At LIFEHACK we believe that young Kiwi’s have the knowhow and ability to create solutions to New Zealand’s most pressing social problems. LIFEHACK facilitates this reality.

Our vision is to see solutions developed by young people for young people. New Zealand’s fight for youth mental health and wellbeing needs a fresh approach, and we believe digital technology plays a key part in the solution.

Led by Jason Armishaw (2012 Influencer, unlimited Magazine) and backed by the New Zealand government, large corporations and nonprofits, we are launching on February 28th to an excited community of digital creators, end users and industry stakeholders.

Position Description:
Our dream is to build a self-sustaining organisation where digital solutions (web apps, mobile apps, games) are created locally by young people – kicked off in a weekend ‘Hackathon’, further developed over a two-month program in our lab, integrated into local organisations, then pushed out internationally to similar organisations who need what we create.

The Regional Coordinator will develop interest and participation, growth and community for LIFEHACK in their region. While the RC will be wearing many hats, the core responsibilities form around:
1) Engaging the local community (participants, mentors, end users and stakeholders) pre/post event
2) Organising the weekend Hackathon + enroll volunteer helpers.
3) Ensuring winning teams continue development in two-month lab

The hackathons will be held every weekend in April – kicking off in Auckland and finishing in Dunedin. Each hackathon will have between 50 to 75 attendees, with three teams from each region continuing inside our program.

Role responsibilities:
Essential Attributes:
● A doer. This is not a role for talkers.
● An interest in social entrepreneurship, digital technology and making a difference in the world
● A ‘get the job done’ attitude.
● Be personable and coachable
● Budgeting, planning and execution skills
● Based in either Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or Dunedin

Strategy and Planning :
● In collaboration with team lead, create and execute the regional plan
● Communicate regularly with the team leader on progress
● Prepare regional budget and ensure budget is kept too
● Engage volunteers to help run weekend and manage regional task load

Administration:
● Maintain a database of participating students, mentors, school contacts and manage important documentation within your region.
● Contact teachers/students from high schools to raise awareness about LIFEHACK and get them to participate.
● Make team lead aware if there are any conflicts between mentors and teams, and work to resolve.
● Create and maintain spreadsheets documenting key processes and developments within your region in the lead up and throughout the competition.
● Help gather relevant information to validate the regional competition with the team lead
● Seek feedback from attendees and have this documented.
● Provide an oral and written debrief report within one month of the project ending

Event Management – in collaboration with National Event Manager:
● Make bookings and organise the event days, including but not limited to; venue hire, catering hire, speakers, mentors and judges
● Communicate with and establish good relationships with speakers, weekend facilitator, judges, venue etc
● Working with team lead, create and manage a detailed run sheet for the event weekend
● Ensure the event is documented through photography/video, and updated on Social Media.

Marketing:
● Work with marketing team to create and distribute marketing material locally
● Contact university campus groups and build relationships with influential people
● Create list of key mentors and create long lasting relationships
● Recruit mentors for weekend competition and two month challenge
● Contact young professionals’ networks and build interest
● Distribute promotional material to advertise directly to high school students
● Communicate with mentors about requirements and event times
● Assign each winning team a mentor and manage this process weekly
● Develop good relationships with mentors and add them to LIFEHACK database
● Closely liaise with the team lead on potential sponsorship opportunities and report on the progress
● Screen mentor applications, and interview if necessary to ensure mentors are of a high quality

This is an great opportunity to join our team and use your unique skills as a doer to make a big impact within New Zealand.

If you’re interested in startups, enjoy lofty challenges and thrive within a fast paced environment, please continue.

Specifics:
Job Title: Regional Coordinator, LIFEHACK
Timeframe: February 25th to July 15th
Honorarium: $5000.00

Contact Jason Armishaw

M: +6421 241 7777
T: @jasonarmishaw
L: http://nz.linkedin.com/in/jasonarmishaw

What does a business incubator do?

The simple answer to this question is we help you grow your business. But that’s a bit “vanilla” – it’s fluffy and sounds good, but what does it mean? That really depends on the client. Our goal for each of our clients is to help their business grow, go international and make some serious $$. So that’s the goal. The process of how we do that depends on the client, their business and what they need. I’ll give you a few examples of what we are doing with current incubated clients. One of our clients, Noteboat has received seed funding from Upstart to implement a huge marketing push (which we also helped plan and organise) to take Noteboat to market around New Zealand. In the next seven days Noteboat will be heading into Australia to test the waters there. Another very new client, who are deliberately staying under the radar until their prototype is completed, has been guided through market validation by Upstart staff and are now working hard on their prototype and are already making sales.

