August 25, 2025 • 10 mins
Do younger Kiwis still have that No.8 wire mentality?
While some are concerned the younger generation is settling as opposed to striving and investing in their ideas and futures, others believe the worry is unfounded.
Icehouse Ventures, a venture capital company that backs Kiwi startups, hosted their 15th Annual Showcase last week, in which nine Kiwi founders presented to over 1,500 investors.
CEO Robbie Paul told Kerre Woodham young founders are coming in droves.
He says that founders tend to be inspired by looking at other success stories, and there’s more of those now, which is creating more start-ups.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd b now this time yesterday we were talking about
the comments made by a pick of Picks peanut butter,
and it was in an interview, a wide ranging interview
and probably a bit unfair to single them out, but
he said, I despair of the number of kids who
dream of nothing other than going to university and studying
(00:31):
marketing and selling more crap to people. I just did
it without knowing what I was meant to be doing.
I think it worked just by taking a chance. He's
worried that Kew's no longer young key, We's no longer
have that number eight wire mentality, the future entrepreneurs where
all they come from. So he was musing a lot
(00:51):
about that, and I was defending younger people, saying they're
doing all sorts of amazing things from startup companies and
science fairs, and there's all sorts of right ideas. And
then I saw a story this week about a showcase
last week where a one thousand investors gathered for a
(01:12):
banquet at Spark Arena where businesses presented to them. Startup
business is presented to them. It's from ice House Ventures.
It's a venture capital company that backs Kiwi's launching startups
by investing in their ideas and futures, and last Thursday
was their fifteenth annual showcase. Nine Key We founders presented
(01:33):
to more than fifteen hundred investors at Spark Arena and
across the country. Ice House Ventures Chief executive Robbie Pool
joins me, now, a very good morning to you.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Great to be here. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Are you batting off bright young key We entrepreneurs with
a bat You know, basically you've got more startup companies
approaching you than you can manage.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
There's a stunning group of companies up and coming, and
young founders in particular are coming and drove. So we're
really bullish. You know. I share your view on that
that it's it's sort of an stoppable force. At this point,
companies tend to come from other companies or founders tend
to be inspired to start companies looking at other success stories,
(02:14):
and there's just more of those, which is creating more
new startups.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
What makes a good entrepreneur?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, there's so many factors, right, And I think first off,
a good entrepreneur isn't made at a single moment a
good entrepreneurs made by successive failures and mistakes and overcoming
hurdles and many years right. And so there were plenty
of other founders out there the same day that Sir
Peter beck was starting rocket Lab that had other ideas,
(02:43):
and not all of them are standing in the same
form as Pete today. So what made him great was
is being persistent, picking a huge opportunity and going after
it and winning.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And it's amazing what people see, Like I'm always amazed
at the at the way that science and farming has
been check by Jahal in this country ever since refrigerated
shipping transformed our history. Really because they like Halter, I
think is one of those amazing companies as well.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Halter's just an exemplary example. So they were at the
twenty fifteen showcase. Craig actually was an intern for Sir
Peter Beckett Rocket Lab and grew up on a dairy
farm and Pete introduced me to Craig when he was
working on a different idea that was not quite as compelling,
and then Craig went away with his co founders and
(03:41):
observed something on the dairy farm, which is that you know,
animals need to be cajoled, even though they're relatively intelligent
to move or stay. And so we had a hypothesis
that he could do that using sound and vibration on
a geolocated collar. And that was a hypothesis, and half
a million cows later, that's a very well proven opportunity.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Do you get a real kitching moment when some of
these young people come to you pitching their ideas?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
It's so exciting. Yeah. And you know, the one stat
that I love the most is that if you look
at the one hundred and fifty six companies at the
showcase events over the last fourteen years, right, and we
invested in one hundred and twenty of them, if you
were to segment those by age, just by decades, so
did you start in your twenties, thirty forties and so on.
Most people wouldn't believe this, but the highest performing group
(04:36):
are the twenty year old founders, right. And I think
there's some good reasons for that.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Young founders are closer to innovation. There's certainly more capital efficient, right.
