New Zealand has been the home to Australian expats for years, and now Kiwis are muscling in on the startup world as low living costs and talented entrepreneurs continue to build the country's reputation for innovation.
The country, which was ranked No.1 in the world for ease of doing business by the World Bank, is increasingly becoming the dark horse in the Asia-Pacific startup world, attracting entrepreneurs from across the globe.
![Stefan Korn: "We don't have the luxury of being able to cherry-pick from a vast number of startups."](/web/20161129072539im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/w/d/n/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsphek.png/1480287845591.jpg)
Stefan Korn, chief executive officer of Creative HQ, the leading accelerator in New Zealand, said the country could benefit from even more expats following the American election result.
"We'll have an even better time because we'll have a whole lot of expats come to New Zealand," he said.
![Wipster's team relishes the underdog title that New Zealand has begun to attract throughout the Asia-Pacific.](/web/20161129072539im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/w/d/n/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsphek.png/1480287845591.jpg)
"Many of them are very skilled and entrepreneurial, and we've seen a lot of expats and people from much larger economies like the UK and the US come to New Zealand."
Lifestyle move
Andrew Lamb is one of those expats building the New Zealand economy. Having moved from Melbourne to Wellington in search of a cooler summer, Lamb and his company, Camshaft, have thrived with the relocation.
"We could run the company just as well in Wellington as we could in Melbourne, but Wellington has in our opinion nicer weather, it was too hot in Melbourne," he said.
But the attractive lifestyle choice extends far past the weather, to an inclusive and collaborative tech startup community.
"In Wellington, there is a really tight-knit tech startup community where everyone knows everyone else, everyone is willing to give everyone a hand with whatever they're working with," Mr Lamb said.
"You can't help but know everyone, and whenever a new company forms it's a bunch of people who've worked at other companies together previously."
The ecosystem that Lamb and Camshaft enjoy and Creative HQ sits in is much different to that of a decade ago. With support from the federal government, which has fostered the ecosystem, startups and startup incubators are growing and there's greater opportunity in New Zealand.
Creative HQ's Lightning Lab is the biggest incubator program in the country and has benefited from a more structured and organised approach to innovation.
"When we started 12 to 15 years ago, the scene was very disorganised and very ad hoc, there were no angel investors and very limited talent. So it was pretty much random and sheer luck that any of us got off the ground," Mr Korn said.
"Over the past four years we've worked very hard to structure it … as a result we're seeing, especially in the past three or so years, dramatically increased levels of innovation coming from the startups, and increasingly so corporates and governments working together to drive innovation."
As a result of such growth, New Zealand companies are beginning to become more competitive on the world stage and have increasingly gained more exposure.
Founder and CEO of video review software Wipster, Rollo Wenlock, relishes the underdog title that New Zealand has begun to attract throughout the Asia-Pacific, as it goes up against more developed and larger ecosystems in Singapore and Australia.
"When I see new New Zealand entrepreneurs doing well it's like putting up the middle finger to other companies. They're just doing it their own way and succeeding. It's awesome," he said.
"We don't owe anybody anything, no one even looks at our country because we're so small and so far away. Our names just keep popping up and people are just like, 'Who's this goddamn guy?' and it's quite fun being that underdog and playing that role as you grow and grow."
Why it works
Wenlock's company has grown exponentially in the past two years and is integrated with Adobe, Slack and Vimeo.
"We've come from no customers, no brand, no partners, no nothing and in that two-year period we've essentially built ourselves up as a bit of a mini brand where some of our customers only work with other people if they use Wipster," he said.
Mr Korn said that a large part of New Zealand's success came down to the consideration and time that goes into developing startups.
"We don't have the luxury of being able to cherry-pick from a vast number of startups ... we need to almost be a little smarter about it," Mr Korn said.
"We almost need to engineer some of the startups [where] we can see an opportunity for New Zealand companies to compete globally."
Mr Wenlock said that many companies he had come across had been struggling to compete with New Zealanders, despite their much greater investment.
"Kiwi companies do so much on so little capital, say $2 million or $3 million, and you're competing with a company that's raised $30 million and they can't keep up with you. And you're like, 'This is cool, we've actually got so many advantages by being perceived as more far away, useless, not connected'."
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