Kick Start Your Business Workshop

Our inaugural Waihi Beach Groundswell event, this workshop is part inspiration; through presentations, and part interaction; through facilitated conversations in small groups and informal networking. Hear stories from entrepreneurs, their challenges, how they have addressed them and where they are on their journey. Interact with experts from various backgrounds to gain feedback on developing your business idea. Find out about the opportunities and resources available to support you on your entrepreneurial journey. Bring a notebook and pen. Stay afterwards for a drink and a chat. WORKSHOP MENTORS: Carl Menary For over 15 years Carl has been helping companies around the world use the design-thinking process to understand user needs and bring innovative products to market. He thrives on turning problems into opportunities. He is a senior product developer at Robotic Plus, working from end-user empathy, to design for manufacture. He also is the designer behind local lighting studio, Minnow. He is passionate about using design to improve lives and strives to help New Zealand companies achieve global success. Jamie Bell Jamie's expertise encompasses digital marketing, website and visual design. After seven years in the corporate sector, Jamie established her own freelance venture, and works with businesses local and abroad, to help them and flourish in the digital environment. An expert in the digital environment, her work also has a focus on the sustainability; she is passionate about working with businesses that prioritise the preservation of our natural environment. Pascale Hyboud-Peron Pascale is Co-founder & Director of Venture Centre, and is passionate about facilitating connections between people and ideas by delivering meaningful opportunities to do good stuff together. The Venture Centre is focussed on ecosystem development by connecting, engaging, understanding and celebrating entrepreneurial capability and culture. Pascale is an expert in integrating social and informal learning elements with evidence-based information to facilitate conversations on and offline that support engagement and active collaboration. Her skills include the provision of technologies and frameworks to enable open knowledge sharing and community building. Victoria Menary Victoria is a founder and director of Minnow. Minnow is a product design studio in Waihi Beach with a passion for design, craftsmanship and sustainability. Victoria has 5 years of startup experience, all while being a dedicated mother of 3 kids under the age of 10 years and is the president of the local playcenter.Maria King An innovative entrepreneur and investor with a background in applied science and technology, Maria's passions lie in developing and growing businesses, especially start-up and early stage business, and in governance. Approaching life with a discovery mind-set, love of learning and a healthy dose of genuine inquisitiveness, Maria has the ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas and enjoys being able to challenge common wisdom and assumptions through astute questioning – which all come in handy when working with entrepreneurs and early stage businesses, which she does a lot.  Maria holds a number of directorships and is also currently working with companies involved in fields such as hyperspectral sensing technologies and digital technologies for sustainable commercial fishing and in healthcare.  Maria is an experienced facilitator and has mentored and judged at Start-Up Weekend events plus numerous other hackathons over the past few years so she will feel right at home helping you Kickstart your business.Natashia Lucas Co-founder | FareShare Software Ltd & Tauranga Community Co-op I wear a few different hats. Firstly, I’m a wife and mum of two clever girls (2 & 3). While working from home (and from Base Station), I keep myself busy with two related organisations. In 2017 I founded the Tauranga Community Co-op. We’re an incorporated society, and we exist to allow our members to buy food and various other products at wholesale rates. This led to us founding FareShare. FareShare is a software package that supports, administrates, and runs co-ops, intuitively. My heart beats for community.  Food is a wonderful way to connect. My aim with the work I do is to enable people to buy better food while spending the same they did before. Making this process easier has been my mission over the last 18 months and I think it will continue to take up a substantial amount of my time in the years to come. I love it!