They don't have kids and mortgages and private schools and
the like, and so rather than having to take home
large salaries they can spend that on advancing their business, right,
and if they can do that, they can achieve more
with less, and thus the investors benefit, right, And they're
(05:02):
also more more prone I think, to sort of swing
for the fences, right, they have nothing in this they
might as well build something huge and go for it.
And it's not just Halter, right, it's Crimson and partly
in Chersias and don Aerospace and Ethnic and more and
more young founders that have really proved themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And are they getting the investment they need from New
Zealand because for too long we had so many bright
ideas that couldn't get the capital they needed to take
it to the next step, so they had to sell
to overseas companies. Correct.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
That was a problem, and I don't believe it's a
problem anymore. Right. There's an abundant amount of capital that's
come into this market. It notably over the last decade,
about thirty new venture funds I've established, and all of
the venture funds are raised by my account, one point
nine billion dollars, right, So that's another one point nine
billion sitting there to invest in ambitious young entrepreneurs. And
(06:01):
capital scarcity, I don't believe is a limiting factor. I
think the good news is the great entrepreneurs can raise
as much as they want and the best part of
the news is that if they do so, they can
raise from Kiwis and thus the sort of virtuous cycle
can go on.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, exactly. And I think that when you talk about
the young people who take the swing and aren't afraid
to go for it, they don't see New Zealand as
the end of their dreams. They don't see a batch
and a BMW and you know, whatever it was that
used to be the ultimate for kiwis that stopped them
from going further. They had enough, so they stopped. Whereas
(06:37):
these kids want global domination, don't they some of them?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah? I mean, mission driven entrepreneurs is sort of what
we look for, right, And a mission of sort of
buying a batch is not something that's going to inspire
most investors to jump in, right. And again, you know,
I love that sort of expression. You cannot be what
you cannot see, and you can understand why a decade ago,
most entrepreneurs you're not able to see global success stories
(07:04):
and thus, you know, strugg to sort of visualize how
they could become one right fast forward, and you can
see not just you know, Sir Peter Beck and Rod
at zero, but you can actually see young founders not
that much older than you, like Jamie Beaton of Crimson
and Craig of Halter, having built really consequential businesses. And
I think that inspires a lot of engagement and hope.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So there's no entrepreneurs entrepreneurs school is there? How do
young go getters go and get it?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
That's a great question. I think the goodness is there's
you know, open doors across this country and frankly around
the world with kiwi's and folks that have had some
success and learned and had tribulations are more often than
not excited to share those with future generations. And so that, Yeah,
(07:57):
my core guidance is just get on the phone, go
on LinkedIn, and within ten minutes you can pretty much
connect anybody anywhere and learn from them, you know. And
then second is that some of the best group to
learn from are not the entrepreneurs who build a multi
billion dollar company, but ones that are just slightly ahead
of you. They've raised one more around the capital, they've
(08:18):
hired somebody, they've dealt with directors, they've redomiciled their company
offshore and those types of things. And the best thing
about entrepreneurs is when they're speaking to other entrepreneurs, they
have no agenda except to help those founders succeed.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And how did you choose who who was going to
present to the investors on the night? That must have
been tricky.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
It's a very difficult exercise, and.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
A variety of businesses, wouldn't you correct? Right?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I like to say to software companies, you're not competing
for one of ten slots. You're competing for really one
of one, because you can't have ten early stage, can't
have ten, late stage, can't have ten software, hardware, medtech,
you know, young founder, old founder, and so on. But
the other thing is that you know, the capital raises
(09:06):
great companies, don't you know? They don't take place on
a sort of a predictable timeline, right, Great companies can
raise quickly, and so having a fixed time to you know,
to present means that we have to sort of work
within those constraints, and and often that you know, requires
quite a bit of sort of cajoling and and hustling
(09:26):
to make sure that they show up.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And was it a success? Again?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It was a great success. Yeah, all nine companies did phenomenally.
H they all attracted a lot of interest and you know,
time will tell. The hard work begins after this event.
