Tim Calder

Gareth Morgan (Sam Morgan’s father) gave an interesting presentation at the Dunedin Town Hall last night with proceeds going to the Otago Community Hospice. This presentation was a lot different to what I thought was going to happen, as it had quite a sales pitch to it with a lot older audience.

Gareth Morgan Investments is a New Zealand owned and operated business which specialised in the management of Kiwi’s wealth for more than a decade, now currently managing over $1b in Private Portfolios, Superannuation and KiwiSaver schemes.

The reason that I was inspired to go to this presentation is because I have always been interested in Gareth’s discussions about New Zealander’s bad habit of property investment. As property is a keen area of interest of mine I wanted to hear his arguments first hand. As I thought, Gareth’s key argument centered around residential investment properties which is a little different to the Student Investment market that I follow. The difference being that there is a shortage of Student flats in close proximity to the University of Otago so students will be always forced to pay a premium, in comparison to standard residential investments that are unable to command such premiums as a greater range exists.

Prof. Brendan Gray , course director and Dunedin City Council Chair of Entrepreneurship, organised an excellent event where local business people that had been involved in the Masters of Entrepreneurship programme were able to celebrate with the graduating students an end to another great year of this highly successful masters course. Among the guests was former Dunedin woman Amanda Ellis, Senior Executive of the World Bank based in Washington DC, who spoke about the strong need for Entrepreneurship in the current state of the world’s economy. Other invited guests included the team from Pocketsmith who have produced a cashflow and financial forecasting web application to help people with budgeting. This event highlighted the support and encouragement that Dunedin provides Entrepreneurs over other cities in New Zealand.

New Zealand’s 50 fastest growing companies were celebrated at events around the country tonight, as the 2008 Deloitte/Unlimited Fast 50 (www.fast50.co.nz) was revealed. Masterton-based manuka honey company Watson and Son topped the 2008 list and was named the country’s fastest growing business, with outstanding revenue growth of 784% between 2006 and 2008. (Scoop)

The Fast 50 is a Deloitte initiative which operates in more than 32 countries and territories around the world. The index is produced on the basis of revenue growth (not profit). Businesses are ranked by their revenue growth over a 3-year period. This year the minimum revenue requirement in the base year (FY2006) is $250,000 and in the last year (FY2008) is $500,000. The Fast 50 ranks businesses that choose to participate and is firmly established as a key barometer of New Zealand’s emerging business market.

The Deloitte Otago Fast 50 was celebrated at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery where we saw two great Dunedin based companies make the list, #33 Straylight Studios (191.71%) and #38 Escea (164.69%). These two companies are leading the way in the Otago region with strong growth in the export market while also being responsible for some of the 1200 new jobs created by companies ranked on the list.

This evening Students of the University of Otago were fortunate to participate in Public Policy discussions with the New Zealand Business Roundtable Executive Director, Rodger Kerr. Unfortunately much of the discussion seemed to circle around the recent event of Winston Peters and the undeclared donation of funds to the Spencer Trust.

It was good to see however the range of different diciplines the students came from and how each of their questions related to policies that would potentially effect their future careers. There was a good turn out of business students, many of which had recently competed in the Audacious Business Plan Competition who had some excellent questions for Rodger Kerr and the MP’s that attended the event. These questions brought about great discussions on Entrepreneurial incentives and support and challenged the MP’s that attended to pay more attention to this growing area of activity.

Our new Otago University Student Association (OUSA) President for 2009 is Jo Moore, who beat off 7 other candidates, all male. Jo’s main campaign platform was that she and her incoming committee would investigate the Otago University moving to a four day a week tuition programme which would mean that students would have day free whereby they could work, study, or focus on other endeavors. This move would allow the Otago University to reduce their carbon footprint by not requiring to heat, clean, and administer tuition areas on this day. I think this is an innovative idea to improve the Otago University Education. This concept would promote a far more efficient use of time in an age whereby costs are increasing, time is becoming far more valuable and student allowances are remaining the same.

