B2B Inspired
B2B Inspired, the podcast by BlueOcean - The B2B Agency, is all about exploring the ins, outs, ups and downs of B2B Marketing here in Aotearoa, New Zealand. We'll uncover emerging trends and thinking while sharing inspiring real-world stories from B2B Marketers here in New Zealand. With the goal of supporting New Zealand’s B2B Marketing community in becoming one of the best and brightest anywhere in the world, let’s roll up our sleeves and take on tomorrow together.
B2B Inspired
A Founder's Journey with Hadleigh Ford
Going from superyachts to SaaS isn’t your typical founder story—but that’s exactly what makes this episode stand out. In this episode of B2B Inspired, Dale Koerner is joined by Hadleigh Ford, founder of SwipedOn, to explore the unexpected journey behind one of New Zealand’s B2B tech success stories.
Hadleigh shares how a frustrating detail on a $100M yacht sparked the idea for SwipedOn, and how he built the product from scratch with no technical background. He unpacks the lessons learned through early failures, global growth, and two major acquisitions—while staying grounded in culture and customer simplicity. Whether you’re starting out or scaling up, this episode is full of honest insights on product-market fit, resilience, and thinking bigger than your starting niche.
For more B2B insights, ideas and opportunities, head to www.blueoceanagency.co.nz
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Let’s roll up our sleeves and take on tomorrow together.
Thank you, ecosystem. We're here to help the New Zealand B2B community to become one of the best, boldest and brightest anywhere in the world. Now if, like me, you live and breathe all things business to business and you're looking for a place to connect, learn and be inspired, you have come to the right place. Kia ora, and welcome back to B2B Inspired. I'm joined today by someone who I've just found out is actually a close neighbor of mine here in the sunny bay of Plenty. Hadley Ford, from Swipeton, joins us today. He's the founder of a business called Swipeton, which, if you've ever signed into a workplace, you may have come across. Exciting journey for Swiped On over the years, starting from a business that Hadley founded here to one that's gone through a round of acquisitions. So we are here to learn about the thrills, spills and everything in between of your journey.
Speaker 2:Hadley welcome. Cool Thanks, Dale. Stoked to be here and yeah, really stoked to be here just down the road as well, yeah.
Speaker 1:So for the viewers at home we were just talking about, they were just doing the background piece about oh, where are you from? It turns out we both live on the same street. Yeah, which is it's a small world.
Speaker 1:Doesn't surprise me yeah, honestly so tell us a little bit, first and foremost, foremost, about about, about you. We'll get into the details of of swat on and the journey that it went through, but it's always, it's always interesting to kind of get to know the person behind the story. So, um, yeah, take us through your journey, because it's been pretty mixed and colorful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, not a typical SAS founders journey, that's for sure. Yeah, I trained to work at sea. So I went to sea when I was 17 and trained as a cadet on container ships and then, yeah, in fact I remember my 18th birthday we were going through the Suez Canal. So not really a typical kind of metaphor, no, but it could be. And yeah, and did a number of years on container ships, worked on cruise ships, got my officer's license, uh, and then worked on superyachts for a while too, and also got my captain's license in between. So you kind of go through those progressions which, yes, a lot of years and, yeah, a lot of toil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you go from the starting the career in this whole environment. Where you're, you're, you're moving a big, heavy object that turns slowly to then sass world, which is where everything kind of flips on a dime um flips on a dime early on, but as the sass pistols grows it probably is a heavy object, is the x-wild to turn from time to time.
Speaker 2:But yeah absolutely, and I failed to mention as well. At the end of my super yacht career, I worked as a harbour pilot as well, which was more yeah, I was bringing in big tankers, container ships, and, yeah, that was quite a challenge.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so take me through the bridge that goes from that to you know, bringing enormous ships into port to workplace sign-in. What happened there? What was?
