Uncertainty has become the one constant for SME owners. So at round three of the NZBusiness Ready to Rise Business Breakfast, held at the NZICC on Wednesday, the question wasn’t when conditions will improve. It was how to grow regardless.
The event was backed for the third year running by 2degrees, with Thryv providing the much-needed barista coffee for the 7am start. MC Angus Jenkins got the room talking straight away. He asked everyone to share one call they were weighing up in their business with someone they hadn’t met, and promised to circle back to it.
First up, 2degrees Chief Business Officer Andrew Fairgray shared findings from the telco’s seventh Shaping Business Study. Cost pressures and softer consumer spending remain the biggest challenges. But it was productivity that he kept coming back to. Only around 40 percent of businesses rank it as a high priority, which tells him “we still don’t have a mindset that productivity really matters”. It should be top of the agenda, he said, whatever size your business is. His practical fix resurfaced all morning: Bring a university student or graduate into your business and give them a project to find where you could be more efficient. “Some of the smarts that we’ve got in New Zealand is phenomenal.”
Grant Taylor, MOXX Brands
Grant Taylor had just landed back from the US with new retail programmes in hand. In conversation with me, he shared how MOXX Brands, the house of brands behind Maison&Muse, DoseTheory and Everblue, has grown 512 percent without outside investment.
Taylor flips the usual sales pitch on its head. Rather than walking in with a presentation already written, he asks retail buyers where the gaps on their shelves are, then comes back with a product that solves the problem. “You’ve got to go in and talk about how you fix their problems,” he said. “They’ve already told you what they want.”
MOXX Brands Co-Founder Grant Taylor in conversation with NZBusiness Editor David Nothling-Demmer.
A bold bet on Australia, made when the business was fighting to survive, changed its trajectory. Today around 95 percent of revenue comes from offshore, and Taylor’s advice to anyone eyeing bigger markets was blunt: “The barriers are in everyone’s head, really.” When US tariffs hit and competitors paused shipping, MOXX kept sending stock and won more shelf space. “Everything has an opportunity,” he said. “Look on the opposite side to what everyone else is doing.”
Angus Brown, Ārepa
Where Taylor’s story was about speed, Angus Brown’s was about evidence. Ārepa’s first $80,000 clinical trial failed. “You should probably work with a very smart brain if you want to make a brain drink, instead of Dr Google,” Brown said. So the team rebuilt its formula with leading scientists, and was running clinical trials before it had sold a single product. “We make decisions on data, not vibes,” he said. A powerful message about making bold business decision based on evidence.
The company has made its own luck ever since, from a Bondi Beach mural that happened to sit on the Sydney Marathon route to a slot on Air New Zealand’s in-flight screens. “Good marketers should be hustling,” Brown said.
He was candid about the media storm over Ārepa’s health claims. Ārepa investor Lain Jager rated it a four out of ten, telling the founders: “You wait till you’re in 10 markets and you’re getting sued in the US.” They boxed on, and two weeks later a new trial showed a 33 percent improvement in working memory. Now, with a newly discovered blackcurrant molecule called sarmentosin and a fresh $3 million raise, Brown’s ambition is a new export industry for New Zealand.
Ārepa Co-Founder Angus Brown catches up with attendees during networking.
The panel: What’s next for Kiwi business
Westpac Chief Economist Kelly Eckhold, Bayleys’ Paula Bennett, Sherson Willis Co-Founder Trish Sherson and Fairgray agreed on one thing: Business can’t afford to wait for Wellington.
Productivity came up again, and Eckhold was clear about where the responsibility sits. “Productivity is not something the government does to you,” he said. “It’s actually something that we will do for ourselves.” Fairgray added a warning for those reaching for AI: “If you’re just using it to polish over what you’re already doing, you’re gaining no efficiency. You’re just adding another cost layer to your business.” Sherson said AI-savvy graduates are now helping her own firm move faster. “They’re coming in and really hitting the ground running, and they’re making us run faster.”
Eckhold also cautioned against planning around cheap money. With rates likely to rise, perhaps to around 4 percent in the second half of next year, banking on rates staying near 3 percent is, in his view, unrealistic.
From left: Kelly Eckhold (Westpac), Paula Bennett (Bayleys), Trish Sherson (Sherson Willis) and Andrew Fairgray (2degrees), moderated by David Nothling-Demmer.
Bennett, who describes herself as a translator between business and government, told of 20 public servants who spent a year on work that traced back to a single sentence in a minister’s speech. “You would not have a business if you ran it like that,” she said. Sherson brought it back to the people in the room. “The government is not the economy,” she said. “It’s you guys.”
To close, Jenkins sent everyone back to the person they’d met two hours earlier with one question: Given what you’ve heard, what’s changed?
It was a fitting end to a morning about momentum. Conditions may not get easier any time soon, but as Taylor put it, keep moving and something will come your way.
Thanks to our premier sponsor 2degrees, coffee sponsor Thryv and the team at the NZICC. To hear about the next Ready to Rise, sign up to the NZBusiness newsletter.
