#21, Vaughan Fergusson, "Innovating impossible"

In this episode, Troy Hammond chats with his old boss and good friend Vaughan Fergusson.

Vaughan goes deep on the startup journey of a man who founded a company and did not know what he was doing and then sold it for $484m NZD.

He is open, honest, vulnerable and talks about his passion for not just Vend, but his charity and how to grow an ecosystem. We touch on how Innovation is the fastest was to transform our economy and many other topics.

While this one was longer than our usual, it is a great one and so strap in and hear from someone who does impossible things. 

Vaughan Fergusson (previously Rowsell) is the founder of Vend, pioneering cloud technology in retail globally, omni-channel commerce and invented the iPad retail point of sale. Vend is a New Zealand high-growth tech success story contributing significantly to the New Zealand tech eco-system over 12 years. Vend  was sold for $500m in 2021 to LightSpeed and remains the flagship retail product globally.

In 2014 he was the founder and trustee of The Pam Fergusson Charitable Trust running initiatives like OMGTech!, Mana Tangata, Voluntari.ly and The Institute of Awesome to teach innovation, creativity and technology to tamariki of all ages and backgrounds, in particular our youth who would not otherwise get the opportunity. Collectively the trust also works with educators across New Zealand empowering them to empower our future innovators.

He was EY's Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014, a judge for the 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year programme, and head judge for the 2021-22 programme.

Vaughan has been a Trustee, Judge, and Vice-Chair for the New Zealand Hi-tech Trust from 2015 - 2021 and remains as a judge for the 2023 awards.

Every year Vaughan does an impossible challenge, something to take him out of his comfort zone, like running 1,000km, learning to sing to get a paid gig in front of 100 people, or cycling around the world in 80 days.

Vaughan is a self-described weirdo and has spoken many times on the importance of challenging the status quo, thinking differently and trusting your inner weirdo. He is also a staunch ally for diversity in New Zealand and in the technology and creative sectors.

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