consulting which today is valued at a whopping $60 million!

As well as offering students a pathway into entrepreneurship and business, the competition accords the students a wide range of skills by the end of the year. “The best part about the YES is the independence, confidence, leadership and communication skills that the students learn. Its incredible watching them start at E-Day then seeing how much they grow during the year,” says Victoria Crawford-Flett, a YES project coordinator who came up from Wellington to help with the event.

The day started off with roughly 150 students in year 12 and 13 coming together from Manawatu. They formed small groups of around five, completing some team building exercises and challenges and were talked through an outline of what would go on in the year as well as what they might accomplish. The real fun began when teams spread out and began envisaging possible businesses they could develop in the year.

Some teams had one idea that they were adamant about focusing on, whilst others had three or four to decide between. A lot of them thought of some new ideas on the spot after hearing some examples of what people had done in past YES competitions, and others had already done some market research to validate their ideas. A team of mentors were brought in during the afternoon to talk to the teams and offer their own expertise, advice and experience to the mix. Ideas were everything from chocolate flavored cheese to multipurpose, fireproof gloves.

As the teams progress through the programme we hope to see some really exciting start-ups develop.

Visit the YES website here.

What a busy year 2015 was and we expect 2016 to be the same.  Our highlights included over 100 emerging entrepreneurs starting their journey with Innovate, local team Generation Zedd  being recognised in the Young Enterprise Scheme and over 200 participating in Startup Weekend style events in the Manawatu.  Calfsmart and Biolumic completed significant capital raises and Sprout Agritech Accelerator was launched with the first cohort featuring eight companies from around NZ.  With the launch of The Factory, our co-working, coffee lounge space, there has never been a better time to start a technology company.  Rest assured that in 2016 BCC will again focus on playing its role in contributing to the growing entrepreneurial sectors in Manawatu and New Zealand.

We wish all of our partners and supporters a prosperous and rewarding 2016.

Dean and the BCC Crew

On the 11th &th 12 of December, the Sprout cohort arrived in Ashburton for the second of four block courses, which are being delivered across different regions within New Zealand. The theme for this block course was ‘Technical Approach and Product Roadmap.’

The first guest speaker of the weekend was Ben Wilde from Georgian Partners. He spoke to the cohort about ‘Venture capital and quality product strategy.’ Ben is a principal of Georgian Partners and has extensive experience in product strategy, working for both Informix and IBM in California for eight years. His day to day role involves advising companies on product strategy, value proposition assessment and go-to-market strategy.

Rob Heebink and Mark Harris from Gallagher Group joined the group via conference call and spoke about ‘Building products for farmers – the key considerations for your product development.’ The key takeaway from this session being: ‘when you’re pricing your product ensure you have enough margin to compensate and motivate all stages in the channel to market.’

On Friday night the Sprout team hosted a networking function for local Cantabrian’s interested in agritech, inviting them to meet the entrepreneurs and get an update on the Sprout programme. Grow Mid Canterbury and KPMG played a large role in helping us to arrange this evening remotely. Our thanks to both organisations for their help.

Saturday focused on product development with presentations by David Moodie of Makegood Design and Andrew Toekly, VP Engineer at 8i. The day was finished off with a fast paced session by Dion Cawood from LIC around ‘Design Thinking.’ He asked teams to explore their peers ‘emotions’ which were associated with the action of gift giving, by asking 3-6 minutes of questions about the process. Each individual then created a prototype of a product which would make the gift giving process easier and met the emotional need of their peer.

The Sprout team now turns their attention to the January block course, being held in Hamilton. The teams will focus on Go-to-market and IP. LIC, Gallagher, WINTEC and SODA Inc will host the cohort while in Hamilton.

In November’s news, we talked about some of the history of The Factory, the building in which BCC is housed. Our aim has been to get a diverse range of businesses and individuals working here in order to foster an environment of innovation and creativity. This month we take a look at two new tenants of our amazing space.

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Sharyn Hight - Lattitude Global Volunteering

Sharyn is a friendly, passionate person who manages Lattitude Global Volunteering, a UK based firm which has been around for over eight years. Sharyn oversees four staff who manage 240 volunteers.  The company grew out of a much older organisation which was more focused on traditional gap year experiences for students finishing school. The focus of Lattitude has now shifted towards volunteering and today they send volunteers to twelve different countries around the world from Fiji to Malawi to Canada.

