Business Is Boring

You’ve probably come across Oxygen Advisors if you’ve spent any time around Aotearoa’s startup scene. And if you haven’t, well - you’ve almost certainly heard of the companies they’ve helped grow. They’ve been behind the scenes with the likes of Tracksuit, Auror, Ideally and dozens more - helping them grow, operate best in class finance teams and raise capital - guiding them through the tough parts of building. With over 100 startups backed and a 97% survival rate, Matt Dold and Mike Mandis have built a track record that’s almost unheard of.

In this episode, they join us to pull back the curtain - sharing the frameworks that work, the good habits to cultivate, and the mistakes they help founders avoid. They’re speaking more publicly now because they want more founders to succeed. And if you’re building something - or thinking about it - this conversation’s well worth a listen.

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In a world drowning in plastic waste, Jon Reed of Compostic is pioneering a revolutionary approach to everyday kitchen products.

Through sheer determination and innovative thinking, Jon transformed a personal frustration with single-use plastics into a thriving business that now sits on the shelves of major US retailers like Whole Foods and Target. His home compostable cling film and kitchen bags represent more than just a product - they're a bold challenge to the traditional plastics industry. He has expanded Compostic from a small New Zealand startup to a brand distributed across thousands of stores.

2025 has thrown a few tariff-shaped curveballs at founders like Jon - and the going has been tough - but he’s still dead-set on his goal of banishing single-use plastic. How is he navigating the chaos of today's international trade landscape? Listen now to find out.

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Finance, investment and better money habits have traditionally been areas mainly staffed by, led by and advocated by men. Boring men.

Two friends, Sophie Hallwright and Victoria Harris, saw a need for interesting and relevant information, advice and community for women. They launched The Curve, a platform boasting an internationally popular podcast, investing club, courses and community. The Curve is now a fantastic example of how building community and providing value can be turned into a business that creates positive impact and profit.

During a brief visit home to Aotearoa, co-founder Sophie Hallwright sat down with Simon Pound to discuss blazing a pathway for women in investment, before she headed back to London to continue the good work.

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Venture capital is one of the most prominent types of capital out there. But it isn’t necessarily a great fit for every business.

We’re joined by Barnaby Marshall, partner and investor at Icehouse Ventures, to talk VC, when it is good, when it is not helpful, and also to chat about his path into the space. Barnaby has invested in and supported great companies like Dawn Aerospace, Basis Tracksuit, and Ideally - and is part of Brand Fund - which is where host Simon Pound got to see him at work up close. But he is also an entrepreneur and active business grower. Before VC he was a co-owner at I Love Ugly and part of its incredible growth journey, and today he is also an owner at New Ground Coffee.

We chat about how this experience helps him help spot great business and help great founders, and what kind of companies would benefit from venture capital partnership.

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Being good with money is not easy. The whole credit, consumer, and hedonistic world are built to try to get people to spend too much on things they don’t need, for short term gain. The actual tips for how to be better with money are quite simple. Spend less than you earn, save a good percentage even when you don’t earn a lot, stay away from expensive debt, invest in upskilling and invest for the long-term as compounding benefits are your friend.

However simple these ideas might seem actually connecting with people and getting them to believe they can make the change can be the hardest thing. Luke Kemeys is one of the new breed of financial influencers who is able to make these messages connect by sharing his story, by making the content relevant and by turning up time and time again to land the messages and habits.

His media brand Keep the Change educates, informs and entertains through podcasts, courses, events and his regular newsletter. His approach sees the free content deliver heaps of value, and this creates a pipeline of business for his accountancy practice. His work has helped countless people get out of debt and into good positions, and he joins the podcast to chat his approach to money, how he learnt to practice good habits and how sharing great content can lead to business success.

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In theory every business has the potential to bake doing good into how it makes money. But very few do.

