Recent Posts
Categories
Archives
Links
Oct
11
Solving NZ’s Business Talent Crisis
Filed Under Business, Eventfinder - October 11th, 2008 7:46am
This train of thought started as an email response to a post by Nat Torkington last month, in which he lamented the shortage of experienced and capable business staff in New Zealand - the “deal-making CEOs and well-networked bizdev gurus.”
I’d been thinking and talking with others along the same lines over the past six months, most recently a couple of weeks ago with Chip Dawson at the PHP meetup. There are numerous technically innovative web startups in New Zealand, but very few that manage to bridge the gap from technical solution to viable business, and far less that bridge the next gap to explosive growth.
An element of that is complacency I’m sure - the guys who’ve made it to a decent salary, have the respect of their peers, love where they live, etc and there’s no desire there to grow further. For a lot of the technically-oriented business owners however it comes down to a lack of experience of the strategic & tactical planning that’s required to execute in a way that’ll bring business success.
Those who’ve been entrepreneurial from the outset of their business lives have most likely never been exposed to the internal workings of a successful business (unless they’ve personally known a CEO or executive member of a successful team), because they’ve been working in isolation on their own ventures. That’s speaking from personal experience - I’d built and sold two internet companies (in hosting and development) before Eventfinder, and despite a business degree it’d be fair to say I had no idea of how to run a startup.
I think the answer to that is in helping the technical folks understand that “execution is everything” (I say help them understand because in that situation you don’t know just how much you don’t know). Then to facilitate them bringing on an experienced mentor/advisor/CEO who can not only help steer their business in the right direction but from whom they can learn the ropes and get the practical experience they need to be able to do it themselves.
For me that person’s been my business partner and good friend Michael Turner, a kiwi who’d been an internet strategist in Australia for over a decade before we met. Our situation was somewhat different in that it was he who approached me with the concept behind Eventfinder, but between the pair of us we were able to turn that idea into a multimillion dollar business inside of 2 years.
The message I’ve been repeating to those who’ll listen in the PHP community is that it’s absolutely worth giving up some control and equity in your fledgling tech startup to bring an experienced partner onside from whom you can learn everything you need to know about the business side of things. You’ll learn from them much, much faster than you would by making mistakes yourself, and you’ll be in a position to potentially run the ship yourself next time.