Speaker 2:the gap. Yeah, great. I think, like most startup businesses, it was an idea born in frustration. So the last super I was on that was, I'd say, 2011,. 100 million euro super yacht being built in Germany, and it was for an oligarch. Actually, I think he still owns it. It's probably sanctioned right now.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, we were building that and had to order everything from like helicopter equipment through to cleaning. You know, it was just wild, everything we were bringing in. And one of the last things I brought on was a visitor book, and I was like, well, it was a hundred million euro super yacht and we just got a really cruddy looking visitor book, and so it was kind of where the idea came from. Okay, um, I did nothing about it at the time. I just thought, you know, another cool idea to add, and I'm kind of one of those guys that pop in and easily leave my head as well. At the same time, and and came back to new zealand and and worked as a harbor pilot, which was week on, week off. It's been a few years doing that, and in my time off, I thought, gosh, you know, I really must do something. And that was where I guess Swipe Down started.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, and take us through. How did you go from the idea that had been in your head to week on, week off, kind of having a bit more time to think about it? Yeah, how did you take the first step and what was it? Uh, yeah it was.
Speaker 2:Honestly it was. It was google. Uh, I don't have a technical background and, look, I don't have a business background as well, um, obviously. So I just jumped on google and looked up app developers in new zealand and and found a company in auckland to kind of outsource that, that first version oh, yeah, so yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So you, you brought someone in for the first sort of like mvp this is liable product.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay yeah, not that I knew what mvp well, but I you know none of the, none of those terms, or even software as a service, or the sass world in itself. It was so, so foreign. Um, which was quite cool, because maybe if you knew a lot more you probably wouldn't have started it.
Speaker 1:You know, like, how challenging it could be, see yeah, I guess there's almost a sort of element in there of I don't want to, don't take this the wrong way, but like ignorance being bliss, you know, yeah, if, if you had have put it this way, if you'd gone through all the things that you've learned since you started the business, would you have gone back and and started it again? Would be an interesting thing to to explore exactly.
Speaker 2:No, I was so naive. It was, it was fantastic and yeah, um, the first few years, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't an absolute success for it from the start as well, yeah, uh, and then I would say a year and even two years, and I was like, oh, what was the point of this? You know, I could have easily, easily given up and I definitely thought about it yeah, so um, how did you go about recruiting the first customers?
Speaker 2:Cool. So I stuck with the world that I knew, which was the superyacht world, yeah, and I built it with myself, as, say, a superyacht captain or chief officer kind of mindset, and when it was live and out on the app store, I put some media out in industry publications and went from there. What I failed to realize, which was a great failure a really good learning lesson is that it could have been in every business in the world. So I built it for super yachts and then, holy heck, it can go to any school, any organization, any business. Okay, I'm probably onto something, but early on it was just for super yachts and the first yacht that signed up was steven spielberg's super yacht. So I thought that was quite cool.
Speaker 1:It's like you know how's that for customer one?
Speaker 2:I know, I know and then you know, even if the business wasn't a success in my head, having that on steven spielberg super yacht, I made it a success and worth it.
Speaker 1:You know absolutely yeah, just a little wins. What's the boat called? Sorry, the uh, I think it's maybe got seven seas, I'm pretty sure, okay, yeah, yeah that's cool, yeah, um, well, I, I find that, um, I find that really interesting to hear that you, you say that you kind of just started off in the space, that you knew how, how far into that journey was it before you kind of really had that, that realization? That actually shit. There's a lot of people that could use this.
Speaker 2:Oh, like weeks really, yeah, yeah, yeah okay, and because I put it on the app store, went live in 2013. Uh, I think the the proportion of downloads was probably, uh, proportional to where the ipads were, because it was on the ipad app store. Yeah, and I don't know, half or more would have been in the us. We just got all these downloads from the us and then started to speak to customers or potential customers and, yeah, just realized that addressable market was ridiculously huge.
Speaker 1:Enormous, yeah, yeah. So um how how big did the company get in terms of staff, in terms of customer base? Um, cool, cool.
