Reflections on a job well done

At the end of April 2020 Andy Hamilton will transition from CEO of The Icehouse onto the Board of Icehouse Ventures as an executive director. Before turning the page, he reflects on his time with the Business Growth Centre; this country’s changing business landscape; and the future of Kiwi entrepreneurship.

NZB: Looking back over your 18 years with The Icehouse, if you had to pick two standout personal moments, what would they be? 

Andy: Starting at the beginning on both our key target markets. For the start-ups, day one was the 11th of June 2001 at the Textile Centre – in an area with no fit-out. It was a cavern with a stool and a table – just me – and it was like: right, let’s get some bodies into this place. 

For the owner managers, day one was in mid-August – our first OMP programme at Hotel du Vin with our facilitators and David Irving. It was like ‘crikey, what have we let ourselves in for, with this group of amazing owners and rather outspoken people!’ 

Then there was 2011, when we decided to ‘measure’ the long-term impact of the work we do with our customers and created this ‘vision’ of a ten percent impact on New Zealand’s GDP by 2021. So many people said ‘you can’t measure it, you can’t do it and you should not do it’. But a few said ‘do it, do it, do it’ and ‘if you don’t get it right the first time, just improve it every year’. Which is what we have done – and we are close to our goal of ten percent by 2021. So the new CEO best set a new target!

Across the other years, there was never one moment, but many moments when an owner or founder broke through, listed their company or expanded into new regions – seeing them just win after all the hard work.  

For Icehouse itself, I often think back to the moments when we dared to dream about doing something epic and it came off – like opening in the Hawke’s Bay or the showcases that started with Ice Angels at the Rugby World Cup in 2011. Now you just look at the activity, scale and impact, and go ‘wow’, our team dreamed, had courage and changed the game. 

NZB: When you compare the business landscape in 2001 with now, what are the most striking differences, and what have been the biggest gains for start-ups?

Andy: The world has advanced so much – we have become way more hypothesis driven, way more metric driven and there has been so much demystifying of how you grow yourself and your business over time. Most importantly, there are many, many more role-models out there that our firms can align to, get motivated and energised by, and believe that they can do it too. 

For start-ups in particular, there are just way more founders out there to get belief from. I think the ‘models’ by which you go after your dream have become way more transparent. The costs of [business] development have mostly come way down, and the ability to raise capital is way easier. What hasn’t changed, however, is the massively high failure rate. 

The other thing which has changed is the importance of the person, of the health of the person to be the best owner, the best leader and the best role-model for their families and themselves.

That is a massive shift in our country and the recognition and importance of ‘self’. 

NZB: What are you looking forward to the most about your new role with Icehouse Ventures? And what will you miss about the old role?

Andy: I love helping entrepreneurs, founders, owners and leaders in business find their path forward. Ventures will give me a roving ambassador role to work with founders to help them break through, and with investors globally to encourage them to back New Zealand firms to break through. So investors and founders making it, trying to, breaking through – that is all pretty cool as I will have more time to be a practitioner and pattern matcher, which is where my expertise and love lies. 

What will I miss from the old role? Being in the middle; having variety; being driven to enable a difference; never taking ‘no’ for an excuse and just pushing the team.

Life will be different in that I will have ‘diverse’ interests across a portfolio of activities. I will not be getting a regular pay check and will have to hustle to make the earnings to pay for the lifestyle. So more hustle, more self, and hopefully more money so I can invest more!

NZB: What are your concerns about the future of business entrepreneurship in this country – and what will be the most important factors in shaping the future of businesses?

Andy: There are a few things I worry about. Do people who start businesses realise the failure rate is so high before they get into it? What can we do about that? Also, do SMEs and start-ups realise the disruption around AI, tech, climate change and demographic change that’s coming? And what they can do to get ahead of the curve? 

I worry for those people impacted by these changes and what we can do to help them. I worry, not about the teachers in our schools and uni’s because I think they are awesome, but about the linear approach to bringing up our children and young people for this world. We must be way more non-linear in exposing them to the future now. I want to do more work in this area, contributing to schools to help the children prepare for this world and to embrace it. 

There is no reason why younger people can’t start businesses – we just need to expose them sooner to the technologies and shifts. 

We do need to do more to enable small business owners to prepare for the future – not because they should, but because they want to. 

NZB: When you think of all those businesses and entrepreneurs that the Icehouse has assisted, which ones really stand-out in terms of performance, innovation and leadership?

Andy: That’s a hard question. When you have the privilege to be a part of 250 start-ups and 2,000-plus SMEs it is really challenging to pick a few.

What makes me the proudest are the builders, the plumbers, the electricians, the contractors and the farmers from across New Zealand who have attended our programmes and undertaken business coaching. They are New Zealand’s heartland. They employ people and are just normal Kiwis doing epic stuff – not exporting; just making and servicing. They are my heroes. 

I also think about all the investors. We are close to 1,000 now that have backed a start-up, written their own cheques, and learned along the way. Awesome. 

NZB: What’s your best advice for anyone about to launch their first business? What questions must they ask themselves?

Andy: Where are you right now? Do you have product market fit? By this I mean, have you developed a product or service that meets a real need and you can’t keep up with demand? If not, what are you doing to achieve this? 

Test and iterate continually. If you have, then cool – what are you doing to scale the business?

Ask for help. The more open you are, the more you ask for help, the more you give back yourself – the more you have a chance for success and happiness at the end of the day.