June 4, 2024 • 45 mins
Ever wondered how to transition from a corporate career to thriving as a serial entrepreneur? Kat Webber, the founder of LiveRem and ResolvePay, joins us to share her journey of resilience, creativity, and relentless pursuit of her entrepreneurial dreams. From her early ventures in dog walking and a spray tanning business, to launching an innovative Christmas tree enterprise in university, Kat's story is a testament to the power of self-belief and a strong support system. Discover how she turned her corporate experience into a stepping stone for bootstrapping successful SaaS businesses.
Curious about the nuts and bolts of building a bootstrapped SaaS business from the ground up? Kat reveals her strategies for understanding customer needs, balancing multiple priorities, and maintaining flexibility without external capital. She provides candid insights into the trials and triumphs of managing three businesses, raising young children, and even building a house amid financial constraints. We'll also explore the valuable lessons she's learned about progressive hiring practices, addressing unconscious bias, and the Know Your Gap initiative focused on gender pay gaps and representation.
Kat’s deep connection to her Irish heritage and her journey from city life to a peaceful coastal existence add another layer to her inspiring story. We discuss the importance of community and how remote work and a supportive tech community have enriched her life. Kat’s experiences underline the significance of embracing failure as a learning opportunity, choosing the right business partners, and fostering a balance between motherhood and entrepreneurship. Whether you're navigating the startup world or balancing personal and professional responsibilities, Kat’s story offers practical tips and inspiration for achieving success under demanding circumstances.
Connect with Kate personally or via ResolvePay or LiveRem
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
No wasn't an option for me and like that's kind of
been a thing throughout my wholelife.
It's okay.
So if someone says no, I don'treally accept that.
It's kind of like okay.
So how can I work my way aroundthis to get the outcome that I
want?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Kat is the founder of LiveRen and ResolvePay and
actually, I think, a little bitof a serial entrepreneur when
you look into her background.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
And you know sometimes there's compromise in
that, but it's bringing theright people together to help us
get the outcome that weultimately want.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Absolutely, and it's that attitude, isn't it, that
gets you through.
Hey everybody, it's GregSheehan.
Welcome to my podcast, whereyou will hear from a range of
guests, including those from thestartup world and those that
have had incredibly interestinglives and some stories to tell.
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Now back to the show.
My guest today is Kat Weber.
Kat is the founder of LiveRemand ResolvePay and actually, I
think, a little bit of a serialentrepreneur when you look into
(02:00):
her background.
Welcome to the show, kat.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Hi, nice to speak to you this morning.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yes, well, and it's bright and early because I'm
recording this actually fromSydney, where I'm actually doing
this, from an Airbnb where thelighting is not great and Kat's
putting up with looking at me insuboptimal light, but it's
really lovely to chat to youtoday, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I love starting theseconversations by just
understanding a little bit aboutyou so before we get into the
(02:26):
startups, keen to talk aboutyour origin.
So you're a Baradine girl andan Auckland.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
University girl.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It doesn't strike me as somebody that would have gone
off into entrepreneurship.
You, lawyer, doctor, somehowyou got there.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
But tell us about your background.
I don't really define myself, Iguess, by the schools that I
went to.
I started my life that I wentto.
I started my life.
My parents are Irish well, mymum's Irish.
My dad is Kiwi, but Irishheritage as well, and they have
always kind of instilled in usthat you can do whatever you
want, like if you really putyour mind to it and you work
hard, do whatever you want.
(03:00):
And they've supported us withthat.
But, brothers and sisters, andbut my very first introduction
into working life was I was 10years old and I started walking
dogs.
I had a couple of dogs myselfand I was at the park and the
woman said to me do you want tomake some money and walk my dog
as well?
And I basically built up thisquite successful dog walking
business and saved all thismoney and could do all this
(03:22):
travel like.
I went to Sydney when I was 13to see my auntie and I figured
out that people would actuallypay me to do stuff that they
didn't want to do, which wasquite mind-blowing for a 10,
11-year-old.
Then I kind of saw some moreopportunities.
I started a spray tanningbusiness when we got to the
years of school balls and againpeople were like, oh, I need
(03:43):
this problem and I could solveit.
And with my little spray tanthing that I'd throw in the back
of my V-Dub golf and, you know,roll around and spray people's
bodies all over town soundsweird when you say that out loud
.
And then I went to universityand did Christmas tree business
like a Christmas tree businessand you know it wasn't just like
(04:05):
a side of the road hustle, wehad a real operation going on.
We had like deals with localcafes where you could, if you
bought a Christmas tree with us,you'd get a free coffee or if
you were from one of the localschools, you get, you got
cheaper Christmas trees.
You know we were kind of liketrying to be really innovative
instead of just being aChristmas tree seller.
We had F-Off, which was a hugething and into when I was early
(04:27):
2011 or 2010 we would have donethat so it was.
So it was like all the stuff.
We tried to be different, likemy parents and my family and,
you know, even the schools thatI went to were always very
supportive of what I wanted todo and how I wanted to do it.
And then I also had this likereal self-belief that if I gave
it a try, there was always awanted to do and how I wanted to
do it.
And then I also had this likereal self-belief that if I gave
it a try, there was always a wayto do what I wanted to do.
(04:49):
It didn't always work out theway that I wanted to, but it
definitely kind of learn as yougo through these things, don't
you?
And went into the morecorporate world after finishing
my degree and learned, I guess,my stripes a little bit in those
spaces, working in banking andone of the big four consulting
firms, and you learn a lot inthose environments.
(05:09):
I also learnt that wasn'treally the environment that I
wanted to do long-term and someamazing people and some amazing
lessons, but for me, I think,being able to carve my own path
and to be able to solve theproblems in the way that I
wanted to solve them rather thanhaving, I guess, to tick boxes
and follow the big organizationstrategy.
(05:30):
And that's how I started inResolve, payspace, and nearly
five years ago, yeah it's reallyinteresting.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
If you look into your background you can see the
entrepreneurial sort of DNA inthere early and then when you
hear about your story, there isalmost like if I was a betting
man and I was placing a bet onyour career at the beginning.
You could tell almost early onthat you were going to get
uncomfortable in a corporate orconsulting or government
(05:58):
environment and that you neededto be able to set your own path,
build your own businesses andthose sorts of things.
It's sort of, in a way, nosurprise, and the Christmas tree
business is an example of thatright.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, I think I got quite frustrated in those
corporate environments because Icould see that there was some
really cool stuff that washappening, but the way that they
were going about doing itdidn't really make sense to me.
I was like we could do this somuch better and so much smarter,
with a better outcome for ourcustomers and cheaper.
And that's, I guess, kind ofwhere the result piece really
(06:32):
was born.
It's internal audit effectively.
We look at compliance to theholidays act so we make sure
companies understand how to paypeople when they take leave.
It's not the best barbecue chat, honestly.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
You go around and you're like how did you get
started in something like that?
I mean, there is a pain pointthere, but did you just go right
, I want to do a startup, andwhat's the problem?
Or did you just sort of fallover it?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I fell over it, like when I was working at EY.
We did a lot in that space andthey still do a lot in that
space and they still do a lot inthat space a big full
consulting firm but their modelat the time and this was nearly
10 years ago was using a verymanual approach.
They had 400 people that theyoutsourced it to in India to run
their recalculation approachfor when people get their
(07:19):
holiday at the front.
I left there and had my firstbaby and, rather than wanting to
go back into working in anotherkind of corporate environment,
I thought I wonder if we coulddo something in this holiday pay
space.
That's different than howeverybody else is doing it, and
I was at the time contracting toNZTA and Jonathan Morgan, who's
(07:42):
now a co-founder and bothresults and library, was working
there.
He's like one of those techgeniuses who you ask him to
solve a problem, he says no andthen he fixes it two days later.
He's amazing, and so every dayI'd be like to him.
I want to do this and I've kindof like written the algorithm
for it, because I did stats inmy degree and I kind of knew how
it should go, but I'm not acoder and I'm not a details
(08:05):
person to really understand andwrite code.
And so, jonathan, can you findsomeone who can help me do this?
Basically pissed at him everyday for six months and then he
was like fine, I'll build it.
And we built resolve pain.
And we knew that it was aproblem that people needed to
solve, but you know know, theydidn't have the big four budget
really.
So we thought, if we build itand we make it accessible for
(08:29):
everybody, then hopefully that'ssomething that you know people
would want.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
And they did how does it work?
So I've got a limitedunderstanding of some of the
challenges in holiday pay I used.
Well, I'm still a charteredaccountant.
I used to be in practice, so Ikind of have some broad
understanding that it's complex.
But is this a product thatplugs into payroll systems, or
who's your customer?
Give us a bit of picture ofwhat it does.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah.
So with ResolvePay it's kind oflike consulting that's powered
by tech would be the best way todescribe it.
So we have consultants thatwill go in and work with our
customers to help themunderstand if they've got a
problem, and then, when we knowthat they do, we can use our
technology.
We built a tool that basicallydoes all the recalculations.
So basically, if they get itwrong, they have to go back and
(09:16):
recalculate for seven years-ishor more if they want to, every
instance of leave, everyemployee, to make sure that
they've been paid correctly, andour toll just runs that through
very quickly.
I guess what that exposure inthat business showed us is
there's so much value in payrolldata and people don't have the
ability to easily tap into thatknowledge within that data set,
(09:40):
which is where live rem was bornfrom.
We're like we understand how toget the data out of payroll
systems.
We we understand how to make itmake sense.
So how then do we use that tohelp our customers in a
different way?
And so we started havingconversations around what is it
that people want and need andwhere are those pain points in
that space?
And with LiveRam, it's all verywell wanting to go and hire
(10:04):
someone, but what should we bepaying them and what's the
market rate for that persontoday, not six months ago?
And so we built the directintegration into payroll systems
to give real-time salary datafor people on how much someone's
role is really worth.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Which is really cool, and that is something that's
common across both the consumeror the employee looking to know
what they're worth, but alsofrom an employer perspective,
trying to figure out how much topay, and so you integrate then
into payroll systems as well,which is very cool.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, payroll and HR systems.
Yeah, it's a real-time value,real-time platform, so it's
reliant on our customers sharingtheir data in.