Speaker 2:Uh it, you know the story. There's a bit of a TLDR. I could do a Christopher Nolan directed movie from you know start to finish. But uh, we got to just under 50 staff and about just under 13 million of ARR annual recurring revenue. Uh, when we sold last year. Okay, and the reason I can put those numbers out there is because we were part of a public company, which is another story. Well, I can happily tell you for some time. So our numbers were out, you know, every quarter, every six months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you've been acquired twice. Is that right? Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so 2018, we grew the business to a bit over a million of recurring revenue. So there's to a bit over a million of recurring revenue. So that first million is always the hardest absolutely A lot of toil and turmoil to that point. And then we had an approach from a UK-listed company that specialised in software. It was a small business, probably termed as a micro-cap nowadays and we ended up selling to them and the transaction was cash and shares. So the thought in my head was the ability it was a positive in the ability to take some cash off the table and do some cool things and for me and the early employees too and then also to have skin in the game as the business grew. So we traded publicly from 2018 until last year in May 24.
Speaker 1:Okay, and the second acquisition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we had five years as a public company and we probably represented, I would say, 15% of the market caps or the total value of that public company when we were first acquired the total value of that public company when we were first acquired, yeah, and then, just due to disposals, capital raising, a few other things which were, you know, just the public company journey, we ended up at the end being, you know, 90% of the market cap, of the value of that business.
Speaker 2:Wow okay, so, and we weren't really trading at a great multiple for what the underlying business was, because that's why don was under a parent company, and in the end we we caught the attention of public private equity rather um acquirers and and we had a bid come in that was probably 100 over the you know the weighted share price.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then another private equity fund also saw that the first one had bid and there was good value in there, okay, and we had a couple of bidders on the public market, which was such a phenomenal exercise to go through and what can be disclosed and what couldn't. It was just fantastic learning.
Speaker 1:And then in the end we sold for for about I think it was about 160 percent over what the share price had been okay before the first offer came through wow but we were materially undervalued when the first offer came through yes, it was what happens, so you that was all going through the public space as well, so it would have been. Would have been like watching the news updates on what the market values.
Speaker 2:Your baby is being absolutely, wow, absolutely what an experience, yeah yeah, well, yeah, it was a great experience, and you know, that's, I guess, what was driving me or kept me interested because I'm still in the business today is constantly learning and, uh, you know, not everything that's positive is a learning thing as well. There's a lot of really positive things you learn from.
Speaker 1:Also a lot of negative things as well, so yeah um, but it's a lot of fun and that's business and yeah, wow so I mean going from the the first idea to a million bucks of annual recurring revenue, up to 13 and then and then beyond. I mean a business is turning over 13 million bucks annually. That's a wildly different beast to to what you started off with, right yeah, I mean when you use the analogy.
Speaker 1:Eventually they become these things that move slowly. I can see what you're saying there. Um, what have been the you know for you personally, what have been the biggest learning curves along that journey of going from a startup to actually this pretty significant business? Great, question.
Speaker 2:I guess I never came into starting the business or the entrepreneurial journey, backing myself and knowing that I could do it, I thought I'll give it a go. And then, you know, coming from pilotage and no tech experience, no commercial experience, I was like, oh, actually, I can do this, I can pick it up. And then I just really had that mentality all the way through, from as we were selling the first time and then being within a public company as an executive, and you know we've got shareholder meets and all of that I think, oh gosh, okay, I can actually do this. So I guess, learning that self-confidence and also learning that you know, if you try hard enough, you can actually do these things, so you know, and scaling out the businesses and and also getting good people around you as well, because maybe you could manage it to a million, but you can't do everything at 13 or 30 or 100 million, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:So, building out those executive functions, it's quite interesting, I mean, when we talk to a lot of guests. In the past we've had quite a few marketers come through the podcast and this whole sense of imposter syndrome, um tends to be rife within, certainly within the marketing skill set. You know, there's this constant feeling of not enoughness. Um, how did you kind of navigate that, as you're you're working in this wild new frontier that you know you didn't actually in the background in, but you're kind of making, you know, biting chunks out of this new space? How did you go with with, with feeling comfortable in your own skin in that space?