But generally the ideas is, you know, uh, you sell
your vision and attract support and then from there through
the heavy lifting to convince people to jump on board.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Well, I think we've convinced people that the entrepreneurs for
it is alive and well. Robbie, thank you very much
for your time. Robbie Pool from mysels Bench's CEO. It
is amazing. Honestly, when you look at those who present,
and they're just the ones who presented to the investors,
I don't even know what they do. The descriptions are
so specific and amazing. I have no idea what it
(10:18):
is that they do, but apparently it's very very good
and will go on to be enormously successful. Like Holter,
I think is my favorite one.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
For more from carry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Kerry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
He'd b now this time yesterday we were talking about
the comments made by a pick of Picks peanut butter,
and it was in an interview, a wide ranging interview
and probably a bit unfair to single them out, but
he said, I despair of the number of kids who
dream of nothing other than going to university and studying
(00:31):
marketing and selling more crap to people. I just did
it without knowing what I was meant to be doing.
I think it worked just by taking a chance. He's
worried that Kew's no longer young key, We's no longer
have that number eight wire mentality, the future entrepreneurs where
all they come from. So he was musing a lot
(00:51):
about that, and I was defending younger people, saying they're
doing all sorts of amazing things from startup companies and
science fairs, and there's all sorts of right ideas. And
then I saw a story this week about a showcase
last week where a one thousand investors gathered for a
(01:12):
banquet at Spark Arena where businesses presented to them. Startup
business is presented to them. It's from ice House Ventures.
It's a venture capital company that backs Kiwi's launching startups
by investing in their ideas and futures, and last Thursday
was their fifteenth annual showcase. Nine Key We founders presented
(01:33):
to more than fifteen hundred investors at Spark Arena and
across the country. Ice House Ventures Chief executive Robbie Pool
joins me, now, a very good morning to you.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Great to be here. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Are you batting off bright young key We entrepreneurs with
a bat You know, basically you've got more startup companies
approaching you than you can manage.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
There's a stunning group of companies up and coming, and
young founders in particular are coming and drove. So we're
really bullish. You know. I share your view on that
that it's it's sort of an stoppable force. At this point,
companies tend to come from other companies or founders tend
to be inspired to start companies looking at other success stories,
(02:14):
and there's just more of those, which is creating more
new startups.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
What makes a good entrepreneur?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, there's so many factors, right, And I think first off,
a good entrepreneur isn't made at a single moment a
good entrepreneurs made by successive failures and mistakes and overcoming
hurdles and many years right. And so there were plenty
of other founders out there the same day that Sir
Peter beck was starting rocket Lab that had other ideas,
(02:43):
and not all of them are standing in the same
form as Pete today. So what made him great was
is being persistent, picking a huge opportunity and going after
it and winning.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And it's amazing what people see, Like I'm always amazed
at the at the way that science and farming has
been check by Jahal in this country ever since refrigerated
shipping transformed our history. Really because they like Halter, I
think is one of those amazing companies as well.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Halter's just an exemplary example. So they were at the
twenty fifteen showcase. Craig actually was an intern for Sir
Peter Beckett Rocket Lab and grew up on a dairy
farm and Pete introduced me to Craig when he was
working on a different idea that was not quite as compelling,
and then Craig went away with his co founders and
(03:41):
observed something on the dairy farm, which is that you know,
animals need to be cajoled, even though they're relatively intelligent
to move or stay. And so we had a hypothesis
that he could do that using sound and vibration on
a geolocated collar. And that was a hypothesis, and half
a million cows later, that's a very well proven opportunity.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Do you get a real kitching moment when some of
these young people come to you pitching their ideas?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
It's so exciting. Yeah. And you know, the one stat
that I love the most is that if you look
at the one hundred and fifty six companies at the
showcase events over the last fourteen years, right, and we
invested in one hundred and twenty of them, if you
were to segment those by age, just by decades, so
did you start in your twenties, thirty forties and so on.
Most people wouldn't believe this, but the highest performing group
(04:36):
are the twenty year old founders, right. And I think
there's some good reasons for that.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Young founders are closer to innovation. There's certainly more capital efficient, right.
They don't have kids and mortgages and private schools and
the like, and so rather than having to take home
large salaries they can spend that on advancing their business, right,
and if they can do that, they can achieve more
with less, and thus the investors benefit, right, And they're
(05:02):
also more more prone I think, to sort of swing
for the fences, right, they have nothing in this they
might as well build something huge and go for it.