We listen to peoples’ ideas, we progress them through market validation (researching whether this idea already exists, if not working out who the market is, how much would they pay for it, etc), we build solid revenue models, we help solve problems and we connect clients with relevant networks to help them progress. We offer clients free space to work from, we host events that are relevant to our clients, we take care of administration, tax, GST…we help in a lot of different ways, it depends on what they need!

Who makes up a business incubator?

Upstart business incubator is run by a team of six staff. Different incubators are run in different ways – some utilize interns (for example Tech Stars) some use private mentors. Here at Upstart we have a team of business coaches, with experience in a variety of areas. Rueben and Steve are our lead business coaches, with the other staff (Conrad, Murray, Steve and Zoe) also working with some clients, depending on what kind of help the client needs. We also work with external advisors as required – for example recently a client approached us with a complicated product idea and we got some advice from the physics department at Otago University.

Who can come to a business incubator?

Anyone with an idea. We recommend that you do some research on your idea first – has anyone done it before? Is there a market for it? Why are you the person to make this idea work? Then contact us and we can take it from there. In terms of what we are looking for, we’re looking for businesses that are high growth (this is what we are funded to do). So if your idea is based around a limited market (for example you want to set up a business just selling to local customers) you might be better contacting your Economic Development Unit. If in doubt, just give us a call! The first step of working out whether we can help you is always a phone call or meeting so get in touch.

Thanks for reading – I hope this helps clarify what we do as a business incubator.

If you enjoyed reading, please share and tweet it out! If you have questions please leave us a comment!

I have a background in film production, and one of the first rules of film making is that every shot in a film better have a reason for being there. If it doesn’t have a purpose, isn’t contributing to the story you are telling, it shouldn’t be there. Marketing is the same – make sure what you are doing has a purpose!

Everyone is jumping on social media as the “must have”. I’m telling you now – before you jump headfirst into it, stop and think about the purpose. Think about your customers and think about the story you are telling. Think about how to reach your customers – do they use social media? If so, what do they use – twitter, facebook, pinterest, tumblr, blogs… now think about how you can integrate into what they use, how you can present them with content that they want, and how you can have a conversation with them. To me, the key to social media is the engagement that it offers. It’s about having a conversation. Also – think about how your social media can tie in with your other marketing strategies. Because you’re going to need more than a Facebook profile…the real world still matters too.

Write down your goals. Write down who you want to reach and how. Look at what other people are doing and how it’s working. And most importantly, think about your audience, your customers and how exactly you plan on reaching them and communicating with them. Setting up a Facebook page doesn’t mean a single customer is going to come and like it, unless you have a strategy in place.

Just STOP! And THINK!

^ZH

“The Right Stuff”, do you have what it takes?

Entrepreneurial leaders do not have a mindset that adapts to failure. Things go wrong, of course, but entrepreneurs don’t call them “failures” they call them “glitches, mistakes, bungles, setbacks” – but not failing.

Quote
“Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.”

Let’s face it; if you’re going to live this life you’re going to make mistakes. Make use of them as learning experiences and don’t make the same ones twice.

Entrepreneurs also know the value of “intuition”. While you shouldn’t act on the toss of a coin, there is something to be said about your “gut” feeling about the situation. Very often business people become so involved with systems and checks-and-balances that they forget about that “gut” instinct they had when they started.

Quote
“Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.”

While not strictly logical, intuition does draw on a combination of experience, knowledge, and analysis as well as a lot of “gut” information you may have forgotten that you have.

As a leader, you have to set standards and higher standards for your own behaviour. You must do this because appearances are sometimes more important that facts.

Quote
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

You become a strong leader in your business by “practicing” being a leader. It’s not a course you can take at a business college; it’s learned in the school of life as you’re doing business.

Presenting yourself as a confident entrepreneur, filled with the excitement of your business idea, and a strong leader of your team (whether it’s 1 or 10 employees) is what will take you down the winning path.

Quote
“There’s no committee that says, ‘This is the type of person who can change the world – and you can’t.’ Realizing that anyone can do it is the first step. The next step is figuring out how you’re going to do it.”

Strong leaders know that leadership is a lifelong learning experience, and when they make a mistake they simply continue to move forward. The ability to bounce back is a quality that every entrepreneur has in abundance.

When you blunder, get up and try again quickly. As one high-tech executive I knew put it,

Quote
“All that you need to become an entrepreneur and change the world is a working brain – and pretty much nothing else.”

Welcome to the new Upstart!!! There have been a lot of changes going on here. I’m Zoe, Marketing and Communications Manager (you can see my profile over in the team section) and I’ve had the pleasure of updating our website, working with a great designer (Luke from Brandaid) on our new logo and generally trying to express all the internal change outward!