Speaker 2:yeah, again really good. Um, for me personally, I would say we had quite good directors early on and and good mentors around me in the business and they really affirmed how well we were doing. We would often I'd hear things like you're operating like a business 10 times this size, whether it was the reporting that you're doing or the metrics or the way meetings are conducted. So we and I had independent feedback that I was doing a really good job and then that kind of builds off that. But yeah, in the early days when it's just you and a couple of other people scrapping around you're, you know you're flying by the seat of your pants, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, what's been the um, what's been, uh, the highest moment and what's been the lowest moment, cool.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, the the highest moment. It has to be both of the acquisitions. Yeah, they were awesome, they're so monumental in the history, in the life of the business. Um, the lowest moment. I mean, this probably gets a little bit deep, but I'll probably be um yeah, I I back in 2000 and good 16.
Speaker 2:so I was three years into the business journey. I had cancer which, yeah, I've spoken about a little bit, so that was a bit of a low, but, you know, built through that I'm perfectly healthy and fine now. But I kind of had six months off pilotage and in between I was still doing a bit of work building swipes on. So that was probably the low point. But then other than that it's just been fun. It's been super, super fun. And I always say you know, I wouldn't be here if I didn't enjoy it and I wasn't growing and absolutely still enjoying it, loving the team and growing personally and professionally. So not a lot of lows, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean to dust yourself off after that and early in the journey as well, when you're in it and you're building it. But it's still in that infancy stage. It would have been very easy to have just washed your hands and said, cool, that's enough Big time. Yeah, hats off for seeing it through. It was obviously paid off right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really has has. And uh, I guess in a way that probably rolls into future decisions around timing, acquisitions and all of that, you wanted to kind of, you know, make sure it all worked out for the family and all that. But I had good people around me and, um, you know, I'm not the only business owner to go through. You know a bit of crap and but we all, we all kind of get through the other side.
Speaker 1:So I like your humility in that, yeah, yeah. So, starting from super yachts to then basically any, any establishment, or even establishment generally speaking, anything that has a door that people need to kind of register on their way in through, how do you kind of orientate yourself to those different customer groups and the different needs that you kind of needed to serve, or are they all relatively ubiquitous?
Speaker 2:to a degree, but no, we definitely did segment out so by use case as well. So swiped on. Specifically, cat is for visitors, contractors and also employees, yeah, as well, and actually our very first version, because on super yachts you need to know where the crew are. Um, we had employee in and out, but by large, the biggest global need is for visitors in and out, because not everyone has a employee and outboard in a business. But we facilitated that. And then nowadays, with super smart tech, you know it's geofencing and then it rolls into health and safety. Now, who's on site? So, um, we, we certainly through the website, we take people on the journey, but the focus absolutely was and is today, visitor management. And we've broadened out because, as a sas business and any great growing business, you want to kind of land and expand. So we do things like desk booking, car park booking, okay you can, um, you know, do catering deliveries.
Speaker 2:There's all sorts of kind of you know, add-on, yeah, yeah, things, but that we start out with visitor and then we split people into, I guess, those, those use cases. And we've also verticalized as well, because the great thing about the business is that it's selling to every single industry in the world, but the bad thing about the business is that we sell to every industry in that world. We're trying to to do that. So, uh, we, we have a number of verticals that that will, um, drop into sectors and, as an example, someone hits the website, they'll see, um, you know, transport and logistics, click on that. And then, all of a sudden, there's a case study from dhl, yeah, and then from there, we're speaking their language yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So how important have you found that piece about making sure that you've got proof and that you can use um examples of people using the system well into success to secure new clients?
Speaker 2:Yeah, really important. So videos, testimonials, case studies, it's just that extra layer. And in the early days, 5dom was very transactional. So you'd come through and it's, you know, 20, 30 bucks a month and click a button and off you go and we'd have a little bit of customer support to help. And then we shifted up towards mid-market. So certainly we never enterprise software, but definitely into mid-market. And then from there, people expect a bit more of a consultative sale, and to have assets that speak to them is fantastic. So we rolled a sales team in about 2017, 18.
Speaker 1:Okay, but up to that point it was all just transactional online Click and go, the beam, wow. And so whereabouts is the sales team now? Are they based here in New Zealand, over in the US, or where's the bulk of the sales force?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. The bulk of the sales force is, I would say, to the US. So we've got satellite teams for sales and support in each of those regions as well and have built up that.