We anonymize it and aggregateit, but then give a view back to
all our customers of how muchtheir role is worth in the
market and a whole lot of otherpieces that we do with that.
And mapping roles making surethat they are actually mapped to
(10:55):
a role that makes sense, notjust on a job title basis.
And now we're getting more intothe insights piece.
So, okay, what's your genderpay gap, for example?
Or what's your gender pay gap,for example, or what's your
turnover?
And you can start to use thisdata to really diagnose the
health of your organisation.
Why has this department all ofa sudden had a real increase in
turnover and it's a turnover inwomen or your organisation as a
(11:18):
whole is trending down on yourturnover?
Is that a good thing?
And you know you start toactually ask questions based on
data rather than just feeling sowhat's the bigger picture play
for you guys.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
If you're building out a data play for
employee-based data, where canyou see this going?
What would you like to do?
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I think I think the opportunities are huge in this
space.
Obviously, new zealand is agreat market, but even being
able to kind of look up acrossAustralia and beyond as well,
around how we so at first, weprimarily give people their
information on their own company, but then the second part of
that is we benchmark it.
So okay, your company's goinglike this, but what does that
(11:55):
actually mean?
Is another company performingin the same way?
And then how does that lookbeyond your industry or your
region or your country, so youcan start to give our customers
some real value?
I guess like a target or amarker on how they're performing
, or very well to have your owndata, but how do you know if
you're actually doing well?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And so how did you get started with Jonathan?
So you sort of bugged him dayin, day out and then he starts
to build the code.
At what point did you sort ofleave your day jobs and jump
into this?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I took the leap first .
We basically have always hadthe model with both ResolvePay
and LiveRamp, that we won'tbuild something unless someone
wants it.
So we sold some work to ourfirst customer with ResolvePay
and then I think I left.
About that same time mycontract with NZTA finished and
I didn't really go back into it.
(12:46):
I didn't look for any otherpaid work sorry, I should say
paid employment because I wasgetting paid by ResolvePay but
not by anyone else and I thinkit must have been about a year
or 18 months of me just sellingwork and doing it Jonathan
working in the evening, if Ineeded his help and then we got
to a point where we'd won somepretty big contracts.
(13:06):
We were starting to win work offthe big four.
We you know a couple of NZXlisted companies.
It wasn't just you know yourcorner business anymore.
We're actually starting to makea real impact in the market.
And I got to a point where Iwas like I need you out.
The working late nights is notworking for us to grow this
business sustainably.
So he finished his role at WayBeyond and came and worked full
(13:30):
time where we've been doing itever since.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
That's a big move, and so you've bootstrapped it
all the way through, or have youraised no external capital?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
No, we have been quite clear in our vision of how
we want to grow organically anduse our own money effectively.
To do that, it's been tough attimes.
I think it's.
One of the hard things aboutbootstrapping is you do have to
make sacrifices.
I haven't really worked in acompany with VC funding for a
long time of going let's justhave more capital, so I can't
(14:00):
pass judgment on that, but forus it was very much.
We want to do this ourselvesand we want to be able to make
our own decisions and we wantflexibility and the lifestyle as
well.
I've got a four-year-old and atwo-year-old.
I want to be able to pick themup from kindy or go on a kindy
trip or be able to be home ifthey're sick.
I don't feel I could probablyget that in the same way if I
was taking external funding.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, it's really interesting, and I don't know
whether it's just me, but I'mbecoming more aware of companies
that are bootstrapping not justout of New Zealand or Australia
but globally.
Now, whether that's some sortof response to what's happened
with venture capital in the lastfew years it's got kind of
overheated and then valuationshave come back or whether it is
just this push for a betterlifestyle and people are looking
to just literally row their ownboat, that's hard to know.
So you got started and thenbasically you're building a
services revenue.
(14:49):
At the same time, you'rebuilding the tech to support it,
which is it's very smart.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
I mean, the consulting is what I've kind of
always done.
It's what I did when I camestraight out of university, so
I'm very familiar with theconsulting space.
Honestly, the live room stuffhas probably been a bigger shift
for me personally, becausewe're selling SaaS effectively
and that's a totally differentballgame.
I can go I'll quite happily goand stand in front of a
boardroom of a whole bunch ofpeople and pitch my services for
(15:15):
ResolvePay.
I'm much less comfortable inthis space than selling a fast
product, which I don't know ifthat's weird, but yeah, it's
very different.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It's very different, isn't it?
They're very different salesprocesses, very different ways
of marketing.
So with ResolvePay, just to tryand paraphrase and to help me
understand, you're going intomeeting rooms, you're meeting
with companies that know theymay have a potential problem or
have identified they have got aproblem.
You go in there, identify thesize and scale of the issue and
then go and look at fixing it.
(15:44):
So it's a B2B, almost anenterprise sales process,
whereas in the world of SaaS forlive REM, it's a very different
proposition.
Who's your customer with liveREM?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Is it the employee or the employer, employer and
actually a lot of the time it'sthe same customers as Resolve
Pay it's.
You know well, I kind of targetcustomers, companies over 100
people, but effectively we couldhave any company size from any
industry who's interested inunderstanding what to pay people
and how that compares to therest of the market.
So far our customers have beenvery much in the tech space
(16:19):
retail, media, agencies,construction, which I think was
quite interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So, like civil engineers and actual
construction companies as welland those who may be already
using a benchmarking service butwant that real-time data and
that ability to get real,valuable benchmarks and how have
you sort of gone about buildinga business in sass, if I
presume I don't know aboutjonathan, but if you hadn't
built a sass business before,how have you sought help?
(16:47):
Who's helped?
How's that worked?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Jonathan has been in this space before, so he worked
for E-Road and way beyond, sohe's kind of worked in that SaaS
world.
I have a lot of conversationsand when we first started I
guess we had a lot ofconversations with HR
professionals around what theyneeded and what they wanted.
I don't know if I've directlyasked people around how to build
(17:11):
a SaaS business.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
But you're doing that right, you're out there and
you're just making it happen andin that sense, because I think
there'll be a lot of peoplelistening wherever they're
listening New Zealand, australiaand more broadly around the
world, who are in a day job andthey maybe haven't worked in
SaaS.
They would like to start a SaaSbusiness.
So, for those who don't knowwhat SaaS means software as a
service, so basicallysubscription-based software and
(17:36):
listening to your story, I'mthinking, well, kat has done it
and Kat and Jonathan have madethis work.
So how did she do it?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
So, yeah, just talking to lots of people, of
people, the networks, yeah, Ithink just no wasn't an option
for me and like that's kind ofbeen a thing throughout my whole
life, it's okay.
So if someone says no, I don'treally accept that.
It's kind of like okay.
So how can I work my way aroundthis to get the outcome that I
want?
So I wanted to start a SaaScompany.
What's the basic fundamentals?
(18:02):
Well, we need a product thatpeople want, so so how do we
know people want it?
We'll talk to a whole lot ofpeople and basically design a
product.
And I'm not an expert in designI'm not really I would say I'm
really an expert in anything butI think I'm quite good at
finding people who know how todo stuff and helping them help
me to get what I want ultimately.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Would you say that's your superpower?
Is that like if you were to beasked the question you know what
is your key strength here?
I hate the phrase, but I use ita lot the zone of genius Like
what are you really good at andhow does that help what you do?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I think that's probably what it would be Not
taking no and then, if we do geta no, finding a way to get a
yes.
And you know, sometimes there Ihave that attitude in all parts
of my life.
I think my husband would sayI'm very tenacious.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And you have to be to be a startup founder, right?
You just have to be.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, and it's funny, my daughter's nearly five and
they always say it's really hardto parent a mini version of
yourself and I'm definitelyfinding that with her a bit like
the negotiations at bedtime,like, oh, am I actually like
that in how I operate in myday-to-day life?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
because I think I probably am allows you to be
self-reflective yeah, I think Ilike to think that I'm really
good at finding people to helpus achieve a goal and help them
be the best version ofthemselves, and doing that as
well yeah, I think it'sinteresting because, you know, I
often talk to either wannabestartup founders or early stage
startup founders who arestruggling and always say to
(19:36):
them look, the reality of doinga startup is it's like having to
solve a Rubik's Cube and youget a new Rubik's Cube.
That's sort of all messed up.
Every single day there's a newpuzzle or problem to solve, and
generally you're doing it whilealmost the shop clock is running
down or while a heat lamp is on.
You Like it's really hard andyou've got to do that for
(19:58):
probably a decade.
That's just the sport you'vechosen right.
So being tenacious is exactlywhat you need.
And are you somebody that wouldsay that that strength is
something you should double downon, or are you somebody who
would rather kind of look atyour weaknesses and then start
addressing your weaknesses?
People have different views onthis.
I'm interested in double downon your strengths or improve
(20:19):
your weaknesses.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I'd probably double down on strengths All four.
If you're good at tennis andbad at maths, get a tennis coach
, not a maths tutor.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
That's probably me, like what'sgoing to get us there fastest?
And also I want to enjoy whatI'm doing as well, not to say
that I don't work on myweaknesses, and I think I try to
(20:41):
be reflective, but I think thedouble down would be for me.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I think it's really important for people to think
about that, because I think ifyou focus on your weaknesses,
all you're really doing isgetting back to average.
So you're bringing yourselfback up to par, and nobody
that's ever done anything reallyworld changing is average.
They're just not.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Or get someone to help you do it, like there's
some stuff that I'm really notgood at.
Sometimes it's a hard pill toswallow that I'm not good at it
because I think I am.
And then I look at the resultand I'm like so you know, get
someone in to come and help youthat will talk to someone about
how to do it and you know theymight teach you something that
you didn't know and you mightthen be able to do it yourself,
or you can get them to do it foryou.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, and tell us what's been the biggest
challenge in working foryourself, building both services
business professional servicesbusiness backed by tech, and
then a SaaS business.
What's the hardest challengethat you've had over the last
four or five years?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I think the very first thing was the fact that
you've had over the last four orfive years.
I think the very first thingwas the fact that you were like
a move from a regular income tono guaranteed income and I feel
really lucky that we've beenable to build something that
people want and will pay us for,both in Resolve, pay and
LiveRam.
The juggle is really real and Ifeel like I say this a lot to
people.
