ICYMI: Startup news and resources from the week that was
What you might have missed last week on Caffeine.
Welcome to Monday!
As always, on Monday we recap a few of our favorite stories or resources from the week that was then tomorrow kick back into our full newsletter from Tuesday.
In the spirit of ‘ICYMI’, let’s kick off with a recap of Caffeine’s recent in person event with Airwallex.
And a quick reminder to all founders, our friends at Notion are offering 6 months of Notion for Business on the house right now. Get involved!
Have a great start to your week,
Finn and the Caffeine team
‘The Systems and Stories of Scale’ featured Lowry Gladwell (Airwallex NZ Lead) introducing our very own founder James Herman (Caffeine Founder), and Shannon Scott (Airwallex Global Product Lead) discussing the systems and stories of startup growth.
James emphasized the importance of knowledge sharing within New Zealand's growing startup ecosystem, advocating for learning from both successes and failures to move beyond traditional commodity exports.
Shannon shared insights from his experiences scaling Palantir and Airwallex. Palantir's growth required a long-term vision and persistence in a difficult tech space, while Airwallex leveraged fintech tailwinds and customer-driven iteration.
Key takeaways included the need for adaptability and mission alignment in hiring, delaying support function hires until essential, and embracing discomfort as a sign of progress
Shannon stressed that founders' deep knowledge remains crucial, and execution outweighs perpetual strategic reinvention. James added that consistent brand building, rather than flashy campaigns, leads to lasting impact. The discussion concluded by reinforcing that scaling means continuous learning and resilience against inevitable challenges and competition.
It was great to see so many Caffeinators coming along so thank you to everyone in the community who took part.
We are just getting started when it comes to our events so watch this space!
Choosing our heroes: Celebrating the founders who go on to do it all again
TLDR: We should celebrate founders, especially the ones who go on to do it all again!
Choosing Our Heroes
When speaking on the future of our country or species, I often make reference to ‘choosing our heroes’. We do this as leaders, as voters, as consumers and as a society. The obvious point to make is that more so than influencers or sportspeople or cultural icons; our real heroes are people who change the world. Most of those do so through companies, which as we all know, were at some point, a startup.
To make this vivid... Moderna is a pharmaceutical company founded in 2010 whose vaccine saved 20-100 million people globally (depending on how you count these). Cristiano Ronaldo is a great footballer with world-class abs. Bad Bunny is a singer who sells lots of albums. Winston Peters is our longest standing Member of Parliament. One of these is not like the others… I think you get the point.
And the best kind of these kinds of heroes are those who make a fabulous impact in the world, and then go again.
Paid subscribers can read the full article above.
Crimson Education graduates into the workforce with new spin-out, Concord Visa: Extremely exciting news from one of our most celebrated unicorns, Crimson Education, as it unveils a new spinout. Crimson Education’s Concord Visa has emerged from stealth to support the best startups, founders, and talent enter global markets
After guiding more than 3,000 student visa applications through Crimson Education, Concord Visa has been created to support another under-served, high performing group; the ambitious people and high growth startups trying to access new markets.
“We started Concord because we saw the same pattern again and again. Our Crimson alumni were doing incredible things; founding companies, joining high-growth and impact teams, conducting high-impact research, performing, competing, creating, but constantly trying to navigate visa hurdles. The process was confusing, slow, and often disconnected from the actual value they were bringing,” said Beaton.
As if taking on the higher education industry worldwide wasn’t impressive enough, now Jamie and his co-founder Kevin Park have taken aim at the sluggish immigration system which has never been set up or responsive for founders. They’ve already helped friends of Caffeine like Tracksuit on their path to global success and I can’t wait to see what this service unlocks.
Event: Resonance: The annual conference for the Tech Marketers of Aotearoa - As the cost of producing content in both time and money can theoretically approach zero, the role of anyone in the attention economy is changing. In a time when artificial intelligence can generate content, optimise campaigns, and predict behaviour faster than ever, the role of the marketer is shifting, but it’s far from disappearing. Now more than ever, what we create must resonate: with our audiences, with our values, and with the world around us.
At this year’s conference, you’ll explore:
How marketers can create connection and emotional resonance in an AI-shaped world.
What human creativity still does best, and how to amplify it with intelligent tools.
The data, technologies, and signals that help us stay attuned to what really matters.
Timeless marketing truths that still hold power in a tech-driven future.
Check out the full schedule in the link below. Expect to see some familiar faces, including our very own James Hurman and resident scribbler Serge Van Dam.
Spark makes half a billion dollar data centre business sale: Major moves from Spark this week as it sells off 75% of its burgeoning data centre business to an Australia’s Pacific Equity Partners. Spark expects to receive cash proceeds of around $486 million at completion, with additional deferred cash dependent on performance targets by 2027 calendar year. The money will be used to pay down debt. As part of the transaction, Spark will move its data centre assets and operations into a new spinout company currently being referred to as ‘DC Co’, with its own board and management team. The race to build the A.I data centres required to power the future of well, everything, is underway and its good to see major moves on our home soil. Whether it’s even possible to build and power the number of data centres we are going to need in a sustainable economic or environmental sense is another question entirely. See more details in the full release from Spark here.
Next Wave report highlights the critical barriers holding back innovative businesses: The great green transition is underway and with investment in cleantech topping $2 trillion in 2024, the potential for Kiwi startups is obvious and enormous. But having a hard look at what is keeping more companies from getting a slice of that growing green pie is crucial and that’s why we love reports like this one, created in collaboration between the Sustainable Business Network and the University of Canterbury.
The Next Wave report captures the experiences of 44 sustainable innovators—selected from the Next 95, a list of finalists in the 2024 Sustainable Business Awards, focused on disruptive innovation. They are predominantly small enterprises, start-ups and grassroots initiatives.
Key findings:
74.5% reported that accessing funding is difficult. That includes over half (53.5%) who reported it is “extremely difficult”.
Other barriers to progress include the need for clearer and more consistent policy direction, greater visibility and awareness of sustainable solutions, and stronger market demand.
Only 11.3% described the current policy environment as “supportive” or “very supportive”, while 73.8% identified customer awareness and demand as a challenge.
Despite the constraints, confidence remains high. Over 90% reported growth in customer interest in the past year, and more than 65% expressed optimism about their future growth.
Still, profitability remains a challenge: 42.9% of businesses are operating at a loss and only 17% are breaking even.
Read the full report here.
OpenAI rolls out GPT5, immediately faces backlash: We covered the tease of this a while back but now that GPT5 is launched things aren’t going great for the world’s leading AI company. I’ll cover my thoughts more in depth over the next few weeks but while GPT5 is undoubtedly an impressive piece of software, it has led to some pretty stark pushback and some embarrassing backtracks from OpenAI.
Sam Altman had to take to X almost immediately following launch to apologise for glitches and say they would explore letting people continue using 4o for the interim period. What’s been fascinating is how a lot of the push back hasn’t been on the technical side (though there’s plenty of that too) but more on the vibes side.
People just liked the style of 4o and had a personal attachment to it. I think as we look at replacing LLM models in the future, for many it will be less like a product being delisted and a beloved co-worker suddenly being fired.
Want to get in touch with a news tip, a slice of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co