Last month I was invited to speak at the NBR online Challenge at Otago University. The Audacious program in association with School of Business were giving away $60,000 in prizes to start your own business. Around 350 students gathered for free beer and listen to my wise words.
There was nothing like this in my day. Mind you being a Law and Arts student I didn’t venture into the Business Faculty much.
It fact we had little mentors for our business when we got started apart from my partners the Witters family. I had done a little bit of entreprenuering since my school days mowing lawns before playing in pub bands at Uni to get beer money. As my family lived in Thailand I used to head over for the uni holidays. I was blown away by the shopping potential and decided to bring back as many fake Diesel and Polo $5 tshirts as I could fit in a Samoan suitcase. I would then sell them down at Market day for $20, ($25 to the Asian students). Thursday night were also a roaring trade in my bedroom before a night on the town. ‘Good for me Good for you’. was my motto. That was til the t-shirts were returned two washes later, half the size!
Tom Gibson said to me one night at the Steinlager over a late night nitchy session that we should get all our Dunedin mates together for NYE my band to play for some friends. We were sick of seeing everyone heading to Sydney for NYE, why couldn’t we meet up in NZ to celebrate the new year? The penny dropped for me. What a great idea. Lets meet at Gardies on Saturday after the Muddies v Matadors game to talk this through.
This party could really go off we discussed over a few cold Speights. If I got my friends from the Bay, you got your mates from Massey, we get the Chch crew, half of Dunedin mates, we could put on quite a show. The ideas started flowing. Stumps got a batch in Waimarama, or what about Nelson? Riversdale? Wanaka? Lets get AJ and Bonners bands? What about a big name DJ. Hey if everyone put $100 in the hat I bet we could convince Dave Dobbyn to play?
Anyway I returned back to the flat to see a photo of the venue on my flat mate Andrew Witters wall,. It wasn’t half bad, all landscaped and lush. Gisborne sounded like an ideal summer location. And a decent road trip to get people to.
Having run summer fruit truck operation successfully back in Gisborne. Andrew was never one to shy away from a good idea. He encouraged us to write to Dean Witters. I wish I still had a copy of the letter but we worded it in such a way that we were saying all the things he would want to hear. 200 young New Zealander whose parents come next year will be drinking your wine. NZ best acts coming to your venue. Making sense of the investment you have put into Waiohika etstate.
It must of worked as next thing we were on a plane up to see Witters senior in Gisborne. We had little in the way of planning and as Gibbo sat across from each hungover other at Wellington airport trying to think of a name for our proposed party. Before I left Adam Matson had said to me get the 'Vines' involved. So we had that aside. We looked at various words that went with vines, settling on Open Vines – with the selling point being ‘the one day the vines open up and let the party begin’. It was all a bit hippy, trippy, enchanted woods for me and I swayed back to the music connotations. Bass. Melody. Rhythm . Rhythm and Vines.
After shaking hands on that little ditty we went to the coffee shop and bought a post card to send back to our respective flatties. 'See you at Rhythm and Vines – New Years Eve 2003’ we wrote. And that was our name.
On the short pencil train to Gisborne we decided we needed some action points to move on. I was set on booking up and coming funk band the Black Seeds. But we would need some capital to do it.
We walked into Deans office pitching Black Seeds. Give them a call ask how much they are then offer them 2k more and lock them in. One of my first lessons in business. Action. There is no time like the present.
We awoke the next morning to Dean having created a full spreadsheet of how the intial plan would roll out. We would start a company 50/50. Revenues lines for ticket, sponsorship, beverage sales. Outgoings for artist cost, production, venue. We would move to Gisborne for summer. We were away.
Tom and I flew back to Dunedin with a spring in our step. We used to meet feverishly promoting our new idea to anyone that would want to listen. Andrew put some money up to print out posters and we dropped them around the library. We gathered friends at Gardies shouted them crates and asked them support our idea. We pursued our idea with vigour and audacity.
And that is how it began.
I told these stories to a group of students at the launch last month. I told them there was no better time to start an idea. You are young, keen, enthusiastic and energetic. Being at University you have direct connections with people from all over NZ. You are naive enough to not realize the potential risks and pitfalls. Just have a go like we did.
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