I look forward to speaking with Jo, once she settles in to her new role, on her views of the Awatea Street Stadium development and to see whether her committee of executives support or are against this topical subject in Dunedin. This years President, Simon Wilson, was on the fence of the stadium proposal stating that the Otago University’s enrollment numbers are looking to be capped so any additional benefit from the stadium that would attract more students to Dunedin would be ineffective, although agreed that as a student he could see what an attraction this could become. Under Simon’s presidency, OUSA moved that they (the student body representative) were against the stadium development as many students believed that this joint venture with the Otago University, City and Regional Councils, would result in their fees going up… It is a fact however that the Otago University are looking to invest over $150m in purchasing land & buildings in the coming 5 years. I believe that the figures that they have indicated they will contribute to the stadium development would be better spent than competing with other investors for the limited supply commercial property.

This years NBR Audacious Business Plan Competition has finally arrived. Dunedin is very fortunate to have well organised business competitions like this. Last year I was a finalist in this Business Plan competition with my business Foot-Print-Free which attempted to develop a system whereby paper based receipts would be replaced by digitally chipped cards which transferred the detailed information produced at the point of sale to an online storage system. I have taken the advice from last years Judges on board in this years entry by attempting to produce a simpler, more cost effective solution. Last year’s winner, Craig Smith, is developing his own software company called LanguagePerfect which designs Language learning tools to assist with NCEA.

The Wellington Small Business Expo was a great place to see all New Zealand’s newly established small businesses. I enjoyed some of the new web businesses that featured at this event like TooMuchPaper, KiwiSelect, and EZYPAY. I was also very surprised how helpful many of the featuring businesses were and how many of them were able to help with developing better systems at EZY STOR Self Storage. EZYPAY was one of those businesses that tapped us on the shoulder and explained how they could improve our cash flow at EZY STOR Self Storage by setting us up with Direct Debit forms as apposed to the Automatic Payment forms that we currently require our customers to setup when a storage agreement is completed. If successful this would mean that we would be able to directly debit our customers bank accounts with our storage fee on the correct day’s that payments are supposed to come out. While in Wellington I took some time out to have a look around this beautiful city, second only to Dunedin

Last night was The Dunedin Club’s 150th Jubilee Black Tie Ball held at the Dunedin Town Hall in the Glenroy Banquet Hall. The Dunedin Club has a distinguished history which stretches back to the pioneers of the 1850s. In 1848 the two settler ships John Wickliffe and Philip Laing berthed at Dunedin, bringing Otago’s first European migrants. Ten years later, a group of entrepreneurs founded The Dunedin Club in rented premises in Maclaggan Street. We were also very fortunate to have world famous actor Sam Neill as the key note speaker as weather diverted his flight to Christchurch where he then had to make the long drive to Dunedin. Sam spoke entertainingly about his career, the club and his families four generations of involvement. Credit needs to be paid to Humphrey Catchpole and his team of organisers as this event was very well planed and as a result an extremely enjoyable night.

The New Zealand Trade & Enterprise Escalator’s Auckland workshop was a truly brilliant event. All of the speakers were very interesting and provided excellent information for young, fresh, web based entrepreneurs like me. The one speaker that really inspired me was Tim Norton from PlanHQ who spoke very honestly about how he got this business off the ground. Tim has been involved with forming many web based businesses with his most recent being PlanHQ which he has successfully launched and promoted attracting great interest from around the globe. PlanHQ is a unique web service which helps you achieve success with your business plan by working with you to identify tasks/goals and breaking them down to be assigned to your team. Tim is also a member of Siliconwelly which is a community of NZ web businesses with an office in Wellington.

Jonny Love’s much anticipated album release has been annonced for the 30th of June (”The Last Day of June“). Jonny studied with me at Otago University before moving to Auckland to make a name for himself. While studying Jonny was the most popular performer in Dunedin playing at bars such as Two Bears, Brimstone, and Soal Bar to name a few. His talent doesn’t just end with his ability to make great music, Jonny has since started his own production company Limelight Records Limited which has produced his first album. Check out Jonny’s blog and listen to his popular single “Not The First Not The Last” which is being played on MoreFM and JuiceTV. Come and share the evening with Jonny Love at the album release party on the 28th of June at The Grange on Ponsonby Road.