You know, I've got two youngkids.
(21:53):
I've got two businesses, myhusband's also self-employed.
We have a lot of juggle and wehave a lot of risk.
We're comfortable with that,but it is hard some days of
going.
Okay, there's a lot here thatwe're trying to figure out.
I think the hardest part wasprobably we had a 12-month
period where it felt likeeverything was going wrong.
(22:13):
We also decided to build ahouse, which at the worst
possible time to build a house,when prices were skyrocketing.
So we had like a three-year-old, a one-year-old, basically
three businesses and we werebuilding a house and we had a
build company.
That was a real shocker to dealwith.
So that was a really hard 12months of going.
(22:34):
Oh my God, I feel like we'renot getting any relief in any
space.
The kids are sick.
You have to be up all nightwith them and then get up in the
morning in front to thismassive client about how you've
done all this work.
Go in and pitch your new SaaScompany and think about the
strategy of what's going to beour go-to-market strategy on
that.
(22:54):
Or can we pay our bills nextmonth, or you know all these
different priorities that youhave to try and work through,
and there were definitely dayswhere I was like this is really
hard.
Yeah, I'm finding this reallyreally difficult and I can't see
a way through with a lot of itas well.
But I think we just picked itoff one little bit at a time and
I thought the highest prioritytoday and what can we win today,
(23:15):
rather than trying to solve allof the problems at once.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Were there times where you wanted to give up,
where you just wanted to go backand get a paid role, or did you
go?
No, I've got this.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I don't think there was any time where I was wanting
to go back and work in a paidrole.
There were definitely timeswhen I was like I really wish
that this was over right now andI don't see how it's even not
going to be like this.
But I really believe in whatwe're doing with Resolve, pay
and Live Rem, so I knew that itwas the right thing to do.
(23:47):
It was like we need to justsolve these problems to be able
to get through it and, honestly,a lot of this stuff was more
around the wider personal stuffthat I had going on with.
You know the reality of havingyoung kids and, yeah, it's
building a house, it'schallenging.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I mean, I think for those listening who are thinking
about doing a starter, your 20sare a great time because if you
generally don't have children,or if you do, you know it's kind
of rare.
So you know you've got nodependents, you've probably got
no income and not a lot of money, but you don't have that kind
of that issue of raisingchildren, buying houses.
Your 30s and 40s are nutsbecause you're raising kids,
(24:22):
you're building houses, there'slittle kids running around.
It's really challenging andit's not till your 50s like old
guys like me, where the kidshave all grown up.
Life is a little bit easieragain.
So the 30s and 40s are almostlike a valley of death.
You know they're really hard.
It's like going for a run andyou're putting weights on your
back while you're doing astartup.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So it's challenging because I think the other thing
that people I didn't reallycomprehend prior to starting
this is like you don't get anyleave, you don't get mat leave I
don't take mat leave witheither of my kids and you don't
get sick leave and you don't getholidays.
You're committed to this, justlike you're committed to kids.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
There's no off yeah, there's no, there's no off ramp,
yeah yeah yeah, and tell us alittle bit about know your gap
like there must be some reallyinteresting insights that you're
starting to get there.
It was gender and gender paygaps, etc.
Tell us a bit about that yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
So the know your gap in science is basically a free
insights dashboard for anycompany to be able to know and
understand their gender pay gap,and it's something that has
always been a really passionatearea for me of having equality
in the workplace for men andwomen.
It's something I saw in my morecorporate life, you know,
working in banking and workingin consulting firms.
(25:32):
This tool gives the insights tothe company so that they don't
really have any excuse to not doanything about it.
We also see some reallyinteresting insights.
A lot of it is actually lessabout people being paid the same
amount for the same role.
I think in New Zealand, in a lotof spaces, we're actually doing
really well in that regard.
(25:53):
It's more around therepresentation at the level.
So, okay, you know everybody inthe same company might be.
You know all the junior peopleare on the same amount and the
senior people are on the sameamount, but how many women are
sitting at your exec table, howmany women are in your middle
management?
And that's, I think, wherewe've got a lot of space to
improve or opportunity toimprove in.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Hey, just let me pause you there for a second and
tell you about some help that'savailable for startup founders.
One of the biggest reasonsstartups fail is that the
founders give up.
They just burn out throughstruggling with aligning all of
their people to what it isthey're trying to do.
It doesn't have to be like that, though.
Jess Dahlberg is an expert instartup performance and she
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(26:56):
headaches.
Let's get back to the show.
It's such a fascinating area.
I've I've got two daughters whoare young adults now.
We've had this conversationaround the family dinner table
for a decade or more how do weimprove this like, how do we
make this much, much better?
What are you seeing companiesdo to change this and make sure
we are getting full parity?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I think a lot of companies who are being quite
progressive in this space arebeing really conscious about it
by doing things like ensuringthat they interview both men and
women for every role.
As an example and jonathanactually speaks to this, he they
did this way beyond.
When he worked there theyintroduced this policy to
interview a male and female forevery role and they ended up
(27:38):
hiring people they never wouldhave interviewed.
So it was a real eye-opener forhim around.
Maybe there is probably anunconscious bias that people
don't even realize that theyhave and on paper you might have
someone who doesn't necessarilytick the box, but when you
interview them they might besuitable for a role.
I think there's also, speakingto friends of mine, they will be
(28:01):
hesitant to apply for a roleunless they feel like they tick
every single box.
So I don't know how we do thisnecessarily, but encouraging
people to step outside of theircomfort zone and also making it
easier from a companyperspective to look for women
who may not necessarilyautomatically apply for a job.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
That is a really interesting insight and I've
seen that before and where,let's say, there's 10
requirements for a job.
If a boy has two of them andI'm speaking from personal
experience and I've got a son ifhe has two of those 10, he's
like well, I've got what ittakes, I'll go do it.
The two daughters.
If they don't have all 10, theydon't think they've got what it
(28:48):
takes, Yet they've got a verystrong mother, a very strong
grandmother both professionals,and yet they look at the world
that way.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
How do we change that ?
Yeah, I know it's something Ithink about about a lot.
I've got a son and a daughteras well and we're talking a
little bit before we started onthis call about we live near the
beach and we've got a skimboardand my daughter looks at it and
she assesses all the risks andshe's like, okay, is the wave
coming?
Is who's walking down the beachand am I going to be able to do
it?
And she runs and she nails it.
She can really far.
My son is two and he's like Isee a board, I see a wave, I'm
(29:17):
going to go for it.
Like he doesn't have that kindof same cautiousness about him.
I'm not saying I don't thinkshe should have cautiousness.
I think it's great that she'saware and assessing the risk.
But I don't know how we changethat around, making our girls
and our women feel comfortableto push themselves outside their
comfort zone and like what'sthe worst that could happen.
You know, in that case shefalls over and we get back up
(29:39):
and we we do it again and Ithink that's probably something
that I feel really lucky with myparents of going.
Well.
You know, as I've grown up,what's the worst thing that
could happen.
They were always there to pickme up.
You know, three o'clock in themorning if I got stuck trying to
get home from being in town orif I was unwell and I needed
help, they'd come and help me.
Put in that security aroundwomen to go.
(30:00):
It's okay to fail and you'lllearn something Some of the
hardest things I've ever done.
I look back now and I'm like doI regret that?
No, I don't.
Would I do it again if the sameopportunity presented me?
Absolutely not.
But I've learned from thoselessons.
But I'm glad that I experiencedthem as well.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, it's so interesting.
I mean, there's obviously somany things we could touch on
here around conditioning of boysand girls and that sort of
thing, but the comment you justmade is it's okay to fail.
Whether you're a guy or a girl,you know, it is okay to fail.
It's life and it's the journeyof life and there's no shame in
failing, right like it's justgive things a go.
Now you touched on the factthat you live near the beach and
(30:37):
, as you said, we were talkingabout that.
You know, prior startingrecording this morning, you made
this shift from the big smokeup to country life.
How does that go with being astartup founder and living out
in the country?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I found it really hard the first six months that
we moved up here.
I'd never lived anywhere likewithout being right in the
middle of a city.
You know, I lived right in themiddle of Auckland.
I moved to Sydney and I spentsome time, you know, in Europe
and I was never country.
But we moved up and it's beenthe best thing that I could ever
(31:09):
ever recommend to anybody.
And the biggest part for me isactually just being able to have
complete separation from thathustle of the city, to get
perspective.
So I go for a walk in thecountryside every morning and
this morning it was completelyfoggy.
I kind of walked over this hilland you could see I was like
above the fog and the sun wasshining.
This is just the best way tostart the day.
(31:30):
We walk on the beach.
My husband also works from home.
We walk on the beach most days.
It's just I find that reallygrounding and you know, then I
go into my hustle and you can dothat now.
Thank you, covert, to be ableto be more remote.
So that's one thing that's beenreally great for us.
We're the whole pain library.
We're both 100 remote companies, so we do have the tools and
(31:50):
ability to work forever.
So yeah, yeah and what?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
is there much of a supportive tech community?
You and I chatted a week or twoback about people we know in
common and you're up inNorthland.
Is there much of a group?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, we've got a great community here.
We've got a little techcommunity group Josh, who's been
on your podcast before, fromMakahu, he's up here and there's
a couple of GD1 in the Gatineyshe's just down the road and our
kids all play together and theyall go to school together,
which is quite cool, and there'slots of different people
working in that tech space.
We probably need to catch upmore than we do.
(32:25):
Honestly, I think we're allquite busy, but it's nice to
just have those touch points andpeople who understand what's
going on.
We have a.
I had an article a couple ofmonths ago that came out and
instantly the WhatsApp grouppipes up going hey,
congratulations, because it canbe quite lonely working from
home and not having that vibeand all those people around you
(32:46):
that you might be more used toin a different working
environment.
So the community up here isfantastic and I fully
underappreciated how amazingthat would be compared to living
in the city before we moved uphere yeah, and look, I am also a
huge advocate for countryliving.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I did that for 20 years, raising our family and
and doing startups at the time,and so it was super challenging,
but that small countryenvironment was just fantastic,
absolutely fantastic.
And you are also somebody whois quite close to your Irish
heritage.
As you said, your mum is Irish.
I yeah a long time ago.
I am of Irish descent.
