Why do a lot of NZ businesses fail to seize the future?
Vaughan Fergusson is the Founder & Director of VEND, EY’s Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014 and is the co-founder of The Pam Fergusson Charitable Trust, running initiatives to transform education like OMGTech!, Voluntari.ly and inawe.co.nz, setting up an enviro-tech centre in the middle of the bush in Raglan. Every year Vaughan does an impossible challenge, something to take him out of his comfort zone, like running 1,000km, learning to sing to get a paid gig in front of 100 people or cycling around the world in 80 days.
What is your morning routine?
If I’m in Auckland, I wake up before my alarm goes off, usually. My alarm is just backup. I make a coffee and my partner Zoe tea and take it to her in bed. Then I start the morning ‘get kids to school’ hustle. If I’m lucky, they don’t miss their bus and I get to my first meeting on time. If I’m in Raglan, I look at the surf report 😉
What hours do you work?
I know it’s unhealthy to say all of them, but honestly I have a problem turning off, especially as I effectively have 4 jobs. Vend takes up a lot of my time. The charity (The Pam Fergusson Charitable Trust) half of my time. Running our Raglan camp and retreat another 50%. Then being parent another 50%. You can do the math and see the problem. But three of these things I do with my partner and we love the work, but we try and keep each other balanced and find time to just chill too.
What do you do in a typical day at work?
I dream of typical. I’d love to wake up and think – “oh cool, today is Wednesday, I love my regular Wednesday schedule”. LOL. Each day involves working with talented and passionate people and my job is to help them remove barriers to do awesome work. That’s a constant every day.
Why do you think a lot of businesses fail to seize the future?
Because they get too safe in what they are doing now. They convince themselves that the product is good enough or the monthly growth will continue or that competitors are dumb. I am a raving optimist but I’m also really paranoid. You need to assume your business model no longer works in 5 years and so you need to come up with and test the new opportunities now.
What should businesses do to start opening their eyes to the future opportunities?
Get your key people out of the day to day. It is really easy to become insular and inward looking and just focus on the mechanics of your current business. That’s all good, but you need to make space to stare out at the horizon and think about what’s next.
Over the next 5 years, what industries in New Zealand do you see having the most exciting opportunities?
Environmental technologies. The world is going to hell in a hand basket environmentally and New Zealand has an amazing reputation of being kaitiaki, good guardians of our land. We are also incredibly smart and innovative. We are already solving some of the worlds big issues around clean food, clean energy and clean water. There is so much more opportunity in the environmental technology space for brand New Zealand. We should be the world’s greatest exporter of enviro-tech.
What process do you use to work on complex problems?
I don’t know if I can describe the exact process. I tend to throw myself into the space and then absorb as much information as I can and then make room to think. I am a huge fan of sleeping on it. Our brains can crunch a lot of data inputs, but we need good sleep time to process it. Complex problems often require a multi-faceted approach, multiple solutions in a particular order. Then I just keep going until the epiphanies start. Fix A, then do B, then try C or D.
What are the most important traits and skills for potential employees?
Curiosity. They have to care about what it is we do and are super curious about how to do it better.
What is the biggest hurdle for your business?
Which one? LOL. In all my ventures, the biggest potential hurdle is always failing to continuously adapt. Things change, markets change, customers change, people change. You won’t get everything right. You need to be okay with saying “oh we got that wrong” and then try something new. Fear of screwing up and the Tall Poppy syndrome in New Zealand is something that holds us all back.
Vaughan will be speaking the M2 Success Summit – 20 November 2019 – Get more details here.
