Designed by Founders like you - events for company founders
One winter's morning in Wellington, Marie-Claire Andrews, Andrew Simmonds and Rod Drury were discussing the fact that no organisation or forum or channel existed, dedicated to offering a collective voice to New Zealand's business Founders.
So being humans of action, they decided to create one and FounderCon NZ was born.
The first FounderCon NZ event was FounderCon Mini - a sold out 'town hall' event in November 2016 which was hugely successful.
FounderCon 17 will be a full conference with supporting workshops to be held in Wellington in 2017 (dates TBA). This will be an opportunity for NZ founders to come together for ideas, discussion & networking - all luxuries we generally don’t have time for while we travel the world searching for new customers, channels and capital.
The FounderCon NZ event series truly are events by the people, for the people - we'll connect with government, investors and the wider eco-system before and after, but these conferences are just for us!
FounderCon NZ has been organised by this handsome group of founders and awesome volunteers. Give em a high-five if you see them around:
foundercon 17
Ticket prices tbc - but obviously will be super affordable thanks to some awesome sponsors (could that be you?)
Join us for FounderCon 17 - you'll be surrounded by business founders representing all industries, ready to share war stories, advice, connections, inspire and be inspired.
FounderCon Mini will help us scope this, but right now our thinking is that concurrent tracks will give you a choice of conversations to engage in, and our facilitators will make sure each voice is heard and outcomes recorded. You'll be treated to keynotes in between all this conversation and collaboration that will inspire and invigorate those tired founder brains of yours.
Registration for FounderCon NZ will also include a ticket to the launch party and wrap party. Yes there will be parties
foundercon mini
FounderCon Mini was held in Wellington on 23 November, 2016. Here's the highlights:
Keynote speaker: rod drury
Come on, you knew he'd get a speaking slot! But not just any old presso you could hear at XeroCon, oh no, this is a 'shit no-one told me' and ''ask me anything' keynote that you will NOT be tweeting ;)
Rod will wrap up the session with a call for debate on the issues facing Founders, which will be facilitated and curated until we're ready for a cold beer.
SPEAKER: CAROLINE DEWE
From 0 to alphaHERO in 5 years.
Entirely self-funded and without any marketing or a sales team - Alphero has grown from nothing to a highly successful, nearly 60 person services business in five years. With business driven by word of mouth, Alphero has cracked on with delivering many of the highest profile mobile services in New Zealand. Caroline Dewe, co-founder will provide a snapshot of how they did it with lessons learned and some examples of tricks and tools you can use in your own business.
SPEAKER: BEN O'BRIEN
Ignore everything you hear about capital raising.
Ben will deliver a candid and gritty conversation about raising capital as a NZ hardware start-up. With no experience he went out and learned the hard way: how to deal with constant rejection, understand the key stages of a deal, keep the business humming, and bring home the bacon! It is as much an art as a science, simply loads of fun, and nothing like what you are told in school.
Ben O'Brien is CEO and Co-founder at StretchSense.
MINICON EVENT SCHEDULE - NOVEMBER 23rd, 2016
1:00pm Welcome & Introduction to FounderCon NZ
1:30pm Rod Drury - Keynote Presentation
2:00pm Q&A with Rod Drury
2:30pm Speaker: Caroline Dewe
3:00pm Break
3:30pm Speaker: Ben O'Brien
4:00pm Structured founder discussion and feedback session led by Marie-Claire Andrews.
5:30pm AfterCon: Food, beverages and entertainment. Non-founders and members of the wider ecosystem are invited join us. Registration is required for AfterCon. Check back soon for details.
Contact Us
Get in touch with the event organisers here, or if you have ideas for content, or if you'd like to sponsor our events you're also welcome to use this form instead. Or not. Up to you.
PROBABLY THE BEST CONFERENCE PARTY EVER!
It really wouldn't be a conference without drinks, food and some good quality networking would it? AfterCon promises all that - and then some. There will be performers, sketches, and Andrew might make a little speech too.
Everyone is welcome at Aftercon. You don't need to be a founder and we welcome all members of the wider ecosystem to join us.
Locations: Prefab Cafe (right next door to Prefab Hall) from 5:30pm...until 9pm
Entry is free for those who have attended FounderCon and we will have 50 spaces for non-founders at $50 per ticket.
What!? $50! What does that get me? Your generous contribution of $50 gets you delicious food & drinks, out of the ordinary entertainment and an evening of fine conversations with Kiwi founders.
What time does it end? Oh Cinderella, you can call your Uber any time, but be prepared to party until 9pm because we will be!
By "performers" do you just mean founders who've had too many Fantas? The team from Highly Flammable will be providing us all with professional quality entertainment that's sure to impress. There may also be a sprinkling of amateur quality entertainment from "enthusiastic" founders. But we make no promises.