(33:24):
How do you get involved withyour Irish roots in New Zealand?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
so I am not as active as I used to be, but I used to
be quite involved in the StPatrick's Festival, which is
basically a celebration of Irishheritage that is run in
Auckland every year.
There's also the Irish BusinessNetwork which I don't go to as
often Festival, which isbasically a celebration of Irish
heritage that is run inAuckland every year.
There's also the Irish BusinessNetwork, which I don't go to as
often as I should since movingout of the city, as they do a
lot of breakfasts, but just somereally beautiful people who get
together to, I guess, celebratethe Irish heritage but also to
(33:50):
kind of share values andknowledge and business contacts
and celebrate what it is, Iguess, to be Irish.
It's really funny, growing up asa Kiwi, I consider myself to be
a Kiwi, but with parents whohave very strong connections to
Ireland.
I mean, my mum's accent is sothick Half the time I think my
husband even is like what didyou say again?
(34:11):
So she's very, very, very Irish.
So you kind of live in thisin-between of having this really
beautiful connection back toIreland and it's an amazing
place and I've spent quite a bitof time there.
But then I also feel very NewZealand Kiwi as well, and I
think there's actually a lot ofsimilarities between the two
cultures.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It's interesting because I think, as humans, we
all have a really deep need toconnect with our tribes and our
ancestry is a huge way of beingable to connect with where we
came from, if you like, ourwhakapapa, using the Maori term
and understanding your culturalheritage is really, really
(34:52):
critical.
It's a source of identity.
It's just such a beautifulthing to be a part of and,
honestly, nobody does it betterthan the Irish.
Like the Irish.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, they're incredible.
Right, they really are.
And I think it comes back toand you know, the real
similarities, particularlybetween the Maori culture and
the Irish culture, is thatfamily and people and the
importance of looking after yourpeople and looking after other
people as well.
And I think that's beeninstilled in me throughout my
life and something I try toteach my own children is you
(35:22):
know, we could have all themoney in the world or we could
have nothing, but we shouldstill treat people with the same
respect and build thosecommunities around us.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Building a startup like this,as you've touched on, is
challenging, like it's really,really tough.
And you are living out in thecountry.
How do you get inspired, like,what is it that you do, whether
it's something that you read, orwhether you get out into nature
or go for a run?
How do you recharge?
Because you, you know you needthose batteries filled for being
(35:53):
able to do what you do.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
I try to walk every day.
Love, love, love walking.
So that's probably like mynumber one thing and spending
time with my kids.
I learn so much from them andthe questions that they ask or
how they see the world.
We went down a couple of weeksago and we just did.
We had the best time and Iturned my phone off and like
those kind of little and oftentouch points with them to really
(36:16):
, you know, get some energy andbe able to take on the day and
you know, like I said before,just going for a walk in the
morning before I do anythingelse really helps.
But I don't actually read a lotanymore.
I used to be a real avid reader.
What I read now is pretty trashyromance novels and yeah, watch
(36:37):
Bridgerton or Below Deck orsomething like that, just like
totally disengage.
I will, you know, if I'mdriving down to the city, I
which I do somewhat often, notas much as I used to I'll try
and listen to a podcast to getmyself in the zone.
And you know, I've listened toyour podcast before and I've,
you know, another, a few otherkind of founder-inspiring or
(36:57):
business podcasts.
Jonathan often gives me bookson business.
He probably doesn't.
I don't know if I've even toldhim that I haven't read many of
them.
They kind of just sit there.
So, yeah, I think I take moreof the inspiration from just
checking out and having thatheadspace to let things kind of
come to life in my own head.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I don't know if anybody can hear in the
background, but I have recentlymoved to Sydney and the bird
life honestly, the wildlife inthis place is just nuts.
I can hear these birds goingcrazy, so I don't have a parrot
for anybody that can listen orcan hear that Now you are a mum
and you've got young childrenand you're doing a start-up.
That's super challenging, likereally really hard, and there
(37:39):
will be some women out there whowould love to go and do a
startup and maybe they've gotyoung children.
Any tips or thoughts on how togo about doing that that you've
kind of discovered?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I think two things.
For me have, if can have, areally amazing support system
and for me, like my husband hasbeen, I would not be able to do
this without him Like he's justexceptional.
He just really picks up a lotof the slack with the kids.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And that's how it should be.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Go home.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
He loves it, yeah, but not just the kids, but just
our life in general.
Like he's kind of he's got hisown business, he's self-employed
in that, but at the end of theday, he's like what's going to
be the best for our family, andright now for us, that's doing
the lion's share of the work interms of, like he cooks every
night and he does all of thekids' stuff and he's 100%
(38:35):
basically on them, which isreally awesome and me, like I'll
get to eat and he'll come inand he's like made me a
delicious lunch.
My God, it's four o'clockalready and I haven't had lunch.
So that would, I think, be themain thing.
And then just be reallycomfortable with failure.
You will get it wrong and notbeat yourself up too hard about
it and, honestly, most thingsare fixable and people's
memories are short.
I think People forgive you ifyou make a mistake and you own
(38:58):
it.
If you try and hide it, maybethat would be different, but I'm
quite comfortable with saying,hey, I didn't do the right thing
there.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, and the reality is we all fail.
Like every single one of us hasnever been a human alive who
hasn't failed.
Like that's just how we're madeand that's what happens.
And especially when we'retrying hard stuff, you know, the
harder the things are, the morelikely you are to fail.
But you're doing things thatare different to other people.
So absolutely, and it's notthat failure should be
celebrated, but it certainlyshouldn't be punished.
(39:26):
If you're trying something andyou're doing it honestly, you
know, give it a go.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, totally yeah.
I think kind of the other pieceas well.
So picking a partner in general, so other piece as well, so
picking a partner in general.
So you know, husband obviouslyextremely important.
And then for me the businesspartner piece as well and, like
Jonathan, is just awesome andwe've got a really great
relationship and we understandthat some days our kids are a
higher priority than thebusiness and some days it's the
business and you know we backeach other up.
(39:50):
So that's probably been a hardlearned lesson for me with some
other things that I've done inthe past around picking people
to work with.
And I'm so stoked that Jonathanalso likes working with me
because I think we're a reallygreat team.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
How did you make that work with Jonathan?
Because have you got any advicefor people in selecting
co-founders?
Because it's a toughrelationship.
We don't always get it right.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, we have an immense amount of respect for
each other and we're also quitecomfortable having hard
conversations and being like hey, you missed the mark here, but
at the end of the day we haveeach other's back.
You know he also has Irishheritage.
There's some commonality therearound.
We understand the backgroundsthat we come from.
I think for me, gut feeling wasreally important.
(40:38):
I mean, I knew him for a whilebefore.
We committed to doing ResolvePay Together, so that helped In
the past.
When I've done things withpeople and it hasn't worked out,
I kind of reflect on itafterwards why didn't that work?
And I look back.
I'm like I didn't listen tomyself there.
I knew that this was.
I probably got like blindsidedby the opportunity rather than
(40:59):
really understanding was thisthe right thing to be doing with
this person?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, it's so interesting because I think it's
very common for founders tohave disputes.
I had some advice actually froma guy I have huge amount of
respect for and he's a mucholder guy.
He's in his 80s now and he wasin business for a very long time
probably.
In fact is still technically inbusiness with a guy he started
being in business with from hisearly 20s and he's now in his
(41:24):
mid 80s and they're still inbusiness together.
And I said so what's the secretto that?
And he said we don't overlysocialize together, so we are
business partners.
And secondly, we just don'tfocus on the small stuff.
We just don't get annoyed aboutsmall stuff.
Let that go.
And I thought that was greatadvice.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, that's awesome advice and I think we would be
the same.
I mean, jonathan and I get onreally well, but we don't really
socialize.
I don't even make my friends onFacebook.
Our kids know each other and Iknow his life and he knows Tom
and it's cool, cool.
But I think that's a reallygood one, because otherwise you
can just be too involved in eachother's lives as well yeah, so
(42:03):
we're two here for LiveRam andResolvePay.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Where would you like to go now, in the next couple of
years?
What are the goals?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
so I think, liveram we would love to be in Australia
and then looking to goSingapore and Dubai, you know,
in the next three years or evenless, and then you know.
So that's kind of like from amarket perspective.
From a product perspective,it's about building out our
insights, creating more valuefor customers to be able to make
better data-driven decisions,and so how do we look at
(42:32):
creating, building out ourdashboard, for example, or using
kind of AI in a way to createmore value around?
What are the insights thatpeople want and how can they
access those really easily?
The results paper isinteresting because my dream for
that company is that it doesn'texist, which is a really weird
thing to say.
But it should not even existbecause we shouldn't have a
(42:55):
problem with this legislation.
It shouldn't be too hard forcompanies to be compliant with
this legislation and ensuretheir staff are being paid
properly.
In reality.
It will be interesting to seewhat happens.
The last government had aworking group to attempt to fix
it.
That has now been publicly saidby the current minister that
(43:16):
they're going to look at itagain and probably do something
different.
I don't know where that's going.
At the moment we still have abusiness.
So we'll just keep pickingalong doing what we're doing,
which is, you know, servicingpeople who need help in this
space, I think, trying to makeit more accessible to a wider
range of companies.
At the moment, we kind of domid to large.
We could do more, but it endsup hard for smaller companies to
(43:38):
do this, so trying to figureout a way to make it easy for
them as well.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
It has been a real honour chatting to you this
morning.
I suspect that in the next fiveto ten years we're going to see
a lot more of you and as youbuild this business and start to
get some success, I thinkoffshore Australia.
You know Australia welcomes you.
I can say that because I'msitting over here on the other
side of the Tasman.
I think you're going to doincredibly well.
(44:04):
This is, I think you'resomebody that we're going to see
a lot of in the next decade asyou build this business and
maybe even future businesses outas well.
So I also think you're aninspiration to people who maybe
have young children, because,hey, you know, young children
need to keep populating thisplanet.
But it's tough, it's reallytough.
Having young children and doinga startup Like it's
exceptionally hard, and you seemto be doing a great job in
(44:28):
managing that.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Like I said, the joke was real, but there's always a
way to solve a problem.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Absolutely.
And it's that attitude, isn'tit, that gets you through.