Speaker 1:I mean, it sounds, from what you're saying, like it was almost sort of global from day one in terms of easy to buy the software, easy to kind of get the early versions installed. But what have been the, what have been the, the lessons along the way? I mean, let's say that you're, let's say that you're sitting in that couch talking to me and I'm I'm a SaaS founder and I've got Australia in my sights, I've got maybe the UK, maybe maybe the US. What advice would you give to that person who's looking to to broaden broaden their horizons beyond the, who's looking to broaden their horizons beyond the New Zealand borders?
Speaker 2:Great yeah, we really did have the benefit of being US first from the start.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, as I said earlier, I wonder whether it was proportionate to where the iPads were, because that was the channel, using the App Store, and we had good App Store optimization. Yeah, that makes sense and advice that I would give. I mean, I, I personally would tackle the us as soon as I could, depending on the product, and yeah, it's possible I do get the, the apac approach, and then maybe the uk and then maybe the us. I personally feel it just it takes. It takes a bit long, but maybe we just struck it really lucky into the states, because you know, I've heard from other founders that it is a tough nut to crack but we did a really good job and well over when we sold, over 50% of our revenue was in the US, was in the US. Okay, that's interesting. So the advice would be to go there early and not be afraid of going to the market. And if it doesn't work, then of course you've got New Zealand and Australia to keep working and go again, come back and refine and have another crack.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the hardest market to deal with?
Speaker 2:Oh, we've gone into some very interesting markets.
Speaker 2:We've localized the product even into Korean and we're even in Taiwan, germany, and they've gone for some select markets that we thought the product would work in, you know, with like higher gdp and, you know, good compliance needs. We we probably never quite had the uk humming okay, as we thought we could or should have. And then the funny full circle story here is that there was a competitor that was extremely strong there and stayed very transactional, where it swiped on, shifted up to mid-market, and that competitor was called sign an app, yeah, and the private equity group that acquired us also owned sign an app, okay. So now we, we are merging with that, with that business at the moment. So, uh, and and then they absolutely dominated, uh, you know, within within the uk, and have done fantastically okay globally as well, but they, they really own that uk market and they're based in the uk, okay now, I guess it would be remiss of me to not ask this question when we look at the nature of what you do, like signing people into places that they're visiting.
Speaker 1:How were the COVID years? Did that extra compliance piece bolster things, or did it just get straight in the way of it? It?
Speaker 2:bolstered it hugely Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there were a couple of factors there. Yes, everyone needed to know who was on site, and then contact tracing and things like that, which our system just offered out of the box beforehand. So we just had to change the terms and even things like capacity limits as well, which were in place then. So you needed to know who was on site and even things like desk booking we could say you know who was in and which day, and then also, you know, splitting people if they have to have a desk apart. All of that stuff was taken care of.
Speaker 2:The biggest pivot was making everything contactless as well. So it forced a big shift to people's mobile phones, which we were planning to do anyway, yeah, okay. So that was the big thing. And then the other part that we benefited from was, as a public company, our share price just went wild because investors identified that, uh, you know, we were an opportune place, yeah, for that. So, yes, at the start we were like everyone holy shit, what's happening here? But then after that, we fell into our groove and and we did some phenomenal numbers over covid that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually great to hear you know, when you look back on that period of time, there were so many businesses that struggled, so to actually hear one that you know rode the wave of that and it was good for you, that's great. Yeah, celebrate that.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely, and we do. I mean, the other part of it is we went very wide and tangential and a lot of them weren't our perfect customers. So a year or two down the track and this is all public record, you know, our churn went up at that time because, which is our customers leaving us? Because we ended up having, you know, beauty parlors or we even had, like, kebab shops signing up or basketball stadiums.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you know, there was, there was a counter to that blessing, yeah, yeah now I'm really intrigued because obviously you know I sit in the marketing camp over here and when we, whenever we look at a business to business industry, one of the things that I always want to try and get my my head around is what's the trigger to buy like? What is the actual impetus that puts someone in market to say I need this thing now? Are you kind of operating in a space where you're driven by, like, compliance changes triggering the need, or is it switching from suppliers? What, what's the what's the big driver for customers to pick the phone up and talk to you? Yeah, great.
