From China to Kororāreka

It takes a few attempts to get on a call with Sara Smeath and Chris Saunders, the founders of CiRCLR.

There are the usual startup interruptions – like having to do a presentation or a meeting running over. But then there are others a little more specific to Smeath and Saunders’ location, in the small, ferry-accessible town of Kororāreka/Russell, in the Bay of Islands – like power cuts, and the internet going out as another cyclone blows through.

“If you want to ask us what it's like working in regional New Zealand,” says Smeath, “well, in Northland it's like working sometimes in darkness – quite literally.”

CiRCLR is creating a technology platform that connects waste makers with waste takers to create more circular economies – a kind of matchmaking capability that’s seen it dubbed ‘Tinder for trash’.

Smeath (Ngāti Manu, Ngāpuhi) and Saunders run CiRCLR from the small Northland town following their move from China, where Smeath developed circular economies in the fashion industry and Saunders worked as a designer and software developer.

CiRCLR has been nurtured through a number of startup accelerators and programmes through the likes of Kōkiri, Sprout, Creative HQ and Ministry of Awesome and is currently trialling and piloting its product with select customers based in New Zealand cities. It has been bootstrapped to this point, and is now looking to raise capital.

Smeath says despite factors like the above-mentioned weather events and connectivity issues, their life and work change, which they’ve embraced with four young children, has made them more resourceful and adaptable.

“Sometimes, we even jest that Russell could potentially be the ultimate startup hub,” she says. “If you were to pitch an idea on a warm summer afternoon at the Duke or on a Saturday morning at the Long Beach Coffee Cart, you'd likely find yourself in front of numerous investors, C-suite executives, corporate leaders, and business owners, all without having to venture onto the car ferry.”

Here the founders share more of the ups and downs of startup life in a small town.

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How did you come to be living and working from Kororāreka?

‍Sara Smeath: I grew up near here. And when we purchased this home, we didn't really know that we would be living here because we were living in China at that time. I was seven months pregnant when I came over for a week and found the home and purchased it. I was [considered] a foreign investor, even though I am Māori buying in the area where I grew up! So it was a place that my children could always come back to, close to my family.

But then Covid happened and we ended up back here. And it's really isolated, especially for the jobs that we had overseas – they did not have that work here. New Zealand-wide even we struggled to understand where we would find a place where we would fit in.

‍Chris Saunders: What I found really interesting when we moved back here was that at that time there were so many Kiwi expats returning home because of the border closures and the narrative I started seeing a lot online was that the local job market really didn't value overseas experience, which was quite surprising for us. And because it was early days in Covid, remote working hadn't really taken off…That is what segwayed us into our first startup, which, ironically, was a tourism startup.

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What did you learn from that first startup that you took into CiRCLR, particularly related to being based where you are?

‍CS: That was our first foray into trying to run a startup in a regional area. The core concept of our product was, ‘how do we drive more independent travellers to regional areas of New Zealand, rather than just directing people to the usual spots like Queenstown or Rotorua?’ But we quickly realised that scaling that sort of business in regional New Zealand is really challenging just because of the market size, the logistics and also the appetite to try new technologies isn't there.

Bearing that in mind, something we've always realised with this startup, CiRCLR, is that we have a global ambition, because this is a product that is a solution for global businesses. And New Zealand is a starting ground, a test bed, because we're here out of convenience.

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‍What are some of the practical considerations of running a business with a global outlook from your location?

‍SS: I've always travelled a lot for my job. When I was based in China, I was working globally as well, so every two weeks I was away. There was a bit of this year where we felt like my bag just didn't get unpacked at the door. I'm really grateful for those opportunities that have taken us overseas, but it was a lot of travel.

I would say some of our biggest hurdles are not necessarily our region being remote in New Zealand; it's New Zealand itself being so remote. A lot of the big businesses that we talk to, they don't necessarily have business in New Zealand; they need what we're doing throughout Asia or even Australia.

‍CS: The product that we sell is designed to be industry agnostic and just slotted into businesses within their supply chain, which could be anywhere. We're selling them a solution that they can onboard themselves and implement internally, once they understand how it works and what it does and what they get out of it. So if we're doing our jobs right, we don't really need to be going to visit these people on the ground … At the end of the day that's the beauty of working in tech – that we can be fully remote.

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How have you connected with the startup investment community?

‍SS: We’re lucky because our business started up by applying for accelerators, and through these accelerators, we were connected to different investors. So we've been in communication with a lot of the investors from day-dot. We're not necessarily going in asking for money; we've built up relationships so they know who you are and what you're doing before you need to come and ask for your funding.

‍CS: The most valuable advice that we got from other founders was ’don't just door knock and ask these people for money out of the blue; have a relationship with them’. You want to make sure that they can track your growth, can see your progress, and get to know who you are. Because at the stage of the business that we're at, they're investing in us as a team as well as our concept and vision, and they want to make sure that we really believe in it and that we're following through.

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How has the infrastructure in your location impacted your startup?

‍SS: Quite a lot. I remember living in China when we didn't have water because one winter all the pipes froze, so we were already quite used to buying water containers, so we always had water to drink. That happened once in the whole time we were there, but here we've now had no water or no power dozens of times.

‍CS: Then there are other things, like after the last couple of storms there were slips on the Brynderwyns, which adds an additional hour or two to drive to Auckland – not to mention the additional kilometres in the car, the fuel .. Or the cost of a domestic flight from the Bay of Islands costs more than for me to fly to Sydney. Those additional, unnecessary logistical challenges makes it really challenging.

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What advice do you have for other founders starting up in a regional or rural location?

‍SS: Try to connect with other founders, just to meet other people who are on your journey. That's why we went for accelerators at the start. Having come back from overseas, we didn't really have a community here; our community was overseas and we'd all been displaced through the pandemic. So trying to rebuild those connections has been really good work-wise – being part of those accelerators and different programmes just to have other founders to talk to.

Our first wānanga was online with a group of other Māori businesses, and we're still close, cheerleading each other on, and that kickstarted that mentality. Other founders aren't necessarily your competitors, they are your team players. Trying to build friends in the founder world – that's been the most important thing for us.

‍CS: I've been working remotely for a really long time and I find it inherently isolating. That can be really challenging for your mental health at the best of times, and then you compound that by being a startup founder, which in itself is also incredibly isolating. But if you've got that support network around you to cheer for you and believe in your wild ideas that helps you strive on.

‍As told to Caitlin Sykes