Brianne West has shown with first Ethique, and now Incrediballs, that with intentional action you can make a brand, business, product and movement for change, where everything you sell means you create a net positive for the world. Brianne joins us to share how she does this, and how the opportunity is there for everyone else to too! Incrediballs is her new venture, nearing launch for the effervescent tablets that you drop in water for the soft drink experience and taste, without the plastic bottles, transported water or massive sugar load. We can’t wait to see the impact these can have on the world’s biggest plastic pollution market. If you are interested in learning more about how to design your business to create positive impact with everything you do check out Brianne’s free courses and materials at Business, but Better.

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People leaders are often the quietly most vital parts of a business.

Great people leaders are like a cross between HR and an executional chief operating officer - someone who takes the business strategy and breaks it down into what everyone needs to do, and then helps every manager in a business stay accountable. There are no great companies without great people policy and execution, and people leaders need to understand culture, strategy, how people tick and how to create high performance environments- all the kind of things that also make for a great CEO. So why don’t we see more CEOs coming from chief people officer backgrounds?

This episode on the pod we talk to Olivia Dyet, founder and CEO at recruitment startup Empathix and Pene Barton, CEO at Crimson Global Academy. Both these leaders came from leading people operations, and both are at the front of what great looks like in terms of AI execution and implementation both on how they work and how their teams operate. We have a great chat about how this could be a huge opportunity for more diverse leadership with so many amazing women in people and operations, how we may need to redefine what a technical leaders is in the age of AI and about the practical toolbox of AI tools everyone should be using today.

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Building community can be one of the most important parts of building a brand and business.

When people talk about businesses and customers, we are really talking about a community of people. What does it take to become a valuable and useful member of a community, rather than just a business selling into a community? What are the benefits? And how do you set out to give enough value that people want to do things with you and for you?

These are all questions today’s guest is an expert in. Chanel Clark is a marketing leader who decided she needed community around her to help her grow in her role, leading marketing for Ārepa, a functional FMCG brand with a mission to help make brains better. When Chanel started The Marketing Club she thought she might get 30 people. As of April 2025, they have 10,000 members across AU and NZ.

Chanel joins the pod to talk what it takes to build such a community, and how listening to that community is the key to success.

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On this season of Business is Boring we’re talking to leaders who are great examples of the best of business - and today we are looking at the opportunities and challenges of creating your own category. Creating a category allows you to be the leader and get away from the competition.

But it is one of the hardest things to do - as you need to create awareness, trust, new habits and understanding in the market. It takes energy, positivity, confidence, optimism, perseverance as well as a great product and business discipline. These are things that Steven Zinsli has in spades - and that host Simon Pound has seen up close by working on their brand and being an investor.

If you’re on LinkedIn you will have seen the way Steve is building in public, sharing the wins, the work and the journey to create a new category of payments for business. Today there is no standard way for any non-wage payments to be distributed to workers. There are a bunch of very ordinary options -gift cards, reimbursements or tax attracting extra payments in payroll. Their platform is built to give every employee a card and account, and help the finance function track, manage and report on all dollars allocated and spent. The amount wasted on gift card admin and unspent dollars, on admin time for reimbursement and on inefficient reporting is massive, but today people don’t think of these as all having one solution. What does it take to establish a new idea? What can others learn about communication and turning up? And how might other business people think about choosing their own lane? Hear from Steve Zinsli, founder and CEO at Extraordinary in this episode.

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This season on Business is Boring we’re talking to people who are examples of better ways to do business. This week we meet Jovan Pavlicevic, co-founder of SquareOne, a financial empowerment and spending card for kids, and now, Emerge, the challenger for small business banking.

In many ways Emerge is the classic disruptor, coming in and taking share from the big bank incumbents by being faster, nicer, smarter and more customer-centric than the big players. We learn what it takes to be a positive disruptor, as one thing about Emerge is that they’ve got where they are by being better to deal with, not by disrupting in destructive ways.

We’ve loved seeing Emerge so far, and keep an eye out for where they go next as they continue to advocate for more modern banking regulations and services in Aotearoa.

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