Speaker 2:I mean, the market is huge. It's still very green fields at the moment. So you know, we're not tuning out competitors like a, you know, customers like telco or anything like that. It is all, it is all opportunity. Uh, the main reason is absolutely compliance, absolutely so, health and safety, uh, you think of, and health compliance over covid as well? Yeah, uh, data protection. A visitor book is not, uh, you know, secure. You can go back and look at previous visitors. Yeah, the paper-based one so interestingly we were.
Speaker 1:We were somewhere a little while ago and somebody would notice that you know they had that little sign-in book and somebody had signed in. It was dave from wherever it was person visiting the bathroom and it made me laugh so yeah, so look all of that.
Speaker 2:And by far, yeah, we are a risk mitigation platform, so knowing who's on site, so that is by far the biggest driver and it makes the product very, very sticky as well. And the other benefits is, you know, obviously just process automation. Receptionists may not necessarily need to be there or they can concentrate on other jobs within the business or administrators, and also it looks quite cool as well to have an iPad there. It's very professional, good first impression. So I would say they're the three things, but definitely compliance is the big driver.
Speaker 1:How do you guys navigate the hardware piece? Is it just you know client going by your own, or you guys actually have physical infrastructure? You drop an iPad into, you, sell the whole thing. How does that piece work?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the hardware itself is relatively low margin and, if I'm honest with you, it's a bit of a pain. You're sending things out and you become responsible for it and all of that. So we obviously want to facilitate the sale. So Swat Don had the approach of using third-party suppliers, kind of a 3PL model, which worked really well. Sign App in the UK, who is our sister company, uh, they had a lot of in-house um, they, you know, were accredited by apple and were selling things and shipping them directly, which also worked really well. So you know, I don't think there's other models, um, you know better, because you make a bit more money, I would say, uh, doing it directly and you control that supply chain. But uh, yeah, it is a bit of a margin drag overall, so we prefer not to run it through the books yeah, and I guess you've also then got the like the complexity of the support, the nature of support changes completely right yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So no, I'd much rather kind of point and click in another direction as to where those customers can get them. And it's very easy to set up. It's, you know, an iPad and a stand and maybe a printer if you wanted to print ID badges.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so you guys just stick to your knitting.
Speaker 2:In that sense, yeah, yeah, you know pure play SAS software and you know the margins are typically kind of 90% you know, gross margin for that SAS there.
Speaker 1:So it's, it's a wonderful you know wonderful model. Yeah, as opposed to. It's the alternative, yes, yeah, the other side of the coin, um, if you could spend a month in just one department of the business, what would it be other than the one that you're currently in? If you got yeah, if you were put somewhere else, where would you go?
Speaker 2:I would actually say marketing, but the marketers would tell me to bugger off. So, yeah, that definitely is my passion as well. I mean, I love product and sales and all that. I love speaking with customers and I love just picking up the phone. But yeah, marketing and positioning of the product has always been a passion of mine and from very early on always had this thing in my head that the best marketed software, the best looking software, is always going to beat you know the most features or the most complex software, through and through.
Speaker 2:So yeah that's certainly what we have, what we've done now I'm.
Speaker 1:I can't not pick up on the one phrase that you've used there, which is positioning. Um it? I feel certainly as a marketer. It's one of those words that gets misunderstood sometimes. I'd love to hear um how you would, how would you define positioning in that sense?
Speaker 2:oh gosh no pressure out. I've probably misunderstood it?
Speaker 1:no, no, I don't. I actually I don't think you have from the way that you talked about it, which is why I asked the question. Yeah, no, absolutely there's.
Speaker 2:I mean, with the positioning and I have the fortunate angle of seeing a former competitor, now a sister company, position things slightly differently and do fantastically as well the positioning historically for Swipe Dawn was very user-friendly and very, I would say, intuitive, and software that doesn't get in the way. So it's just there and you wouldn't even notice you're using it. That's kind of the thing that we've got in our head and, yes, of course it is in a lot of ways a physical thing, but we tried to make it just roll into your work practices, like it's not there as opposed to oh gosh, I must go and log into this thing and look at this thing.
