Startup Theatre Podcast

Rowan Simpson has been at the heart of New Zealand's most successful technology companies. As a founding team member at Trade Me and Xero, he witnessed firsthand how great companies are built through consistent execution. His subsequent investments and hands-on work with ventures like Vend and Timely have helped shape a generation of high-growth companies.If you’re the kind of person who hates being wrong (let’s be honest, that’s most of us), then How to Be Wrong is a game-changer. It completely flips the script on failure, showing that being wrong isn’t something to fear—it’s something to embrace. The book and ultimately this podcast is packed with real-world wisdom, practical advice, and a refreshing perspective on how to navigate uncertainty without letting your ego get in the way.

⁠Nicole Retter⁠ is the sole Founder and CEO of ⁠PAM⁠.

🤖 ⁠PAM⁠ stands for "Personal Admin Manager" and is your Family's own Digital PA

👩🏽‍💻 Nicole has been a marketer for 20 years, working in big ad agencies, and digital agencies delivering festivals, and guiding sole traders.

🚀 Her specialty is supporting Start-ups and SME’s, and due to your limited resources, we get to be creative in our approach and make a big impact fast.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Nicole is the proud Founder of ⁠PAM⁠, an app currently under construction to support busy families to thrive by reducing/sharing all the family admin crap we’re drowning under. She will be its first customer.

💁🏻‍♂️ In this episode, Nicole goes deep into the PAM story and the lessons she has learned to bring this product to the world!

👀 Please check out our sponsor in ⁠⁠Talent Army⁠⁠ who are NZ's best tech startup recruiters.

Philip Fierlinger co-founded Xero, playing a major role as Head of Design, leading Xero to become a disruptive platform and an iconic global brand.

Now he is the co-founder of Upstock, a B2B e-commerce & logistics platform transforming the food & beverage industry.

His early career highlights include work for Beastie Boys and General Magic.

In this episode Philip goes deep on the Xero story and the lessons he has learned to make Upstoack a 🦄 also.

Please check out our sponsor in Talent Army who are NZ's best tech startup recruiters.

In this episode, we chat with Derek Handley

Aera is a new Kiwi fintech start-up helping first-home buyers build a deposit in half the time.

Will Palmer is a seasoned entrepreneur with a successful track record in tech, co-founding Movio, Cupla, and DevRamp.

As Movio's CEO, he led its growth to dual listings on the NZ and Australian stock exchanges before exiting to build two entirely different businesses.

Consumer app start up Cupla and the developer tool, DevRamp.

With the massive success of Movio, we talk with Will on his lessons and learnings. Will is not stopping until he’s reached that unicorn status and we can see this happening.

Thanks to our sponsor in Talent Army who are NZ’s best IT recruiters

For 8 years, Oxygen Advisors has stood behind 
over 100 New Zealand startups.

Amazingly, only 3% of their startup portfolio have not survived and we wanted to know why.

In this episode we chat with Matt Dold the founder and Mike Mandis the Co-CEO.

As the founder and Director at Oxygen Advisors, Matt has been at the forefront of empowering start-ups and high-growth businesses across New Zealand for over a decade. Matt's served as a Director, Advisor and CFO partner to many of New Zealand's most successful high growth companies such as Auror, Thematic, Archipro, Woop, Thundergrid, Conqa, Weirdly, Preno, Wipster and many more.

Mike is Co-CEO at Oxygen Advisors. Over the past four years he has helped technology companies raise over $150m in capital and has supported companies scaling globally from pre-revenue to $15m+ ARR.

Tune in and learn how this company has been able to help the ecosystem so much.

Thank you to our sponsor in Talent Army

Simon Pound is Managing Partner - Ventures for Previously Unavailable.

Prior to PU, Simon led global brand, creative and communications for Vend, and he loves working with startups on brand and positioning strategy and execution.

He is also a director of Ingrid Starnes, the online-first, made-to-order fashion business.

Thank you to our sponsor in Talent Army

Coachmate is a purpose-led tech startup on a mission to help kids stay in sports. Research has shown that kids who remain in sports have better mental and physical outcomes throughout their lives.

Enter Michelle Walshe is no stranger to sports after directing sports legends like Venus Williams, Kevin Durant, and Richie McCaw's feature films.

Michelle is also the co-founder of the successful Augusto, a hybrid creative and production agency.

In 2018, Michelle wanted to create more impact in the community and co-founded CoachMate, a platform dedicated to empowering grassroots sports parents and volunteers with world-class tools to help keep kids in sports.

In this episode, Troy and Michelle discuss her background in documentary making, her career in film directing, and how Michelle was compelled to solve the issue of helping volunteers in grassroots sports with technology.

Follow Michelle on LinkedIn

Lance Wiggs has over 10 years of experience as a venture capitalist and considerable experience helping to start, grow, turn around, and exit companies as a consultant, investor, co-founder, and director.

He is a principal with Punakaiki Fund and Climate VC Fund, and has invested in well over 40 companies.

In this episode, we discuss the importance of making good decisions in business and how Lance helps CEOs and founders make better decisions.

We talk about the Government and whether they should invest in our ecosystem and many more topics including Lance’s Aphantasia.

Follow Lance:

Follow Punakaiki Fund:

Thanks to our sponsor - Talent Army