Day trip to GridAKL

Inviting us into Auckland’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, GridAKL became our home during our Tuesday Summer Lab session. Said to be like our own little version of Google X, the campus was built in hopes that creating an accessible space to collaborate and network would allow innovation to flourish. From a screen on the wall displaying a digital Maori person that’s able to reply, reminiscent of Harry potter’s talking paintings to the GridAKL cafe being open to the public, there was a clear sense of inclusiveness, endless possibilities and creativity for budding entrepreneurs within the atmosphere. 

Beyond an informative guided tour of the building, a workshop run by Ken Erskine and Greg Sitters covered raising capital for startups. The workshop kicked off the day with heavy concepts such as formalized contracts in case someone gives you money early on, you become majorly successful and they want more back in equity. The importance of beating your competition by being the first to get to market. Rapid prototyping by market validation and customer feedback. Investors all being different and finally the idea of intelligent money. That your money is coming from a source that doesn’t treat your business as a plaything and ultimately supports you. A hardy workshop showcasing a wealth of knowledge. 

With us coming near the end of Summer Lab, on Thursday Mark MacLeod-Smith from Halter came in to go over pitching. A skill I personally felt like I was in a rush to learn with what next week and the week after was holding for my team and I. Using Genoapay’s pitch as an example, what I took from this was that central to having a good pitch and especially starting one seemed to be having a story. A vision was everything next to a great delivery. 

Unfortunately, the team and I had to run off after this workshop to shoot a video. Getting some help from the media crew at the University. We were able to get a POV MVP made that looks amazing so I’m excited to unveil it next week, the final week of summer lab.