He’s a classic
Craig Meek is a classic entrepreneur — right down to the way he started his first company. It was the early ’80s and Meek, straight out of design school, couldn’t get a job. He still remembers standing in a queue to sign on for the dole, only to get to the front after a couple of hours to be told he was in the wrong line.

“That was enough for me to go down to the Companies Office and register my first company, Design City Arizona. I borrowed a couple of thousand dollars from my father and I haven’t looked back.”

Meek has since started eight companies, starting with desktop publish-ing and evolving into sophisticated visual data software. He’s also involved in mentoring technology entrepreneurs at the Auckland-based business incubator Icehouse.

Meek is probably best known for his visual data companies: Terabyte Interactive, Virtual Spectator and now, iVistra Technology. Terabyte is a multimedia production powerhouse which spearheaded the use of CD-ROMs in New Zealand, and was sold to INL in 1994 as part of its parent company News Corp’s internet strategy. It was about leading-edge technology and figuring out the next big thing, says Meek. That’s why Rupert Murdoch and News Corp wanted Terabyte. They were worried about the impact multimedia would have on the newspaper industry’s classified advertising.

Then Meek started Virtual Spectator in 1999 with Dunedin-based Animation Research, which developed the 3D engine Virtual Spectator used to make America’s Cup racing more exciting for the masses. He sold his stake in 2002, stayed on for five months then left to start iVistra. New investors were coming on board and he could either have a small stake in the existing company or a large shareholding in a new company, says Meek.

IVistra focuses on data visualisation for business using a product called Enterprise Visibility System (EVS), which turns data into pictures so a business can watch its operation in real-time. Meek has also set up iVistra Sport (iVistra stands for interactive visionary strategy) to use tracking technology in sport.

“Virtual Spectator was about turning data into pictures and making sport more understandable for people. The same philosophy says people in business get thrown spreadsheets and are expected to understand what it all means. What I’ve come up with is a whole design methodology to turn spreadsheets into pictures to give people much more clarity about their companies.”

Meek has global ambitions for iVistra and is spending plenty of time in Asia and Europe developing the software platform for different industries. Visualisation is a hot space right now, he says.

“Three years ago people didn’t know what I was talking about but everyone is into it now. Everyone is into GPS. China’s into traffic management. There are a lot of security applications being designed around visualisation. All these wild and weird technologies all come back to visualisation.”

There’s been a strong multimedia theme running through all of Meek’s companies. Every time his latest startup finds a niche, says Meek, technology evolves and it’s time to move on to a new company. And Meek needs to have fun, with a healthy dollop of passion for whatever project or company he’s currently involved with. Without passion, it’s too hard to stomach the wild rollercoaster ride of a startup, he says. The ups and downs are too stressful.

“You need vision, especially in software because the landscape changes so quickly in IT. In the next 12 months we’re going to see some really cool emerging wireless technology. Everything is going to become wireless. What does that mean for business?”

So he’s constantly evolving his thinking, contemplating the new technology spaces ahead. Always planning an exit? You don’t start the company to become a manager, he says, in classic serial entrepreneur mode. Corporate governance bores him to tears. His passion is coming up with new ideas and making them happen.

“You start it because you want it to become really successful and then you go. Eventually you get to a point where someone else needs your business to survive or grow. In the technology space, you get to a point where, to go truly global, you need to consider a trade sale. An IPO isn’t really popular these days.”

And true to his style, the latest is the greatest. Meek says he’s had some good wins over the years, including the sale of Terabyte to IT Capital in early 2000 for $8.4 million, although INL was the major shareholder by then.

“What I’m doing right now is probably my big win. The scale is the biggest I’ve been part of.” Again, that’s classic entrepreneurial thinking.


The learning curve
It’s often said that serial entrepreneurs love building towards opening night. Once the business is up and running their interest sometimes fades. Rod Drury knows the feeling but since he recently turned 40, and now has a family, he’s changed his attitude.

It’s where he’s at in the process, he says. He’s built companies, sold companies, is working inside a US publicly listed company, and now wants to build a great sustainable business from New Zealand, one which will allow him to have a lifestyle with his children, spend time at the bach, and still compete on a world stage.

Drury is probably best known for AfterMail, the email archive -company bought by US-based Quest Software for US$65 million earlier this year. Drury founded AfterMail two years ago with Mike Upshon, Tim Howell and Geoff Fisher, who were later joined by Lawrence Russell. The aim was to build a great company in a short time.

“We wanted to get some capital at the end for the next business so that absolutely was a sprint to acquisition. Having done that, and having just turned 40, now I’m more interested in building a great sustainable business where it’s not an exit.”

Drury was 27 when he walked away from a steady job at Arthur Young — the forerunner of Ernst & Young, where he had been developing call-processing and billing software for telcos — to form Glazier Systems, the internet developer and service provider which was later bought by Advantage Group for $7 million.

He and his colleagues — Upshon, Howell and Fisher — put in around $10,000 each and worked like hell. They were green and keen, says Drury.

“We walked away from a pretty good salary and didn’t know what we didn’t know, which was good in hindsight. We just put our heads down and ran, with a very small amount of capital, and managed to start a services business and got some good experience.”

Drury became chief technical officer at Advantage after the sale. In 2000, he co-founded Context Connect, a US-based company developing technology to increase connectivity across different mobile networks, which increases call traffic and revenue for operators. Drury is still chief technical officer for the Boston-based company which now has a US patent for its mobile directory application. It’s been a long haul, says Drury. “But it’s good fun and an idea whose time has come. That one is more of an intellectual property play but it’s been great fun going through the US patents process.”

