Grow

[Adrian Olsen]

We always had this philosophy. Never say no. Didn't matter what. If someone came in, rung up or asked us to do something, we would never say no.

[Stephanie Olsen]

The service industry is such a high and a low game, so it's like, what do we do? What do we do differently from everybody else? And that's where we talked about actually creating some product.

For us, we know what we know. You're an engineer. I have a business background. We do that stuff really, really well. But when it comes to actually
understanding how to implement product, we didn't really know what we were doing. And so we went to Callaghan.

[Jamie Wilson]

When we were introduced to ENEX, Steph and Age were running a successful business. They came with an idea, but not knowing how to take that idea through to market — In a highly innovative and R&D environment. That's a tall ask.

Being able to come in and help step them through that process and prepare them for everything that they're going to need to know to get their product to market and go through the next two years of R&D. That's a big step.

As a business innovation advisor, we're really privileged to be able to come into someone's business, into their lives and start to help them
on that journey.

[Stephanie Olsen]

Talking to Jamie, he understood what our business was about as we were progressing with our conversation and was able to ask some really pointed
questions to go, okay, what are we? What are we doing? Why are we doing this? And so that was the start of that relationship.

We actually had, without realising it, quite a portfolio of product that we were already making because we've always said yes, which is great, but "Yes" only gets you so far because at some point you're doing so much for everybody that you're not doing everything particularly well. So it's now time to let's focus.

Let's start to explore some of those bigger items that could be something that could actually be bigger than just New Zealand, and maybe go global.

[Jamie Wilson]

Companies either have not a lot of ideas or too many ideas. And also are typically drowning in opportunity.

Focus is such a multiplier in business, and so we're trying to get down to what are the three things that they're going to do exceptionally well, as opposed to the 3000 things that they're going to do averagely, and just making sure that the resources that’s people, time, money are really focused on doing those exceptional things.

[Stephanie Olsen]

Jamie turned up and went, "Oh, look at that. You take every opportunity, don't you?" And, that was pretty much it. And it's always been that way.

[Adrian Olsen]

We'd never had someone challenge us. Like, if we've got a great idea, we’re the owners, we don't have to take it. We're not a corporate, so we just go "yeah, run with it." "That's good as, let's do it." And all of a sudden someone's going, "Well, why?"

We started categorizing them, 99.999% of them were out the window.

[Stephanie Olsen]

There were a few stand-out products in amongst it, that were like, mmmh!

Being able to get all of that grouped, and then to this roadmap that you see behind us, was actually, for me, probably one of the best things
that we had ever done.

When you work with somebody that is constantly coming up with another idea, another idea, another idea, it makes it so much easier to have a roadmap where we can pop a pin on it and go, "We'll come back to that." "Thanks for that great idea." "We'll come back to that when we're ready to explore that a little bit more."

[Adrian Olsen]

We'd also seen an opportunity with another product that, that we thought "Here’s a massive opportunity here." "If we can get this recipe right."

[Stephanie Olsen]

Age had been thinking about this thing all the time. It was something he talked about all the time, and we didn't do anything with it because we were running a service business. Having someone guide us on this journey, they knew when and where that needed to be put into the conversation, because we can't just keep talking about the sparkly thing in the room. We have to talk about everything else around it and really understand where your business is at, what it's doing. Is there something better than this sparkly thing that no one knows about it yet? It's like, what does that all look like?

[Jamie Wilson]

What we actually worked out was that there was multiple businesses in there, but when we got to that winning strategy, we knew that, yes,
it was that idea.

By Steph and Age going through those products that we did, we could see the whites of their eyes, we could see that they were up for it, helping us to validate that they were up for the journey. That was when we offered up the “Idea to Impact” product.

[Richard Quin]

"Idea to Impact", it's born of a realisation that there needs to be a focus on both the technology challenges and the commercial challenges to build a successful business. So making sure that those things are happening concurrently, it shows that we're not wasting time and wasting effort on rework.

"Idea to Impact" kind of acknowledges that there's a whole bunch of capability that that needs to be developed. We put together the right mix of of support depending on that individual customer.

[Stephanie Olsen]

We've been on this Callaghan journey for over a year now, and I think that if Age had his way, probably in the first two weeks, you probably would have been out there making it in the workshop.

[Adrian Olsen]

I would have gone bankrupt ten times over because I'd built something that no one wanted.

[Stephanie Olsen]

We've got this winning strategy. Do your customers think it's a really good idea, or do you just think it's a really good idea? So then, then you'd spend hours talking to your customers.

[Jamie Wilson]

Understanding your customer's unmet needs, uncovering what are their pains and gains that they get out of their job, and bringing that back, not only for the technical side in terms of your concept, your solution, but also the commercial side. You know, what business model, what what financial models are
you going to need to put in place in order for this to be successful in the minds and and expectations of your customers?

[Adrian Olsen]

For me to go and talk to someone and say, "Hi, I'm going to build this thing." "What what would you like to see? I'm absolutely out of my comfort zone." But the information you get from that is phenomenal. And I would never have understood that.

[Richard Quin]

The ideal “Idea to Impact” customer as a business that has global aspirations, a credible path to doing something innovative that's going to drive all that economic value.

[Stephanie Olsen]

We had the appetite to want to be bigger than what we were. We could have quite happily had those products and be very successful with our product range that we've got, and our Site Weld services business. But having a secret sauce product that we actually wanted to take to the world, the “Idea to Impact” programme has been a game-changer.

[Jamie Wilson]

“Idea to Impact” has helped give them confidence to be able to take this global and have the confidence that they've got the right people, the right skills,
the right research and knowledge,

[Stephanie Olsen]

And you might not realise it at the time until you have an opportunity present itself. We had a potential distributor coming over from Australia to talk about our ENEX products. We've just completely our pitch deck literally the day before. And then Age and I went through our pitch deck the next day like it was nothing because we were prepared. We had practiced, we had researched. We're totally engaged with the product. And so it was easy.

Often that's the hardest part of the whole journey, is having to pitch it to somebody, and then for them to see whether or not it's a great idea or not. Having potential customers validate the idea and go, "This is amazing, this is going to be a game changer." "This is going to disrupt the industry." We're like, oh, okay.

[Adrian Olsen]

We've now secured an early adopter for our testing and for for purchasing our product.

That all builds confidence. We realised that no different to a job out in the workshop that Callaghan was our toolbox. As a tradie, once you know you've got the right gear, then it makes that job easier.

You're going through one Callaghan product, then flowing onto the next and flowing on to the next to then be invited to be part of the next phase. You know, that's- that's pretty special.

[Stephanie Olsen]

Jamie was pretty direct at the start to say this is going to be hard. The longer the journey went on, it was going to get harder and harder to tick all those boxes and make sure that we can, you know, get to where we are right now.

[Adrian Olsen]

It is it is going to be taxing. It is going to beat you down. But if you get the recipe right, the rewards are endless really.

[Richard Quin]

Success for us out of the “Idea to Impact” programme really comes down to the success of our businesses that go through the programme and will really know we've been successful. When we see more of those companies appear in the Sir Paul Callaghan 100. Born of Sir Paul's belief that 100 entrepreneurs could turn this country around, and “Idea to Impact” we see as a mechanism to help accelerate the creation of more of those businesses.

[Adrian Olsen]

For little old Dunedin here, like I started my apprenticeship here I've lived here my whole life and I've seen so much industry disappear. What can we do to to bring jobs back into Dunedin, or even further afield, back into New Zealand?

I'm proud to say that, you know, made in New Zealand. I've got it tattooed on my arm! like, I believe in New Zealand and you know, everything that this country can do.