So there's always a way tosolve a problem Absolutely, and
it's that attitude, isn't it,that gets you through.
So, yeah, really appreciateyour time today, kat.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Thank you so much for your time.
It's been great.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Hey, don't forget to check out Deskwork, the team
behind you, being able to buildhigh-performing offshore teams
for your startups and SMEs.
It's deskworkco.
Backslash, greg, and go andsave yourself some hard-earned
money.
No wasn't an option for me and like that's kind of
been a thing throughout my wholelife.
It's okay.
So if someone says no, I don'treally accept that.
It's kind of like okay.
So how can I work my way aroundthis to get the outcome that I
want?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Kat is the founder of LiveRen and ResolvePay and
actually, I think, a little bitof a serial entrepreneur when
you look into her background.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
And you know sometimes there's compromise in
that, but it's bringing theright people together to help us
get the outcome that weultimately want.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Absolutely, and it's that attitude, isn't it, that
gets you through.
Hey everybody, it's GregSheehan.
Welcome to my podcast, whereyou will hear from a range of
guests, including those from thestartup world and those that
have had incredibly interestinglives and some stories to tell.
I would really appreciate it ifyou could hit the follow button
(00:51):
and share this amongst yourfriends, but, as you know, time
is limited, so let's get on withit and hear from our next guest
.
I want to tell you a little bitabout desk work.
Desk work is your offshoringoption.
If you want to save around 50%of your total headcount cost for
equivalent talent acrossaccounting, marketing, sales,
(01:14):
your operations or your admin,then check out desk work.
Honestly, if I was looking tostart an accounting firm again,
it would be a no brainer for meto use desk work.
I've used offshoring teamsbefore in the past.
I got past my skepticism onbeing able to do it and it was
so phenomenally successful.
Go have a look at desk-workcobackslash, greg, and book
(01:39):
yourself a free discovery callto learn more about it.
Better still, yourself a freediscovery call to learn more
about it.
Better still, mention my nameand get yourself some discounts.
Check it out.
Now back to the show.
My guest today is Kat Weber.
Kat is the founder of LiveRemand ResolvePay and actually, I
think, a little bit of a serialentrepreneur when you look into
(02:00):
her background.
Welcome to the show, kat.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Hi, nice to speak to you this morning.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yes, well, and it's bright and early because I'm
recording this actually fromSydney, where I'm actually doing
this, from an Airbnb where thelighting is not great and Kat's
putting up with looking at me insuboptimal light, but it's
really lovely to chat to youtoday, thanks for having me.
Yeah, I love starting theseconversations by just
understanding a little bit aboutyou so before we get into the
(02:26):
startups, keen to talk aboutyour origin.
So you're a Baradine girl andan Auckland.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
University girl.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It doesn't strike me as somebody that would have gone
off into entrepreneurship.
You, lawyer, doctor, somehowyou got there.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
But tell us about your background.
I don't really define myself, Iguess, by the schools that I
went to.
I started my life that I wentto.
I started my life.
My parents are Irish well, mymum's Irish.
My dad is Kiwi, but Irishheritage as well, and they have
always kind of instilled in usthat you can do whatever you
want, like if you really putyour mind to it and you work
hard, do whatever you want.
(03:00):
And they've supported us withthat.
But, brothers and sisters, andbut my very first introduction
into working life was I was 10years old and I started walking
dogs.
I had a couple of dogs myselfand I was at the park and the
woman said to me do you want tomake some money and walk my dog
as well?
And I basically built up thisquite successful dog walking
business and saved all thismoney and could do all this
(03:22):
travel like.
I went to Sydney when I was 13to see my auntie and I figured
out that people would actuallypay me to do stuff that they
didn't want to do, which wasquite mind-blowing for a 10,
11-year-old.
Then I kind of saw some moreopportunities.
I started a spray tanningbusiness when we got to the
years of school balls and againpeople were like, oh, I need
(03:43):
this problem and I could solveit.
And with my little spray tanthing that I'd throw in the back
of my V-Dub golf and, you know,roll around and spray people's
bodies all over town soundsweird when you say that out loud
.
And then I went to universityand did Christmas tree business
like a Christmas tree businessand you know it wasn't just like
(04:05):
a side of the road hustle, wehad a real operation going on.
We had like deals with localcafes where you could, if you
bought a Christmas tree with us,you'd get a free coffee or if
you were from one of the localschools, you get, you got
cheaper Christmas trees.
You know we were kind of liketrying to be really innovative
instead of just being aChristmas tree seller.
We had F-Off, which was a hugething and into when I was early
(04:27):
2011 or 2010 we would have donethat so it was.
So it was like all the stuff.
We tried to be different, likemy parents and my family and,
you know, even the schools thatI went to were always very
supportive of what I wanted todo and how I wanted to do it.
And then I also had this likereal self-belief that if I gave
it a try, there was always awanted to do and how I wanted to
do it.
And then I also had this likereal self-belief that if I gave
it a try, there was always a wayto do what I wanted to do.
(04:49):
It didn't always work out theway that I wanted to, but it
definitely kind of learn as yougo through these things, don't
you?
And went into the morecorporate world after finishing
my degree and learned, I guess,my stripes a little bit in those
spaces, working in banking andone of the big four consulting
firms, and you learn a lot inthose environments.
(05:09):
I also learnt that wasn'treally the environment that I
wanted to do long-term and someamazing people and some amazing
lessons, but for me, I think,being able to carve my own path
and to be able to solve theproblems in the way that I
wanted to solve them rather thanhaving, I guess, to tick boxes
and follow the big organizationstrategy.
(05:30):
And that's how I started inResolve, payspace, and nearly
five years ago, yeah it's reallyinteresting.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
If you look into your background you can see the
entrepreneurial sort of DNA inthere early and then when you
hear about your story, there isalmost like if I was a betting
man and I was placing a bet onyour career at the beginning.
You could tell almost early onthat you were going to get
uncomfortable in a corporate orconsulting or government
(05:58):
environment and that you neededto be able to set your own path,
build your own businesses andthose sorts of things.
It's sort of, in a way, nosurprise, and the Christmas tree
business is an example of thatright.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, I think I got quite frustrated in those
corporate environments because Icould see that there was some
really cool stuff that washappening, but the way that they
were going about doing itdidn't really make sense to me.
I was like we could do this somuch better and so much smarter,
with a better outcome for ourcustomers and cheaper.
And that's, I guess, kind ofwhere the result piece really
(06:32):
was born.
It's internal audit effectively.
We look at compliance to theholidays act so we make sure
companies understand how to paypeople when they take leave.
It's not the best barbecue chat, honestly.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
You go around and you're like how did you get
started in something like that?
I mean, there is a pain pointthere, but did you just go right
, I want to do a startup, andwhat's the problem?
Or did you just sort of fallover it?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I fell over it, like when I was working at EY.
We did a lot in that space andthey still do a lot in that
space and they still do a lot inthat space a big full
consulting firm but their modelat the time and this was nearly
10 years ago was using a verymanual approach.
They had 400 people that theyoutsourced it to in India to run
their recalculation approachfor when people get their
(07:19):
holiday at the front.
I left there and had my firstbaby and, rather than wanting to
go back into working in anotherkind of corporate environment,
I thought I wonder if we coulddo something in this holiday pay
space.
That's different than howeverybody else is doing it, and
I was at the time contracting toNZTA and Jonathan Morgan, who's
(07:42):
now a co-founder and bothresults and library, was working
there.
He's like one of those techgeniuses who you ask him to
solve a problem, he says no andthen he fixes it two days later.
He's amazing, and so every dayI'd be like to him.
I want to do this and I've kindof like written the algorithm
for it, because I did stats inmy degree and I kind of knew how
it should go, but I'm not acoder and I'm not a details
(08:05):
person to really understand andwrite code.
And so, jonathan, can you findsomeone who can help me do this?
Basically pissed at him everyday for six months and then he
was like fine, I'll build it.
And we built resolve pain.
And we knew that it was aproblem that people needed to
solve, but you know know, theydidn't have the big four budget
really.
So we thought, if we build itand we make it accessible for
(08:29):
everybody, then hopefully that'ssomething that you know people
would want.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
And they did how does it work?
So I've got a limitedunderstanding of some of the
challenges in holiday pay I used.
Well, I'm still a charteredaccountant.
I used to be in practice, so Ikind of have some broad
understanding that it's complex.
But is this a product thatplugs into payroll systems, or
who's your customer?
Give us a bit of picture ofwhat it does.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah.
So with ResolvePay it's kind oflike consulting that's powered
by tech would be the best way todescribe it.
So we have consultants thatwill go in and work with our
customers to help themunderstand if they've got a
problem, and then, when we knowthat they do, we can use our
technology.
We built a tool that basicallydoes all the recalculations.
So basically, if they get itwrong, they have to go back and
(09:16):
recalculate for seven years-ishor more if they want to, every
instance of leave, everyemployee, to make sure that
they've been paid correctly, andour toll just runs that through
very quickly.
I guess what that exposure inthat business showed us is
there's so much value in payrolldata and people don't have the
ability to easily tap into thatknowledge within that data set,
(09:40):
which is where live rem was bornfrom.
We're like we understand how toget the data out of payroll
systems.
We we understand how to make itmake sense.
So how then do we use that tohelp our customers in a
different way?
And so we started havingconversations around what is it
that people want and need andwhere are those pain points in
that space?
And with LiveRam, it's all verywell wanting to go and hire
(10:04):
someone, but what should we bepaying them and what's the
market rate for that persontoday, not six months ago?
And so we built the directintegration into payroll systems
to give real-time salary datafor people on how much someone's
role is really worth.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Which is really cool, and that is something that's
common across both the consumeror the employee looking to know
what they're worth, but alsofrom an employer perspective,
trying to figure out how much topay, and so you integrate then
into payroll systems as well,which is very cool.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, payroll and HR systems.
Yeah, it's a real-time value,real-time platform, so it's
reliant on our customers sharingtheir data in.
We anonymize it and aggregateit, but then give a view back to
all our customers of how muchtheir role is worth in the
market and a whole lot of otherpieces that we do with that.
And mapping roles making surethat they are actually mapped to
(10:55):
a role that makes sense, notjust on a job title basis.
