Hi Rowan, I wonder what your thoughts are on the availability of funding for startups, particularly tech startups in NZ? I see many reports of "lots of money available", but equally have many anecdotes of "couldn't get funding". One thing I note from various tech successes in NZ(which may be my bias) is that they had very short-term paths to generating revenue and very low research requirements (eg: Xero, Vend etc) ie, lower risk), as opposed to many US startups which stay in (funded) stealth for years and get funded for products that might not even conceptually work (high research requirement, Snowflake would be a good example). I don't see many examples of companies with complex tech products getting funded in NZ. Rocketlab being a notable exception. In your view, whats the relationship between seed funding and time to MVP? Logically, it should be correlated (more funding for longer MVPs, more uncertainty, more potential reward), but it seems inversely correlated. Is Peter Beck right, that Kiwis don't think big enough, or does the ecosystem not allow that thinking big?
Hi Rowan, I wonder what your thoughts are on the availability of funding for startups, particularly tech startups in NZ? I see many reports of "lots of money available", but equally have many anecdotes of "couldn't get funding". One thing I note from various tech successes in NZ(which may be my bias) is that they had very short-term paths to generating revenue and very low research requirements (eg: Xero, Vend etc) ie, lower risk), as opposed to many US startups which stay in (funded) stealth for years and get funded for products that might not even conceptually work (high research requirement, Snowflake would be a good example). I don't see many examples of companies with complex tech products getting funded in NZ. Rocketlab being a notable exception. In your view, whats the relationship between seed funding and time to MVP? Logically, it should be correlated (more funding for longer MVPs, more uncertainty, more potential reward), but it seems inversely correlated. Is Peter Beck right, that Kiwis don't think big enough, or does the ecosystem not allow that thinking big?