And in the meantime, Drury and his colleagues set up AfterMail, which basically sorts and archives emails and stores them on a dedicated server so companies can quickly search through them.

Drury was chief executive at AfterMail. After understudying the role in previous companies, he says he was “ready to step up to the plate”. Drury talks of his career as one big learning curve. Born in Wellington and brought up in Hawke’s Bay, he got a commerce degree at Victoria University then went out into the commercial world and hasn’t stopped learning since.

Arthur Young and Glazier taught him the services side of the information technology business. With Advantage he was exposed to financing. With Context he spent a lot of time with US venture capitalists, raised some money in the US and learnt about intellectual property. AfterMail was about creating a world-class software product. When they needed a global sales team, Quest stepped in. Drury and his colleagues are working for Quest as part of the deal with some of the sale price tagged to future goals.

Whereas a classic serial entrepreneur might feel constricted, Drury sees a lesson. And he feels a responsibility to make sure the acquisition works for Quest — for the Kiwi companies that will follow them as much as anything.

“With Quest we’re demonstrating that you can get good technology out of New Zealand and pour it into a global channel which is already there and create value very quickly.”

But there’s always that war chest, and the next step. Wellington remains home. It rocks, says Drury, and he can park right outside his favourite cafes. He has a US phone number that rings his computer. He can do live meetings around the globe from Wellington. He’s on the board of Trade Me (but didn’t get any financial benefit from the recent sale to Fairfax). And he’s a fervent advocate for the Kiwi ICT sector but thinks too many New Zealand businesses stay service based.

“I think that’s a waste and what we’re seeing now with a bit of international success and a bit of money flowing back is the opportunity to get people into building real intellectual property so that, rather than selling $200,000 worth of services, you’re selling $1 million worth of product. To me that’s the challenge.”

Righto. Did we mention he was one of the first Segway buyers in New Zealand? And New Zealand’s first representative on Microsoft’s worldwide Regional Director programme, from 1997 to 2000. Always on the crest of the wave, that’s Rod Drury.


Happy Gilmore
Charles Gilmore is unusual in this line-up of serial entrepreneurs. Sure, he’s started several companies and failed a few times. But at the ripe old age of 67, Gilmore is focusing some of his energy and passion on ideas outside his core business. Parties For Growth is a non-aligned pressure group Gilmore founded to push for economic growth. And he’s registered a company called Sister Companies, which had its genesis during a trip to China earlier this year on a Hutt City sister-city visit. Gilmore was a Positively Wellington Business representative.

“Sister cities don’t go anywhere,” says Gilmore dismissively. “It’s just an exchange between officials which needs to be taken down to a commercial level but there wasn’t any mechanism for the officials to do it.”

Gilmore is negotiating with two companies in China to become sister companies of IndeServe — the IT, telecommunications and electrical services company he built up to be the country’s largest in the sector.

He is a US native, now a New Zealand citizen, who arrived here 20 years ago to become Telecom’s first marketing boss, on the day Telecom became a State Owned Enterprise. He stayed a year, left when he missed out on the CEO’s job and spent the next few months writing business plans. One was to compete with Telecom in selling phones. He hawked it around, trying to raise $20 million without success. Another, to compete with Telecom’s core business of selling calls, eventually became Clear Communications, Telecom’s first major competitor, and Gilmore became an advisor to the Todd family, one of the major investors.

Another Gilmore idea was to set up one company which would combine services so that someone who needed a phone and, say, a phone connection and power point, could get them from the one source. He sought around $10–$15 million to set that up, unsuccessfully. So Gilmore bought into a little company called Dave Billington Electrical. Its owner, Dave Billington, would only sell him 50% initially. Two years later Gilmore bought Billington out, and changed the company to IndeServe. These days Gilmore is the outright owner and that’s how he likes it.

“It’s the only way. An investor looks at the money and the return on that. I don’t think at all about the money; I think about the company and what we’re doing innovatively. You can back yourself and take a longer-term view than an investor.”

Gilmore got a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California and a Master’s degree in Hawaii, then travelled the world for six years. It was no backpacking, burger-flipping jaunt. He worked as a university professor in Chile and a university lecturer in Australia. His first marriage was to an Australian and he spent 15 years in Sydney, where he got himself an MBA and started a company called Microwave Associates Australia.

Unlike many serial entrepreneurs, Gilmore is perfectly happy running a company. He prefers to be entrepreneurial within the company structure, rather than seek new challenges through starting new companies. Maybe it’s the electrical engineering background.

“You can start companies with the motive of selling out in a couple of years but I’ve never taken that approach. I start companies when I see an opportunity in the market and I want to give it a go and make a mark. And once you get there, there’s just such a great opportunity to do things. We’ve done all sorts of things in this company which hadn’t been done in the service industry. You get a lot of entrepreneurial thinking in product but not in the service industry, but it’s a sector which is absolutely ripe for entrepreneurial thinking.”

In 1996, when the internet was still young, Gilmore decided it would be a great way to sell IndeServe’s services. Gather round, he told his employees. “I told them we were going to use the internet to deliver our services and give our customers a view of the work we were doing around the country, in real-time, and we were going to bet the company on it, and they looked at me like ‘What!’. We did it and today it has evolved and we have a service delivery software package we sell to the marketplace. I just love to come to work. It’s so darn interesting. The challenges grow, things expand, the picture gets bigger and so do the opportunities.”