And now we're getting more intothe insights piece.
So, okay, what's your genderpay gap, for example?
Or what's your gender pay gap,for example, or what's your
turnover?
And you can start to use thisdata to really diagnose the
health of your organisation.
Why has this department all ofa sudden had a real increase in
turnover and it's a turnover inwomen or your organisation as a
(11:18):
whole is trending down on yourturnover?
Is that a good thing?
And you know you start toactually ask questions based on
data rather than just feeling sowhat's the bigger picture play
for you guys.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
If you're building out a data play for
employee-based data, where canyou see this going?
What would you like to do?
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I think I think the opportunities are huge in this
space.
Obviously, new zealand is agreat market, but even being
able to kind of look up acrossAustralia and beyond as well,
around how we so at first, weprimarily give people their
information on their own company, but then the second part of
that is we benchmark it.
So okay, your company's goinglike this, but what does that
(11:55):
actually mean?
Is another company performingin the same way?
And then how does that lookbeyond your industry or your
region or your country, so youcan start to give our customers
some real value?
I guess like a target or amarker on how they're performing
, or very well to have your owndata, but how do you know if
you're actually doing well?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
And so how did you get started with Jonathan?
So you sort of bugged him dayin, day out and then he starts
to build the code.
At what point did you sort ofleave your day jobs and jump
into this?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I took the leap first .
We basically have always hadthe model with both ResolvePay
and LiveRamp, that we won'tbuild something unless someone
wants it.
So we sold some work to ourfirst customer with ResolvePay
and then I think I left.
About that same time mycontract with NZTA finished and
I didn't really go back into it.
(12:46):
I didn't look for any otherpaid work sorry, I should say
paid employment because I wasgetting paid by ResolvePay but
not by anyone else and I thinkit must have been about a year
or 18 months of me just sellingwork and doing it Jonathan
working in the evening, if Ineeded his help and then we got
to a point where we'd won somepretty big contracts.
(13:06):
We were starting to win work offthe big four.
We you know a couple of NZXlisted companies.
It wasn't just you know yourcorner business anymore.
We're actually starting to makea real impact in the market.
And I got to a point where Iwas like I need you out.
The working late nights is notworking for us to grow this
business sustainably.
So he finished his role at WayBeyond and came and worked full
(13:30):
time where we've been doing itever since.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
That's a big move, and so you've bootstrapped it
all the way through, or have youraised no external capital?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
No, we have been quite clear in our vision of how
we want to grow organically anduse our own money effectively.
To do that, it's been tough attimes.
I think it's.
One of the hard things aboutbootstrapping is you do have to
make sacrifices.
I haven't really worked in acompany with VC funding for a
long time of going let's justhave more capital, so I can't
(14:00):
pass judgment on that, but forus it was very much.
We want to do this ourselvesand we want to be able to make
our own decisions and we wantflexibility and the lifestyle as
well.
I've got a four-year-old and atwo-year-old.
I want to be able to pick themup from kindy or go on a kindy
trip or be able to be home ifthey're sick.
I don't feel I could probablyget that in the same way if I
was taking external funding.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, it's really interesting, and I don't know
whether it's just me, but I'mbecoming more aware of companies
that are bootstrapping not justout of New Zealand or Australia
but globally.
Now, whether that's some sortof response to what's happened
with venture capital in the lastfew years it's got kind of
overheated and then valuationshave come back or whether it is
just this push for a betterlifestyle and people are looking
to just literally row their ownboat, that's hard to know.
So you got started and thenbasically you're building a
services revenue.
(14:49):
At the same time, you'rebuilding the tech to support it,
which is it's very smart.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
I mean, the consulting is what I've kind of
always done.
It's what I did when I camestraight out of university, so
I'm very familiar with theconsulting space.
Honestly, the live room stuffhas probably been a bigger shift
for me personally, becausewe're selling SaaS effectively
and that's a totally differentballgame.
I can go I'll quite happily goand stand in front of a
boardroom of a whole bunch ofpeople and pitch my services for
(15:15):
ResolvePay.
I'm much less comfortable inthis space than selling a fast
product, which I don't know ifthat's weird, but yeah, it's
very different.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It's very different, isn't it?
They're very different salesprocesses, very different ways
of marketing.
So with ResolvePay, just to tryand paraphrase and to help me
understand, you're going intomeeting rooms, you're meeting
with companies that know theymay have a potential problem or
have identified they have got aproblem.
You go in there, identify thesize and scale of the issue and
then go and look at fixing it.
(15:44):
So it's a B2B, almost anenterprise sales process,
whereas in the world of SaaS forlive REM, it's a very different
proposition.
Who's your customer with liveREM?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Is it the employee or the employer, employer and
actually a lot of the time it'sthe same customers as Resolve
Pay it's.
You know well, I kind of targetcustomers, companies over 100
people, but effectively we couldhave any company size from any
industry who's interested inunderstanding what to pay people
and how that compares to therest of the market.
So far our customers have beenvery much in the tech space
(16:19):
retail, media, agencies,construction, which I think was
quite interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So, like civil engineers and actual
construction companies as welland those who may be already
using a benchmarking service butwant that real-time data and
that ability to get real,valuable benchmarks and how have
you sort of gone about buildinga business in sass, if I
presume I don't know aboutjonathan, but if you hadn't
built a sass business before,how have you sought help?
(16:47):
Who's helped?
How's that worked?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Jonathan has been in this space before, so he worked
for E-Road and way beyond, sohe's kind of worked in that SaaS
world.
I have a lot of conversationsand when we first started I
guess we had a lot ofconversations with HR
professionals around what theyneeded and what they wanted.
I don't know if I've directlyasked people around how to build
(17:11):
a SaaS business.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
But you're doing that right, you're out there and
you're just making it happen andin that sense, because I think
there'll be a lot of peoplelistening wherever they're
listening New Zealand, australiaand more broadly around the
world, who are in a day job andthey maybe haven't worked in
SaaS.
They would like to start a SaaSbusiness.
So, for those who don't knowwhat SaaS means software as a
service, so basicallysubscription-based software and
(17:36):
listening to your story, I'mthinking, well, kat has done it
and Kat and Jonathan have madethis work.
So how did she do it?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
So, yeah, just talking to lots of people, of
people, the networks, yeah, Ithink just no wasn't an option
for me and like that's kind ofbeen a thing throughout my whole
life, it's okay.
So if someone says no, I don'treally accept that.
It's kind of like okay.
So how can I work my way aroundthis to get the outcome that I
want?
So I wanted to start a SaaScompany.
What's the basic fundamentals?
(18:02):
Well, we need a product thatpeople want, so so how do we
know people want it?
We'll talk to a whole lot ofpeople and basically design a
product.
And I'm not an expert in designI'm not really I would say I'm
really an expert in anything butI think I'm quite good at
finding people who know how todo stuff and helping them help
me to get what I want ultimately.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Would you say that's your superpower?
Is that like if you were to beasked the question you know what
is your key strength here?
I hate the phrase, but I use ita lot the zone of genius Like
what are you really good at andhow does that help what you do?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I think that's probably what it would be Not
taking no and then, if we do geta no, finding a way to get a
yes.
And you know, sometimes there Ihave that attitude in all parts
of my life.
I think my husband would sayI'm very tenacious.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And you have to be to be a startup founder, right?
You just have to be.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, and it's funny, my daughter's nearly five and
they always say it's really hardto parent a mini version of
yourself and I'm definitelyfinding that with her a bit like
the negotiations at bedtime,like, oh, am I actually like
that in how I operate in myday-to-day life?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
because I think I probably am allows you to be
self-reflective yeah, I think Ilike to think that I'm really
good at finding people to helpus achieve a goal and help them
be the best version ofthemselves, and doing that as
well yeah, I think it'sinteresting because, you know, I
often talk to either wannabestartup founders or early stage
startup founders who arestruggling and always say to
(19:36):
them look, the reality of doinga startup is it's like having to
solve a Rubik's Cube and youget a new Rubik's Cube.
That's sort of all messed up.
Every single day there's a newpuzzle or problem to solve, and
generally you're doing it whilealmost the shop clock is running
down or while a heat lamp is on.
You Like it's really hard andyou've got to do that for
(19:58):
probably a decade.
That's just the sport you'vechosen right.
So being tenacious is exactlywhat you need.
And are you somebody that wouldsay that that strength is
something you should double downon, or are you somebody who
would rather kind of look atyour weaknesses and then start
addressing your weaknesses?
People have different views onthis.
I'm interested in double downon your strengths or improve
(20:19):
your weaknesses.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I'd probably double down on strengths All four.
If you're good at tennis andbad at maths, get a tennis coach
, not a maths tutor.
Yeah, absolutely yeah.
That's probably me, like what'sgoing to get us there fastest?
And also I want to enjoy whatI'm doing as well, not to say
that I don't work on myweaknesses, and I think I try to
(20:41):
be reflective, but I think thedouble down would be for me.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I think it's really important for people to think
about that, because I think ifyou focus on your weaknesses,
all you're really doing isgetting back to average.
So you're bringing yourselfback up to par, and nobody
that's ever done anything reallyworld changing is average.
They're just not.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Or get someone to help you do it, like there's
some stuff that I'm really notgood at.
Sometimes it's a hard pill toswallow that I'm not good at it
because I think I am.
And then I look at the resultand I'm like so you know, get
someone in to come and help youthat will talk to someone about
how to do it and you know theymight teach you something that
you didn't know and you mightthen be able to do it yourself,
or you can get them to do it foryou.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, and tell us what's been the biggest
challenge in working foryourself, building both services
business professional servicesbusiness backed by tech, and
then a SaaS business.
What's the hardest challengethat you've had over the last
four or five years?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I think the very first thing was the fact that
you've had over the last four orfive years.
I think the very first thingwas the fact that you were like
a move from a regular income tono guaranteed income and I feel
really lucky that we've beenable to build something that
people want and will pay us for,both in Resolve, pay and
LiveRam.
The juggle is really real and Ifeel like I say this a lot to
people.
You know, I've got two youngkids.
(21:53):
I've got two businesses, myhusband's also self-employed.
We have a lot of juggle and wehave a lot of risk.
We're comfortable with that,but it is hard some days of
going.
