25th June, 2018
What would you do if you had one week to work on a crazy idea?
We’ve all craved the opportunity to work on something, uninterrupted, for a week – truly embracing the startup state of mind of building and failing fast.
But, there are few opportunities to do that in real life – and it’s a problem.
New Zealand has already established itself as a great place for startups to do their thing, but if there’s one thing holding back the sector it’s time and space to try crazy, bold new things.
Late last year MYOB put together a report looking at the state of NZ’s startup economy, and it found that on the whole NZ is a great place to do business.
“If you have the passion and drive to do something extraordinary – turning a small idea into a globally marketed product or service,” said MYOB General Manager Carolyn Luey at the time.
But, there was a warning, too.
“New Zealand is making some serious inroads [into becoming a startup nation] – with plans for better funding, improvements to tech infrastructure and a growing startup ecosystem – but there’s still a long way for the country to go.”
One of the key issues which the report found to needed to be addressed was the lack of spaces where startup founders can go and work, test, and learn.
READ: The rise of co-working space
It’s why MYOB has been working behind the scenes to enable more spaces to allow just that come to market.
The latest evidence of this is MYOB’s sponsorship of ZeroPoint Ventures’ new one-week accelerator program, 0.Sprint.
The program offers a one week ‘mini-sprint’, with the aim of surrounding ventures of any size with the right people, environment, and networks to help them overcome a key hurdle (whether that’s product development or just starting a new venture).
“We see 0.Sprint as a unique opportunity to teach local entrepreneurs how to make decisions quickly and adapt to the market fast to stay competitive,” said Luey.
“It’s all about encouraging a ‘fail fast, fail often’ attitude to business – which is an essential part of entrepreneurship – while at the same time as supporting our local early-stage ventures to scale up.”
Founder and CEO of ZeroPoint Ventures, Dan Khan, said the project was about bringing innovation which is usually stifled by business-as-usual to the fore.
“It’s always difficult to find time for new ideas and different thinking,” he said.
“Innovation and new product development isn’t on the agenda of many teams who have to focus on existing-business; but to create change or reinvent direction requires a different approach.”
Khan said while the program fostered new thinking and experimentation, having the program last a week sharpened the mind of participants.
“As humans, we procrastinate, and defer action, drawing out our decisions to fill the length of time we’re given to make them,” he said.
“One of our key design goals of 0.Sprint was to help entrepreneurs make decisions fast and give them a small chunks of time to focus on validating a clear direction where to go next.
“After all, when you’re running a startup with very few resources, you’ve got to be extremely focussed on how and where you spend your time – take too long and your runway runs out and your venture dies.”
If you want to find out more about Zero Point Ventures sprint program, sponsored by MYOB, you can read more here.