Sharyn and the Latitude staff moved into The Factory two months ago and have been very happy since. “Its really cool, there are a lot of neat people around and the atmosphere is great,” says Sharyn. “There are accountants and graphic designers working in the same space as us and we talk to them and kind of take in new ideas by osmosis.  It’s also great to talk to people about our volunteers coming back from overseas to help them find jobs and get them involved in things going on here in New Zealand.”

The company usually has about 160 volunteers overseas at a time and around 80 foreign volunteers in New Zealand whose average placement time is six months. “We try to place them so that they can develop their skills and be comfortable with what they are doing”, says Sharyn.  “This could mean anything from helping teach PE or arts in the UK to working in an orphanage in Vietnam, depending on the student’s level of comfort being in a foreign country and their experience.  What we are focusing on now is consolidating what we do well, and trying to build up our networks of returning volunteers.”

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Mike Long – Altus

Mike has been working in The Factory since November in a small office connected to a larger workroom. Everything in his work space is covered with electronic equipment from wires and chips to a large UAVs hanging off one wall. Altus builds custom UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)- “not drones,” says Mike,  “not so much me, but some of the guys in Altus get upset when you call them drones because that makes people think of the ones that blow things up.”  What Altus really does is solve problems with remotely controlled devices, which usually, but not always means UAVs. In one case the Altus team were hired to go to a dam that had the water drained out of it so they could lower a wirelessly controlled camera into large pipes and check for cracks.

Altus UAVs are top of the line, a big step away from the type of drones you might fly for fun, and are custom built for each client. They are usually made for survey work but Altus also branches into areas such as filming; in fact, the team has recently been hired by CNN. “The market is challenging because there’s always new UAVs and new technology coming out so we need to stay ahead of the competition,” says Mike. Altus focuses on doing what they do really well and having the safest UAVs out there. “I used to be an avionics technician in the air force and about half of us come from some kind of military background. We build our UAV’s with the type of precision and care that goes making manned aircraft.”

Of the six people on the team, Mike is the only one in Palmerston North. “I used to work at home but then I couldn’t really switch off after work because I would see bits and pieces sitting around and think – oh I need to get onto that. My wife was also starting to get a bit annoyed. So I looked around at work spaces in Palmy but they were all big cold empty spaces with no windows. I was familiar with BCC because I had taken part in Innovate and someone told me there was an office space open here if I wanted – and it couldn’t have worked out better. Electricity, heating, Wi-Fi, and coffee plus a nice space with windows to look out of.  I order a lot of packages and I can trust that they are kept safe even if I’m not here, and of course Mel (The Factory manager) is just awesome.”

Last month in BCC news we discussed what was coming up in the Innovation DHB Competition. To briefly recap, the competition seeks to identify the Palmerston North Hospital staff with the most promising innovative ideas and put them through a series of development workshops, finishing with a presentation to judges followed by an awards ceremony.

Since then the competition has really gotten underway with participants who have brought a wide range of ideas to the programme. These include new app and software ideas as well as new device ideas. The nine finalists of the competition have worked through the three validation evenings run by BCC, with the aim of building a business case to pitch to the judges. This was done with a focus on clearly identifying the problem being addressed while measuring the scope and cost of the problem, then defining the exact solution, its costs and its scalability. The competitors were also coached on using visual aids and storytelling to deliver a compelling pitch.

Next up for the DBH competition is the Dragon’s Den style pitch night on the 17th where three judges will decide who has the most compelling business case. The judges for 2015 are Ken Clark, who is Chief Medical Officer at MidCentral Health, Michele Coghlan who is Director of Nursing at MidCentral Health , Rick Gain who has a background in pharmaceuticals and is a member of Manawatu Angel Investment Group (MIG) and Angela de Zwart who is the Clinical Advisor at Orion Health.

On the 25th of this month a week after pitches, the Innovation DHB Competition will wrap up with a final awards night where the winner of the trip to the 2016 Health 2.0 Europe conference held in Barcelona will be announced. Dr Hong, Sheng Chiong, who won a Highly Commended at the 2015 New Zealand Innovators Awards, will deliver a keynote address on the night.

Looking Back at 2014’s Winner

Last year’s Innovation DHB winner was Mike Perry, a respiratory physiotherapist at Palmerston North Hospital. For patients with restrictions in lung function, one of the courses of treatment is to use a Positive Expiratory Pressure (PEP) device. However, these devices can be prohibitively expensive as not all patients get the same level of positive results. Mike’s device introduces a novel design and manufacturing process that minimises cost through reduced part count while still maintaining functionality.

Recently Perry completed a development prototype with a Fielding design and development company and will soon begin to test its functionality. .

For more information and to follow the competition, click here