Okay, there's a lot here thatwe're trying to figure out.
I think the hardest part wasprobably we had a 12-month
period where it felt likeeverything was going wrong.
(22:13):
We also decided to build ahouse, which at the worst
possible time to build a house,when prices were skyrocketing.
So we had like a three-year-old, a one-year-old, basically
three businesses and we werebuilding a house and we had a
build company.
That was a real shocker to dealwith.
So that was a really hard 12months of going.
(22:34):
Oh my God, I feel like we'renot getting any relief in any
space.
The kids are sick.
You have to be up all nightwith them and then get up in the
morning in front to thismassive client about how you've
done all this work.
Go in and pitch your new SaaScompany and think about the
strategy of what's going to beour go-to-market strategy on
that.
(22:54):
Or can we pay our bills nextmonth, or you know all these
different priorities that youhave to try and work through,
and there were definitely dayswhere I was like this is really
hard.
Yeah, I'm finding this reallyreally difficult and I can't see
a way through with a lot of itas well.
But I think we just picked itoff one little bit at a time and
I thought the highest prioritytoday and what can we win today,
(23:15):
rather than trying to solve allof the problems at once.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Were there times where you wanted to give up,
where you just wanted to go backand get a paid role, or did you
go?
No, I've got this.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I don't think there was any time where I was wanting
to go back and work in a paidrole.
There were definitely timeswhen I was like I really wish
that this was over right now andI don't see how it's even not
going to be like this.
But I really believe in whatwe're doing with Resolve, pay
and Live Rem, so I knew that itwas the right thing to do.
(23:47):
It was like we need to justsolve these problems to be able
to get through it and, honestly,a lot of this stuff was more
around the wider personal stuffthat I had going on with.
You know the reality of havingyoung kids and, yeah, it's
building a house, it'schallenging.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I mean, I think for those listening who are thinking
about doing a starter, your 20sare a great time because if you
generally don't have children,or if you do, you know it's kind
of rare.
So you know you've got nodependents, you've probably got
no income and not a lot of money, but you don't have that kind
of that issue of raisingchildren, buying houses.
Your 30s and 40s are nutsbecause you're raising kids,
(24:22):
you're building houses, there'slittle kids running around.
It's really challenging andit's not till your 50s like old
guys like me, where the kidshave all grown up.
Life is a little bit easieragain.
So the 30s and 40s are almostlike a valley of death.
You know they're really hard.
It's like going for a run andyou're putting weights on your
back while you're doing astartup.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So it's challenging because I think the other thing
that people I didn't reallycomprehend prior to starting
this is like you don't get anyleave, you don't get mat leave I
don't take mat leave witheither of my kids and you don't
get sick leave and you don't getholidays.
You're committed to this, justlike you're committed to kids.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
There's no off yeah, there's no, there's no off ramp,
yeah yeah yeah, and tell us alittle bit about know your gap
like there must be some reallyinteresting insights that you're
starting to get there.
It was gender and gender paygaps, etc.
Tell us a bit about that yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
So the know your gap in science is basically a free
insights dashboard for anycompany to be able to know and
understand their gender pay gap,and it's something that has
always been a really passionatearea for me of having equality
in the workplace for men andwomen.
It's something I saw in my morecorporate life, you know,
working in banking and workingin consulting firms.
(25:32):
This tool gives the insights tothe company so that they don't
really have any excuse to not doanything about it.
We also see some reallyinteresting insights.
A lot of it is actually lessabout people being paid the same
amount for the same role.
I think in New Zealand, in a lotof spaces, we're actually doing
really well in that regard.
(25:53):
It's more around therepresentation at the level.
So, okay, you know everybody inthe same company might be.
You know all the junior peopleare on the same amount and the
senior people are on the sameamount, but how many women are
sitting at your exec table, howmany women are in your middle
management?
And that's, I think, wherewe've got a lot of space to
improve or opportunity toimprove in.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Hey, just let me pause you there for a second and
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(26:56):
headaches.
Let's get back to the show.
It's such a fascinating area.
I've I've got two daughters whoare young adults now.
We've had this conversationaround the family dinner table
for a decade or more how do weimprove this like, how do we
make this much, much better?
What are you seeing companiesdo to change this and make sure
we are getting full parity?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I think a lot of companies who are being quite
progressive in this space arebeing really conscious about it
by doing things like ensuringthat they interview both men and
women for every role.
As an example and jonathanactually speaks to this, he they
did this way beyond.
When he worked there theyintroduced this policy to
interview a male and female forevery role and they ended up
(27:38):
hiring people they never wouldhave interviewed.
So it was a real eye-opener forhim around.
Maybe there is probably anunconscious bias that people
don't even realize that theyhave and on paper you might have
someone who doesn't necessarilytick the box, but when you
interview them they might besuitable for a role.
I think there's also, speakingto friends of mine, they will be
(28:01):
hesitant to apply for a roleunless they feel like they tick
every single box.
So I don't know how we do thisnecessarily, but encouraging
people to step outside of theircomfort zone and also making it
easier from a companyperspective to look for women
who may not necessarilyautomatically apply for a job.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
That is a really interesting insight and I've
seen that before and where,let's say, there's 10
requirements for a job.
If a boy has two of them andI'm speaking from personal
experience and I've got a son ifhe has two of those 10, he's
like well, I've got what ittakes, I'll go do it.
The two daughters.
If they don't have all 10, theydon't think they've got what it
(28:48):
takes, Yet they've got a verystrong mother, a very strong
grandmother both professionals,and yet they look at the world
that way.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
How do we change that ?
Yeah, I know it's something Ithink about about a lot.
I've got a son and a daughteras well and we're talking a
little bit before we started onthis call about we live near the
beach and we've got a skimboardand my daughter looks at it and
she assesses all the risks andshe's like, okay, is the wave
coming?
Is who's walking down the beachand am I going to be able to do
it?
And she runs and she nails it.
She can really far.
My son is two and he's like Isee a board, I see a wave, I'm
(29:17):
going to go for it.
Like he doesn't have that kindof same cautiousness about him.
I'm not saying I don't thinkshe should have cautiousness.
I think it's great that she'saware and assessing the risk.
But I don't know how we changethat around, making our girls
and our women feel comfortableto push themselves outside their
comfort zone and like what'sthe worst that could happen.
You know, in that case shefalls over and we get back up
(29:39):
and we we do it again and Ithink that's probably something
that I feel really lucky with myparents of going.
Well.
You know, as I've grown up,what's the worst thing that
could happen.
They were always there to pickme up.
You know, three o'clock in themorning if I got stuck trying to
get home from being in town orif I was unwell and I needed
help, they'd come and help me.
Put in that security aroundwomen to go.
(30:00):
It's okay to fail and you'lllearn something Some of the
hardest things I've ever done.
I look back now and I'm like doI regret that?
No, I don't.
Would I do it again if the sameopportunity presented me?
Absolutely not.
But I've learned from thoselessons.
But I'm glad that I experiencedthem as well.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, it's so interesting.
I mean, there's obviously somany things we could touch on
here around conditioning of boysand girls and that sort of
thing, but the comment you justmade is it's okay to fail.
Whether you're a guy or a girl,you know, it is okay to fail.
It's life and it's the journeyof life and there's no shame in
failing, right like it's justgive things a go.
Now you touched on the factthat you live near the beach and
(30:37):
, as you said, we were talkingabout that.
You know, prior startingrecording this morning, you made
this shift from the big smokeup to country life.
How does that go with being astartup founder and living out
in the country?
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I found it really hard the first six months that
we moved up here.
I'd never lived anywhere likewithout being right in the
middle of a city.
You know, I lived right in themiddle of Auckland.
I moved to Sydney and I spentsome time, you know, in Europe
and I was never country.
But we moved up and it's beenthe best thing that I could ever
(31:09):
ever recommend to anybody.
And the biggest part for me isactually just being able to have
complete separation from thathustle of the city, to get
perspective.
So I go for a walk in thecountryside every morning and
this morning it was completelyfoggy.
I kind of walked over this hilland you could see I was like
above the fog and the sun wasshining.
This is just the best way tostart the day.
(31:30):
We walk on the beach.
My husband also works from home.
We walk on the beach most days.
It's just I find that reallygrounding and you know, then I
go into my hustle and you can dothat now.
Thank you, covert, to be ableto be more remote.
So that's one thing that's beenreally great for us.
We're the whole pain library.
We're both 100 remote companies, so we do have the tools and
(31:50):
ability to work forever.
So yeah, yeah and what?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
is there much of a supportive tech community?
You and I chatted a week or twoback about people we know in
common and you're up inNorthland.
Is there much of a group?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, we've got a great community here.
We've got a little techcommunity group Josh, who's been
on your podcast before, fromMakahu, he's up here and there's
a couple of GD1 in the Gatineyshe's just down the road and our
kids all play together and theyall go to school together,
which is quite cool, and there'slots of different people
working in that tech space.
We probably need to catch upmore than we do.
(32:25):
Honestly, I think we're allquite busy, but it's nice to
just have those touch points andpeople who understand what's
going on.
We have a.
I had an article a couple ofmonths ago that came out and
instantly the WhatsApp grouppipes up going hey,
congratulations, because it canbe quite lonely working from
home and not having that vibeand all those people around you
(32:46):
that you might be more used toin a different working
environment.
So the community up here isfantastic and I fully
underappreciated how amazingthat would be compared to living
in the city before we moved uphere yeah, and look, I am also a
huge advocate for countryliving.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I did that for 20 years, raising our family and
and doing startups at the time,and so it was super challenging,
but that small countryenvironment was just fantastic,
absolutely fantastic.
And you are also somebody whois quite close to your Irish
heritage.
As you said, your mum is Irish.
I yeah a long time ago.
I am of Irish descent.
(33:24):
How do you get involved withyour Irish roots in New Zealand?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
so I am not as active as I used to be, but I used to
be quite involved in the StPatrick's Festival, which is
basically a celebration of Irishheritage that is run in
Auckland every year.
There's also the Irish BusinessNetwork which I don't go to as
often Festival, which isbasically a celebration of Irish
heritage that is run inAuckland every year.