Speaker 1:So that was our positioning, which is that we are positioned on things like simplicity and ease of use and integration and not getting in the way Exactly, as opposed to just like the glitzy message yeah, which is super important as well.
Speaker 2:Very much so. I'm actually pleased you mentioned simplicity as well, because that was one of our core values and, like any of these values, the way you've seen it be successful is from being on the wall to actually being in product and how your customers talk about you as well.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that that's a. It's a thing that I think, if you work just as a marketer within a business, it's quite it's a very different experience to being the person who runs the show and you have something to lose, right? Yeah, so when I hear you say things like you know you can align your values with that, how do you approach? How do you approach that piece? Because I'm I'm always a huge believer that if you, if you align what matters to customers with actually what makes you tick on a way that isn't just false and just kind of matching words, that's a recipe for success, and it sounds like it's been the same for you. So how do so? How do you go about aligning the business behind the things that actually matter?
Speaker 2:Cool, I couldn't agree more. The way that we did it and this might help explain the question is that the early founding team there might have been eight of us or so we realized we had no values first off, so it was just whatever we thought was cool or what we should do. So, okay, we need to do these values. Let's get all eight of us. We'll run an exercise that overnight. Let's go and think about our personal values, how we operate as individuals, write them down and we'll come back the next day.
Speaker 2:So we all went off to this exercise, put them down and board room table uh, just privately. And then we looked at them afterwards and all the commonalities yeah, you know, and there were things like, you know, trust and sense of humor and, um, you know, whatever else, and then we looked to roll them back into a business sense. So the the end was values in the business which actually reflected us as individuals. That was the early team and, as we've hired, those new hires that came in, you know, reflected, you know, had similar values and, yeah, and by and large, we managed to keep them. The one thing I would say is don't be afraid to change values as the business change or as you need to, but I would say 70 stuck all the way through, um and yeah yeah, and and how'd you go now with, you know, with a much bigger team, kind of keeping people aligned to, to values?
Speaker 1:I mean, presumably you talked about the recruitment piece. Part of it is filtering people on the way in, yes, but then on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis, how do you kind of make sure that the business is sticking to it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean that really is a question for the ages. I mean we are also kind of mid this acquisition and merger phase and values of course roll through from parent companies, so there is a change there. Obviously, reiterating them where we can and when decisions are made, I think it's really important that team members refer back to those values, whether it's a product decision, hiring decision, and then that just helps reinforce it as opposed to just sticking them on the wall and not mentioning them again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like that idea actually of when you are making decisions. Refer back to that. Explain why you made that decision. Help people understand that we made this decision based on simplicity, and that's why we've decided not to do the whiz bang thing over there we talked about exactly um, yeah, that makes a lot of good sense. That makes a lot of good sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's quite a proud moment when you hear team members talk about that as well, because you, you know, you've set this thing, set the sails, and then they've kind of reinforced it, as opposed to you know, a founder or ceo who, who never, just you know harping on everyone, rolls their eyes.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah. So you know you, you know you've kind of really embedded things in when it's kind of coming for life for itself. How have you, how have you found that transition from the founder to, like you know, leader of a quite a big group of people? What's been the leadership lessons? What have been the leadership lessons.
Speaker 2:Oh goodness, I'm still learning today, you know. Uh, I I think I'm always very, very positive as an individual, always see the glass half full opportunities, and when I was the sole ceo of the business pre-acquisition it was really cool got to make decisions and and stick with them and got to change my mind when things change and also back that, whereas now I'm leading a larger organization as an executive within that group. But I also have the benefit of seeing decisions made from other really good you know senior execs, largely in the US as well, which was quite foreign to me, having, you know, grown up on container ships to cruise ships and in super yachts and then all the way through. So I just see it as another, just another learning opportunity to see you know some really good operators within private equity. That's really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a really good lens on it. I like that. How do they find the New Zealand culture, Like when you're dealing with people in the US? How do they find Kiwis?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they really like it. They like us. Some direct feedback I've had is that we are both laid back and ambitious. You know, not laid back and not ambitious. You know we want to absolutely, you know, own the market and do some phenomenal things, but still have a bit more of a relaxed attitude in getting there. So I don't think the two are exactly counter.