The key thing we wanted to get across with our new website was clarity. We hope you can now get a clear picture of who we are and what we do.

We’ve had a lot of changes going on – apart from the new logo, new website, appearing on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest we have some great new staff (over on our team page!) and new (big!) ideas – later this year we will be launching some initiatives which we’re really looking forward to.

So… welcome to the new Upstart. We hope you enjoy getting to know more about us, and we’d love to know more about you! If you have a blog we can follow, let us know! If we’re not following you yet on Twitter, find us and we’ll follow back! And if you want to drop in and have a catch up please stop by.

Cheers!

37signals used the unconventional Getting Real process to launch five successful web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no funding, no debt, and only 7 people.

Read it free online at http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php, or get a hard copy or download at http://gettingreal.37signals.com/.

Warning: This book will challenge a lot of what you thought you knew about startups!

http://startupdigest.com/videos/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1SKBlIBnOI&feature=player_embedded

Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong

The first iteration or implementation of your idea will often be wrong. That’s not because you’re not smart, not doing the right things, or some other reason to come down hard on yourself. As it turns out, this is actually a good sign. No idea survives its first interactions with its customers and requires you to synthesize feedback to adapt to the customer. You could be prideful, not listen to what your customers are telling you, and keep things the way they were. In the end, that just leaves you with no customers and a product you may not even use yourself. It’s okay if things change up a bit when it comes to your idea and its implementation.

Your Friends And Family Won’t Understand What You Do

“You’re an entrepreneur, so that means you’re un-employed?” or “Oh that’s nice.” are some of the many reactions you will get from close friends, family members, and others over the course of starting your company. Even if you achieve milestones that are worthy of praise (customers, fundraising, new traffic levels, press,etc.) and denote success in the entrepreneurial world, people still won’t understand what you do. Unless you build one of the few consumer success stories that come around every few years, things probably won’t change here. The b2b space is even more difficult to explain as most people aren’t your customer, especially if it’s a niche workflow. This is okay and sometimes even a relief to know there is more outside in the world than just techies and entrepreneurs. Just because they don’t understand it, doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong or unacceptable. I doubt Larry Ellison can have most of his family understand Oracle (that database company that stores information), but things turned out pretty well for him at the end of the day.

You Will Make Less Than Normal Wages For A While

If you got into entrepreneurship first and foremost for the money, then you are in the wrong business. Sure you may one day sell your company, but that day is probably far far away. Even then, there are usually earn out clauses, vesting still in tact, and a whole lot more. Even if you raise a good chunk of cash, your money is better spent on hiring the best talent than paying yourself a higher wage. There’s nothing wrong wanting to make money, but in the beginning it’s going to be rough. You will make less than most of your friends, especially the ones doing the “normal” paths of things like finance. It’s a litmus test in its finest form though. If you truly love what you’re doing, the capacity to have a large bank account takes a back burner to completing your mission. Sure you need some basic creature comforts, but luxury items almost seem silly as you will not have the time to truly enjoy them.

Everything Takes Twice As Long…If It Even Happens

Multiply everything by two, including the things inside of your control. When things take longer, you sometimes think that you’re doing it wrong or no one really cares. In reality, everyone else has multiple deals and responsibilities on the table. By factoring this into the expectations of your startup, it makes a lot easier to prepare for launching products, closing deals, and more. Also, be persistent and get the other party what they need as soon as possible. On the flipside, most deals just never work out. It may be an acquisition all the way down to a simple business development deal. There are always many moving parts and excitement that can just fade. That’s okay though. If you’re building your company upon one deal or a silver bullet (more on that below), then you need to re-evaluate things. Don’t be depressed when a deal falls through as that is just the nature of the beast.

Titles Mean Nothing. You Will Be a Janitor

Hey there Mr. CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder! As a co-founder of a < 10 person company with a product that doesn’t have customers, titles really don’t mean much. Everyone will be doing a little bit of everything, including cleaning the toilets. Don’t try to mask the grind of being an entrepreneur with some superficial title. In reality, you should love and embrace the nitty gritty of those first days. Business cards are nice to hand out, but they really shouldn’t say more than co-founder or something else. Maybe someone inside the company plays more of the CEO role (speaking and being the face of the company), but that doesn’t really matter in the early days. You have to be humble and you have to be willing to do whatever it takes. You don’t have a staff of 50 to throw the task on to either. If you don’t do it, it won’t get done. Sure you could also try to optimize for efficiency, but that’s almost counter productive as the early days of a startup requiring doing so much, that it’s hard to just cut something out.