There's also the Irish BusinessNetwork, which I don't go to as
often as I should since movingout of the city, as they do a
lot of breakfasts, but just somereally beautiful people who get
together to, I guess, celebratethe Irish heritage but also to
(33:50):
kind of share values andknowledge and business contacts
and celebrate what it is, Iguess, to be Irish.
It's really funny, growing up asa Kiwi, I consider myself to be
a Kiwi, but with parents whohave very strong connections to
Ireland.
I mean, my mum's accent is sothick Half the time I think my
husband even is like what didyou say again?
(34:11):
So she's very, very, very Irish.
So you kind of live in thisin-between of having this really
beautiful connection back toIreland and it's an amazing
place and I've spent quite a bitof time there.
But then I also feel very NewZealand Kiwi as well, and I
think there's actually a lot ofsimilarities between the two
cultures.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
It's interesting because I think, as humans, we
all have a really deep need toconnect with our tribes and our
ancestry is a huge way of beingable to connect with where we
came from, if you like, ourwhakapapa, using the Maori term
and understanding your culturalheritage is really, really
(34:52):
critical.
It's a source of identity.
It's just such a beautifulthing to be a part of and,
honestly, nobody does it betterthan the Irish.
Like the Irish.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, they're incredible.
Right, they really are.
And I think it comes back toand you know, the real
similarities, particularlybetween the Maori culture and
the Irish culture, is thatfamily and people and the
importance of looking after yourpeople and looking after other
people as well.
And I think that's beeninstilled in me throughout my
life and something I try toteach my own children is you
(35:22):
know, we could have all themoney in the world or we could
have nothing, but we shouldstill treat people with the same
respect and build thosecommunities around us.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Building a startup like this,as you've touched on, is
challenging, like it's really,really tough.
And you are living out in thecountry.
How do you get inspired, like,what is it that you do, whether
it's something that you read, orwhether you get out into nature
or go for a run?
How do you recharge?
Because you, you know you needthose batteries filled for being
(35:53):
able to do what you do.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
I try to walk every day.
Love, love, love walking.
So that's probably like mynumber one thing and spending
time with my kids.
I learn so much from them andthe questions that they ask or
how they see the world.
We went down a couple of weeksago and we just did.
We had the best time and Iturned my phone off and like
those kind of little and oftentouch points with them to really
(36:16):
, you know, get some energy andbe able to take on the day and
you know, like I said before,just going for a walk in the
morning before I do anythingelse really helps.
But I don't actually read a lotanymore.
I used to be a real avid reader.
What I read now is pretty trashyromance novels and yeah, watch
(36:37):
Bridgerton or Below Deck orsomething like that, just like
totally disengage.
I will, you know, if I'mdriving down to the city, I
which I do somewhat often, notas much as I used to I'll try
and listen to a podcast to getmyself in the zone.
And you know, I've listened toyour podcast before and I've,
you know, another, a few otherkind of founder-inspiring or
(36:57):
business podcasts.
Jonathan often gives me bookson business.
He probably doesn't.
I don't know if I've even toldhim that I haven't read many of
them.
They kind of just sit there.
So, yeah, I think I take moreof the inspiration from just
checking out and having thatheadspace to let things kind of
come to life in my own head.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I don't know if anybody can hear in the
background, but I have recentlymoved to Sydney and the bird
life honestly, the wildlife inthis place is just nuts.
I can hear these birds goingcrazy, so I don't have a parrot
for anybody that can listen orcan hear that Now you are a mum
and you've got young childrenand you're doing a start-up.
That's super challenging, likereally really hard, and there
(37:39):
will be some women out there whowould love to go and do a
startup and maybe they've gotyoung children.
Any tips or thoughts on how togo about doing that that you've
kind of discovered?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I think two things.
For me have, if can have, areally amazing support system
and for me, like my husband hasbeen, I would not be able to do
this without him Like he's justexceptional.
He just really picks up a lotof the slack with the kids.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And that's how it should be.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Go home.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
He loves it, yeah, but not just the kids, but just
our life in general.
Like he's kind of he's got hisown business, he's self-employed
in that, but at the end of theday, he's like what's going to
be the best for our family, andright now for us, that's doing
the lion's share of the work interms of, like he cooks every
night and he does all of thekids' stuff and he's 100%
(38:35):
basically on them, which isreally awesome and me, like I'll
get to eat and he'll come inand he's like made me a
delicious lunch.
My God, it's four o'clockalready and I haven't had lunch.
So that would, I think, be themain thing.
And then just be reallycomfortable with failure.
You will get it wrong and notbeat yourself up too hard about
it and, honestly, most thingsare fixable and people's
memories are short.
I think People forgive you ifyou make a mistake and you own
(38:58):
it.
If you try and hide it, maybethat would be different, but I'm
quite comfortable with saying,hey, I didn't do the right thing
there.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, and the reality is we all fail.
Like every single one of us hasnever been a human alive who
hasn't failed.
Like that's just how we're madeand that's what happens.
And especially when we'retrying hard stuff, you know, the
harder the things are, the morelikely you are to fail.
But you're doing things thatare different to other people.
So absolutely, and it's notthat failure should be
celebrated, but it certainlyshouldn't be punished.
(39:26):
If you're trying something andyou're doing it honestly, you
know, give it a go.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, totally yeah.
I think kind of the other pieceas well.
So picking a partner in general, so other piece as well, so
picking a partner in general.
So you know, husband obviouslyextremely important.
And then for me the businesspartner piece as well and, like
Jonathan, is just awesome andwe've got a really great
relationship and we understandthat some days our kids are a
higher priority than thebusiness and some days it's the
business and you know we backeach other up.
(39:50):
So that's probably been a hardlearned lesson for me with some
other things that I've done inthe past around picking people
to work with.
And I'm so stoked that Jonathanalso likes working with me
because I think we're a reallygreat team.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
How did you make that work with Jonathan?
Because have you got any advicefor people in selecting
co-founders?
Because it's a toughrelationship.
We don't always get it right.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Yeah, we have an immense amount of respect for
each other and we're also quitecomfortable having hard
conversations and being like hey, you missed the mark here, but
at the end of the day we haveeach other's back.
You know he also has Irishheritage.
There's some commonality therearound.
We understand the backgroundsthat we come from.
I think for me, gut feeling wasreally important.
(40:38):
I mean, I knew him for a whilebefore.
We committed to doing ResolvePay Together, so that helped In
the past.
When I've done things withpeople and it hasn't worked out,
I kind of reflect on itafterwards why didn't that work?
And I look back.
I'm like I didn't listen tomyself there.
I knew that this was.
I probably got like blindsidedby the opportunity rather than
(40:59):
really understanding was thisthe right thing to be doing with
this person?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, it's so interesting because I think it's
very common for founders tohave disputes.
I had some advice actually froma guy I have huge amount of
respect for and he's a mucholder guy.
He's in his 80s now and he wasin business for a very long time
probably.
In fact is still technically inbusiness with a guy he started
being in business with from hisearly 20s and he's now in his
(41:24):
mid 80s and they're still inbusiness together.
And I said so what's the secretto that?
And he said we don't overlysocialize together, so we are
business partners.
And secondly, we just don'tfocus on the small stuff.
We just don't get annoyed aboutsmall stuff.
Let that go.
And I thought that was greatadvice.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Yeah, that's awesome advice and I think we would be
the same.
I mean, jonathan and I get onreally well, but we don't really
socialize.
I don't even make my friends onFacebook.
Our kids know each other and Iknow his life and he knows Tom
and it's cool, cool.
But I think that's a reallygood one, because otherwise you
can just be too involved in eachother's lives as well yeah, so
(42:03):
we're two here for LiveRam andResolvePay.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Where would you like to go now, in the next couple of
years?
What are the goals?
Speaker 1 (42:09):
so I think, liveram we would love to be in Australia
and then looking to goSingapore and Dubai, you know,
in the next three years or evenless, and then you know.
So that's kind of like from amarket perspective.
From a product perspective,it's about building out our
insights, creating more valuefor customers to be able to make
better data-driven decisions,and so how do we look at
(42:32):
creating, building out ourdashboard, for example, or using
kind of AI in a way to createmore value around?
What are the insights thatpeople want and how can they
access those really easily?
The results paper isinteresting because my dream for
that company is that it doesn'texist, which is a really weird
thing to say.
But it should not even existbecause we shouldn't have a
(42:55):
problem with this legislation.
It shouldn't be too hard forcompanies to be compliant with
this legislation and ensuretheir staff are being paid
properly.
In reality.
It will be interesting to seewhat happens.
The last government had aworking group to attempt to fix
it.
That has now been publicly saidby the current minister that
(43:16):
they're going to look at itagain and probably do something
different.
I don't know where that's going.
At the moment we still have abusiness.
So we'll just keep pickingalong doing what we're doing,
which is, you know, servicingpeople who need help in this
space, I think, trying to makeit more accessible to a wider
range of companies.
At the moment, we kind of domid to large.
We could do more, but it endsup hard for smaller companies to
(43:38):
do this, so trying to figureout a way to make it easy for
them as well.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
It has been a real honour chatting to you this
morning.
I suspect that in the next fiveto ten years we're going to see
a lot more of you and as youbuild this business and start to
get some success, I thinkoffshore Australia.
You know Australia welcomes you.
I can say that because I'msitting over here on the other
side of the Tasman.
I think you're going to doincredibly well.
(44:04):
This is, I think you'resomebody that we're going to see
a lot of in the next decade asyou build this business and
maybe even future businesses outas well.
So I also think you're aninspiration to people who maybe
have young children, because,hey, you know, young children
need to keep populating thisplanet.
But it's tough, it's reallytough.
Having young children and doinga startup Like it's
exceptionally hard, and you seemto be doing a great job in
(44:28):
managing that.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Like I said, the joke was real, but there's always a
way to solve a problem.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Absolutely.
And it's that attitude, isn'tit, that gets you through.
So there's always a way tosolve a problem Absolutely, and
it's that attitude, isn't it,that gets you through.
So, yeah, really appreciateyour time today, kat.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Thank you so much for your time.
It's been great.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Hey, don't forget to check out Deskwork, the team
behind you, being able to buildhigh-performing offshore teams
for your startups and SMEs.
It's deskworkco.
Backslash, greg, and go andsave yourself some hard-earned
money.
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