You are in for an awesome episode, as I speak to Vaughan Rowsell, the founder of Vend, a New Zealand high-growth tech success story, and founder of OMGTech! a charitable initiative to help kids into careers with future technology.

Vaughan was EY's Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014 and is a sought after speaker on numerous topics from startups, culture, education and innovation.

As Vice-chair of the NZ Hi-Tech Trust Vaughan is involved in the celebration of the NZ hi-tech industry through awards and education. 

Be sure to subscribe and share this episode if you enjoy it.

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Eli Smit

Founder + Host

Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The United States accounts for more than 50% of the total skateboarding market and skateboarding is now a $4.8 billion dollar industry.

Now imagine being 12 and getting the chance to appear on “Shark Tank” to pitch your skateboard business. And then imagine that Sir Richard Branson offers you $65,000 for a 20-percent stake in your company.This was the reality for Carson Kropfl the creator and founder of Locker Board.

But as any good entrepreneur knows, before luck comes hard work. 

You are in for an awesome episode, so get your helmet and pads ready as we hit the streets with Carson.

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Eli Smit

Founder + Host

Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to another amazing episode of Ground Breaking Podcast.

Did you know...

• 2.7 Zettabytes of data exist in the digital universe today
• 149, 513 emails are sent every minute.
• 3,3 million (undoubtedly extremely insightful) Facebook posts are created every minute.
• 3.8 Google million searches are performed each minute.
• Each minute, 65,972 Instagram photos are uploaded.

By the year 2020:

• 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second, per person.
• Around 1/3 of all data will be processed through the cloud.

In the face of all of this data, today, less than 0.5% of available data is actually being analysed.

Lillian Grace is one of those making sense of this data for New Zealand. Lillian founded Figure.NZ in 2012 and is focused on making data accessible to everyone.

I hope you enjoy this episode. So, leave a comment and subscribe today.

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Eli Smit

Founder + Host

Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As careers go Anna Guenther is not doing half bad, with stints working for the New Zealand Government, MIT and a Masters in Entrepreneurship with a focus on crowdfunding. Anna is currently co-founder and Chief Bubble Blower of PledgeMe, New Zealand's first crowdfunding platform.

Over five years PledgeMe has had over $15 million pledged and over 1,100 creative, community and entrepreneurial campaigns - ranging from food forests through to a craft brewers. 

In order to continue to grow in New Zealand, launch in Australia and focus on making equity crowdfunding equitable, PledgeMe are equity crowdfunding equity crowdfunding (again). If you want to join Anna and the PledgeMe team for this journey, please head over to their campaign page.

I hope you enjoy this episode. So, leave a comment and subscribe today.

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Eli Smit

Founder + Host

Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's episode saw me speak with Ben Reynolds the Co-Founder and CEO of Spalk.

Spalk's offices are based out of the Icehouse and I was amazed by the number of significant businesses that have been connected with this Trust.

Spalk’s technology allows broadcasters and content owners to offer hundreds of different audio commentary options alongside their existing live broadcast. They have developed some clever technology which is able to perfectly synchronise remote commentary audio to the existing live video. Spalk works with content partners around the world like FIBA, Rugby Canada and Māori Television and have seen their software power 1,000’s of commentaries for millions of sports fans.

I hope you enjoy this episode. So, leave a comment and subscribe today.

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Eli Smit

Founder + Host

Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to another amazing episode of Ground Breaking Podcast.

When it comes to the recruitment process and landing the ideal hire it can seem like a daunting and nearly impossible task.

This week I am talking with Dale Clareburt the founder and CEO of a high-growth kiwi tech company called Weirdly.

Dale describes herself as a business Leader, a HRTech expert and a Future of Work enthusiast. She has extensive experience across the recruitment industry. Her passion lies in developing people and challenging traditional business structures.

I hope you enjoy this episode. So, leave a comment and subscribe today.

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Eli Smit

Founder + Host

Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm super excited this week as I got to meet a princess. Well the Slime Princess.

Katharina Weischede is twelve and passionate about slime and putting smiles on peoples faces. Katharina runs a physical and an online store and has expanded to sell Slime Princess merchandise. She has built an awesome brand and is well worth following on Instragram.  

I hope you enjoy this episode. So, leave a comment and subscribe today.

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Eli Smit
Founder + Host
Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone,

Welcome to another week and another episode of Ground Breaking Podcast.

This week I speak with Ashutosh Sharma, the CEO and Founder of Sparx Exchange. 



In a world of AR, VR, cryptocurrency, blockchain and the ecommerce frontier, Ash Sharma is working on some of the products for tomorrow. I was so glad to find some time with Ash who travels regularly outside of New Zealand and I'm sure you will enjoy every minute of this interview as much as I did.

Prior to this interview I'd never heard of Bitcoin, ZCash, Monero or Ethereum. After the interview I thought I'd investigate Fintech and what I discovered was whole new world of chatbots, insurtech and open banking.

It was interesting looking at the infographic below from the team at Code Brew Labs. 

I'd love to hear from you, so do leave a comment and subscribe today.

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Eli Smit
Founder + Host
Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to epsiode 4 of Ground Breaking Podcast.

This week I interviewed Will Hewitt the Managing Director of Ventworks. Will started his career in Nelson, while he was still attending school. He co-founded ThnkBot with his long-term mentor and friend Daniel Farley. ThnkBot produced educational robot kits. From robots to wireless sensing products, Will moved onto his next venture founding Ventworks. His devices are in use in the Nelson/Tasman and Canterbury regions, and work atop of existing networks as well as custom networking solutions. 



If you love robots, technology and science this episode is for you. I know I geeked out. Will shares solid advice and I was amazed to hear I could start a company for a $100. We talked lemonade stands, resilience and the opportunities available to young entrepreneurs.

I'd love to hear from you, so do leave a comment and subscribe today.

Stay awesome and share the love

Eli Smit
Founder + Host
Groundbreakingpodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.