There Is No Silver Bullet

There shouldn’t be and usually never is a single deal that can make your company. Certain deals or customers can take you to another rung on the ladder, but there are still many more rungs to climb along the way. You shouldn’t look at a deal as the end game to the startup, but a means to a specific milestone that is in the near future. A deal can be taken away far faster than it can be given to you. By training yourself to diversify your risk and the milestones that advance your company, you control the destiny of your company, NOT one single partner. The success of a startup is the compilation of luck infused with many little wins along the way.

Customers Will Frustrate You

Having customers is a great thing, but dealing with support is a whole other ball game. If you’re in the consumer world, expect to deal with customers that don’t notice the obvious even with your fancy pants UI/UX in place. You will also get an influx of feedback that is often contradictory. One customer wants it in red, another wants it in blue, and a third wants it combined to become purple. The key to dealing with customers is to respond to everyone, but have a strong rule of authority. If you succumb to customers frustrating you and do everything you say, you quickly end up in a far worse position.

You Can’t Do It All Yourself

Some entrepreneurs have a superhero complex that they feel they can do everything themselves or with just one co-founder. They think that it’s possible to scale the company with just two to three people. This just results in being overworked and unfocused. Know when to let go of your pride and bring in people that are often smarter than you are. By bringing in others to work with you, there’s also an ability for each team member to be laser focused on what they’re best at.

There Is No Such Thing As An Overnight Success

In some cases you may be able to find out that your idea just won’t work or that you are one of the lucky few that get acquired early on. Other than that, be prepared to work on your startup for many many years. The press often makes it seem as if success happened overnight, but the entrepreneurs themselves spent a lot of time with the company over the course of many years. Startups aren’t a 5k, but an all out iron man competition.

Building A Team Is Hard

Finding co-founders by themselves is very hard just by itself. Finding a group of individuals smarter than yourself across a broad range of skill takes up way more time than you would ever think. In the early days, you may be super excited about your company, but it’s often hard to get a large group of others equally excited. They may have their own ideas they want to work on, be comfortable with a cushy salary, or generally just not interested in what you’re doing. Just because you’re excited does not mean others will be excited. If you’re lucky enough, you will hit a certain period of growth explosion that requires you to hire rapidly and be a great judge of character on the fly. This is a dangerous period for a startup as the company is still small enough that the wrong DNA can make things take a turn for the worse, but you cannot be as granular with hiring these employees as your first 10.

There Are Forces Outside Your Control

Last, but not least, you have to understand that you cannot control everything in the universe. Markets collapse, the government intervenes, tragedy strikes, and other unforseen circumstances. You don’t let this make you quit. It’s like a roadblock on the way to a concert, sports game, or party you want to get to. You may have to sit in traffic or take an alternate route, but as long as you are determined to get there, you will end up at the event. In the words of the late Randy Pausch “Brick walls are there to show you how bad you want something.” Once again, this isn’t a deterrent to becoming an entrepreneur, but just a reality check to make sure you’re prepared. Many companies die because people just give up . Hopefully this article does some small bit in helping preventing this. Life as an entrepreneur is hard, but if you really love what you’re doing and have the determination, you WILL do it.

http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/17741/The-11-Harsh-Realities-Of-Being-An-Entrepreneur.aspx

1. Why do you want to do this, and how does it fit with your overall goals?
2. What’s the market problem you think you’re solving, and what’s your evidence it really exists?
3. Is the market opportunity likely to be large enough to justify your effort and risk?
4. What substitutes or competition exist to tap into this opportunity or solve this market problem?
5. Are you the right person to be starting it?

Most startups apply a Ready, Fire, Fire, Fire, Aim approach to starting their business. They launch a product they’ve developed hoping they’ve targeted it to the right market – realise they’ve missed the mark, fire again and again – until hopefully they hit the target. Most startups run out of ammunition (time and money) before they hit the target.

If you’ve got a business idea and want to test whether it’s likely to fly or die you can do it with almost no money or risk. In fact, by investing about 20 hours of your time up front to explore some of the fundamentals – you can

• SAVE yourself months, or even years of wasted effort, and
• SAVE yourself from the agony and strain of flushing your valuable financial resources down the drain.

Upstart now offers a “Sprint” Programme. The goal of this “Sprint” is to take a Ready, Aim, Fire approach… to use your time and money much more effectively. If you’re prepared to invest 20 hours of your time over 7 days at times suitable to you, then we can help you answer these 5 questions, and more.

We’ll help you with this for “ “, as long as you’re committed to doing the work. Contact us now to express your interest, and so we can answer whatever questions you have.