Speaker 2:So that was the feedback that I and we have had, and we, you know, we've got a really good team yeah, yeah and I guess testament to that is that a lot of the the senior team with the new zealand have taken very senior roles within the global organization. Yeah, that's how.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so no, I don't really really like us and yeah yeah, it's um, it's always interesting to kind of get the gauge of what it looks like on the other side. You know, I'm from the uk originally and I've gravitated to new zealand and I love, I love a lot about what new zealand kind of stands for.
Speaker 2:But to hear how it's resonated from, from other key markets is always a always an interesting one no, exactly, and in a way you're kind of reading the tea leaves because you know, you know how do you like us, how we do. You know it's one of those ones. But you know, I've heard a few you know bit of secondhand feedback, so it's really good.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool, that's cool. Well, we are getting surprisingly close for time here, which blows my mind because it feels like it's been moments. But one thing that I would really like to unpick with you is if you were to give yourself advice back in 2011, 2012, way back then from what you've learned now, what would that advice be?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's actually really easy. I don't have to think too much about this one. Uh, it would be to back myself, yeah, and just to, to keep going, and into now I can sit here and say the opportunity is massive, and all of that. I still. I don't think'd realize how big the world was back then.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And how de-risked our business model was Okay. So I probably would have just carried it a bit further myself before initially selling. But you know it's all good and I've learned a ton. It's been a great journey, yeah, but I would just, you know, back myself more in, you know from an earlier spot.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great piece of advice. You know, for anyone in business, Confidence is one of those things that it makes such a profound impact on how far you can go and how you feel along the way right yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's one of the things that we hear with New Zealand businesses as well. Often when they're pitching overseas, you know they'll go and talk to people in the us and I'll be in a room full of potential investors and the investors say, oh, so we hear you're, you know, we hear you're amazing at what you do and like oh yeah, we're pretty good, all right we do all right you know, I know I mean, even from when I started the business, there was one that came about six months or a year later and last valuation granted that was in 2021 or two was over a billion dollars for that business and we were on parallel paths.
Speaker 2:I'm like, well, okay, I mean this is the US and Silicon Valley and all of that, but you know the opportunity's there and you know we see it now and we're grasping it for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh, good luck in getting there. You feel like the type of person who deserves the success. I won't lie, I really really like that. Um, so one last parting question um, is there any recommendations that you would give on things to learn, things to read, things to listen to, like what's a good source of information for someone who's in your shoes? Um, building something, trying to scale it cool.
Speaker 2:Uh, there are two things. I love podcasts, but you know the irony of sitting on one now. I just constantly listening to them, whether it's mowing the lawns or in the car commute, and and I think they're just phenomenal. And the other thing is I there's a there's a book, a business book, about ernest shackleton's's journey, which I actually found really really good. Okay, I think it's called Shackleton's Journey and all the lessons from what he did which is just wild if you're across that story and the leadership lessons and the survivorship lessons and all of that. I found that really good to kind of translate. I mean not that what I'm doing in any way, shape or form compares to that, but they do roll it back into business lessons. I think it's the Shackleton Way actually might be the name of it, but it was a phenomenal book and I kind of have it in my drawer and refer to it kind of as and when.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll just stick that one on my ready list.
Speaker 2:Hopefully no one's frozen to death in your business. Everyone survived. Oh no, spoiler alert for that one, but uh, and plus like training as a ship's captain as well, and he had that marathon background, so there's probably a bit of similarity in the back, which I think is quite cool oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I love that um. Well, so for the listeners at home, pop that one on your uh, on your list of things to to read. Um and hadley, thank you so much. It's been a really enjoyable conversation.
Speaker 2:Really appreciate it, loved it.
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