And it's not just Halter, right, it's Crimson and partly
in Chersias and don Aerospace and Ethnic and more and
more young founders that have really proved themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And are they getting the investment they need from New
Zealand because for too long we had so many bright
ideas that couldn't get the capital they needed to take
it to the next step, so they had to sell
to overseas companies. Correct.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
That was a problem, and I don't believe it's a
problem anymore. Right. There's an abundant amount of capital that's
come into this market. It notably over the last decade,
about thirty new venture funds I've established, and all of
the venture funds are raised by my account, one point
nine billion dollars, right, So that's another one point nine
billion sitting there to invest in ambitious young entrepreneurs. And
(06:01):
capital scarcity, I don't believe is a limiting factor. I
think the good news is the great entrepreneurs can raise
as much as they want and the best part of
the news is that if they do so, they can
raise from Kiwis and thus the sort of virtuous cycle
can go on.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, exactly. And I think that when you talk about
the young people who take the swing and aren't afraid
to go for it, they don't see New Zealand as
the end of their dreams. They don't see a batch
and a BMW and you know, whatever it was that
used to be the ultimate for kiwis that stopped them
from going further. They had enough, so they stopped. Whereas
(06:37):
these kids want global domination, don't they some of them?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah? I mean, mission driven entrepreneurs is sort of what
we look for, right, And a mission of sort of
buying a batch is not something that's going to inspire
most investors to jump in, right. And again, you know,
I love that sort of expression. You cannot be what
you cannot see, and you can understand why a decade ago,
most entrepreneurs you're not able to see global success stories
(07:04):
and thus, you know, strugg to sort of visualize how
they could become one right fast forward, and you can
see not just you know, Sir Peter Beck and Rod
at zero, but you can actually see young founders not
that much older than you, like Jamie Beaton of Crimson
and Craig of Halter, having built really consequential businesses. And
I think that inspires a lot of engagement and hope.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
So there's no entrepreneurs entrepreneurs school is there? How do
young go getters go and get it?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
That's a great question. I think the goodness is there's
you know, open doors across this country and frankly around
the world with kiwi's and folks that have had some
success and learned and had tribulations are more often than
not excited to share those with future generations. And so that, Yeah,
(07:57):
my core guidance is just get on the phone, go
on LinkedIn, and within ten minutes you can pretty much
connect anybody anywhere and learn from them, you know. And
then second is that some of the best group to
learn from are not the entrepreneurs who build a multi
billion dollar company, but ones that are just slightly ahead
of you. They've raised one more around the capital, they've
(08:18):
hired somebody, they've dealt with directors, they've redomiciled their company
offshore and those types of things. And the best thing
about entrepreneurs is when they're speaking to other entrepreneurs, they
have no agenda except to help those founders succeed.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And how did you choose who who was going to
present to the investors on the night? That must have
been tricky.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
It's a very difficult exercise, and.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
A variety of businesses, wouldn't you correct? Right?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I like to say to software companies, you're not competing
for one of ten slots. You're competing for really one
of one, because you can't have ten early stage, can't
have ten, late stage, can't have ten software, hardware, medtech,
you know, young founder, old founder, and so on. But
the other thing is that you know, the capital raises
(09:06):
great companies, don't you know? They don't take place on
a sort of a predictable timeline, right, Great companies can
raise quickly, and so having a fixed time to you know,
to present means that we have to sort of work
within those constraints, and and often that you know, requires
quite a bit of sort of cajoling and and hustling
(09:26):
to make sure that they show up.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And was it a success? Again?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It was a great success. Yeah, all nine companies did phenomenally.
H they all attracted a lot of interest and you know,
time will tell. The hard work begins after this event.
But generally the ideas is, you know, uh, you sell
your vision and attract support and then from there through
the heavy lifting to convince people to jump on board.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Well, I think we've convinced people that the entrepreneurs for
it is alive and well. Robbie, thank you very much
for your time. Robbie Pool from mysels Bench's CEO. It
is amazing. Honestly, when you look at those who present,
and they're just the ones who presented to the investors,
I don't even know what they do. The descriptions are
so specific and amazing. I have no idea what it
(10:18):
is that they do, but apparently it's very very good
and will go on to be enormously successful. Like Holter,
I think is my favorite one.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
For more from carry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks that be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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