How to bootstrap and grow a company without VC
Plus: Caffeine & Airwallex present the Operators Playbook with Carsten Grueber
Happy Tuesday!
Kia ora Caffeinators,
We’ve a stacked newsletter this morning. A cracker column from Kathleen Webber to kick us off, a brand new event from us and our friends at Airwallex to unveil and some great numbers to parse from a local sector. Lets get into it.
Here’s what’s brewing in your Daily Shot:
Column: How to bootstrap and grow a company without VC - by Kathleen Webber
Event: Caffeine & Airwallex present the Operators Playbook with Carsten Grueber
Gaming sector growth surges to over $759m
Famed roboticist slams humanoid robotics boom as ‘pure fantasy’
As always, thank you to everyone who has upgraded to a paid subscription or simply recommended Caffeine to friends and whānau. We couldn’t do any of this without you.
Finn and the CAFFEINE team
Column: How to bootstrap and grow a company without VC - by Kathleen Webber - When you scroll LinkedIn or read the global tech headlines, it can feel like raising a big VC round is the only “real” way to start a company. The big team photos with champagne, the celebratory posts, the headlines — it is exciting and inspiring. In New Zealand, that story often does not match our reality. The majority of Kiwi businesses will never raise VC. That is not a bad thing.
I have built two companies without it so far, ResolvePay and LiveRem, and I want to share what that is actually like, what we have learned, and how you can do it too.
This is not an argument against venture capital. For some companies, it is exactly the right path. It is not the only path, and I think it is worth normalising the choice to build something lean, profitable, and customer-led without giving away large chunks of equity.
At the heart of it for me is one idea: respect for money. When you bootstrap, it is your own cash or sweat equity on the line. That forces a discipline that never leaves you. If we ever take investment, we will treat that money with the same respect we treated our own.
Read the full column in the link below
Event: Caffeine & Airwallex present the Operators Playbook with Carsten Grueber - Join us for an evening with Carsten Grueber - former operator at Facebook, Google, and TikTok, and now Co-Founder & CEO of Aether.
Carsten has navigated senior roles across global tech giants. In this session, he’ll share the lessons learned, what he’s carrying forward into his founder journey with Aether, and what he’s leaving behind.
Everything is strictly run under Chatham House Rules.
Meet Carsten
Carsten Grueber is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aether, an AI-powered marketing platform transforming how enterprises create and share knowledge. Before Aether, he led TikTok in New Zealand, giving him a front row seat to how the biggest platforms in the world capture and convert audiences. Since launch, Aether has raised $3.8m, built an impressive client roster across NZ, Australia, and the US, and is tackling one of marketing’s biggest pain points: wasted time on manual, repetitive work.
Who it’s for
This event is designed for operators, founders, and leadership teams who want to hear first-hand what it takes to grow, adapt, and keep moving forward.
Partner spotlight: Airwallex
We’re proud to partner with Airwallex, a global payments and financial platform built to support ambitious operators. Airwallex helps businesses scale across borders with multi-currency accounts, borderless cards, and streamlined global payments, removing the friction of traditional banking so leaders can focus on growth. Whether it’s expanding into new markets, paying overseas teams, or managing FX, Airwallex is giving Kiwi companies the financial infrastructure to compete on the world stage.
Terms
By signing up, you’re also joining the Caffeine Community (welcome aboard!). We’ll share your details with our partners. We’ll also be taking photos and video on the night for socials. If that’s not your thing, just let the crew know when you arrive.
Reserve your spot here. Remember to use promo code: CAFFIENEFRIENDS
Gaming sector growth surges to over $759m: As we teased last week, we expected some big numbers to be unveiled by the NZ Gaming sector over the weekend but they were even more impressive than I’d hoped. Industry pre-tax income last year reached $759 million, a 38.6% increase over the previous year’s $548 million. This far outpaces the single-digit growth forecast for the global gaming industry in 2025.
The industry’s workforce has expanded in tandem with revenue. Full-time equivalent jobs grew by 29.2%, from 1,097 in 2024 to 1,418 in 2025. This is particularly impressive when we consider the global condition of the gaming sector which has been rocked by seemingly endless layoff post Covid. Of that headline bump in revenue, 95% came from international consumer sales, boosting the long made argument by the sector that if we want an ‘export led’ economy, it’s hard to do beer than gaming.
Famed roboticist slams humanoid robotics boom as ‘pure fantasy’: I know I can occasionally fall victim to hype cycles in emerging tech (wouldn’t be in this business if I couldn’t) so I think it’s important to highlight the more sceptical voices on occasion. While billions of dollars in investment is flowing into the field of robotics alongside the AI boom, one famed roboticist is warning of a bubble. Rodney Brooks, iRobot founder and leading thinker in the field has called the dream of dextrous human robots replacing human workers (like those seen above) ‘pure fantasy thinking’.
He’s penned a fairly scorching essay which raises some very salient points. For one, no matter how complex we make the inner machinery of a robotic hand, it will be almost impossible to replicate the incredible array of touch sensors that humans have crucial to the kind of delicate work a humanoid robot would need to do in order to be truly useful.
A more simple but equally important issue - how do you make a bipedal robot safe to be around when it falls? The dream of humanoid robots walking the streets starts to feel shaky when you consider the inevitable case of them tripping, falling and causing serious harm to either people or property when they land. Check out the full essay here.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Want to get in touch with a news tip, bit of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co