Christchurch is one of those cities where two degrees of separation from the next person you meet is almost guaranteed, it’s not uncommon to hear “so where do you work?” or “what school did you go to?” as people try to connect the dots to a common connection. With us being so well connected why are we not working together more often? I’ve said before that it feels like Christchurch companies and organisations operate in silos constantly trying to cut a new path or reinvent the wheel and it just makes it so much harder for themselves.
We have a lot of great companies in Christchurch that are world-class and we should be proud of that but we also need to look at the people inside those organisations as role models to help the next wave of innovation.
Great companies spawn from an idea and from founders with the determination to reshape the future. But founders need more than just determination to turn ideas into a reality, so why don’t we brainstorm collaboratively more often and help each other more cooperatively to succeed?
Ask any founder of a successful company if there are things that they would have changed to make it easier on themselves and they will give you a list as long as their arm. It’s not uncommon to hear stories of what they would have done differently like “I gave up too much equity early” or “we should have pivoted earlier” but when you dive deeper into it a common thread comes up. They will tell you that they wish that they had met a particular person earlier in their career, sometimes that person is their co-founder, their first hire, their business mentor, or just a random person that gave them good advice but most of the time it comes down to the connection and what that person bought to the table at that time.
Years ago I once met an inventor who told me about how his invention & patent was taken out from under him by a multinational corporation because he literally couldn’t get the ink to dry on his product, when I asked him “why didn’t you just use pigment based inks?” he looked at me dumbfounded and went on to explain that was exactly what the multinational corporation did and if he had met me 2 years earlier he would be a rich man.
You don’t know what you don’t know and we have a lot of expertise in our city that would be great to share. For the lack of a better word I think Christchurch needs a “think tank” but make sure it is a self-funded, informal, free-to-access, nonbureaucratic group of individuals who want to help connect some dots and help people fill in the crossword puzzle. Yes, there are business mentor programs and startup accelerators but sometimes you can fall on either side of these and you need a little direction, a bit of feedback, or some real-world advice so where can you turn?
