The Gathering
Chloe Swarbrick
- Whose responsibility is it to disrupt the system?
- Maybe try and engage with the system we have for a start before writing it off.
- You disrupt the system yourself or you hold the system accountable
Nick McFarlane
- He wrote a book
- Rock Stars are dicks to work with
So you want to Start a Business
- Hosted by Reuben and Justin (the accountant)
- Things you need to know in your first year of business
- How serious is the business, what sort of structure
- If you are serious, you have to do things properly
- Have you got paying customers yet
- Could just be an idea or a hobby
- Sole Trader vs Incorporated company vs Trust vs Partnership
- Incorperated
- Directors and Shareholders needed to be decided on
- Can take just half an hour
- when to get a GST number?
- If over $60k turnover a year
- If you have lots of stuff you plan to claim back.
- Have an accounting System from Day 1 – Xero Pretty good
- Get an advisor or mentor that is not emotionally invested in your company
- If partnership then split up responsibilities so you can hold each other accountable for specific items
- If you are using Xero then your accountant should be using Xero directly not copying it into a different system.
- Remuneration
- Should have a shareholders agreement
- PAYE possibility from drawings or put 30% aside
- Even if only a small hobby company you will need to declare income to IRD especially non-trivial level.
- What Level to start at Xero?
- Probably from the start if the business is intended to be serious
- A bit of pain to switch over later
- Don’t forget about ACC
- Remember you are due provisional tax once you get over the the $2500 for the previous year.
- Home Office expense claim – claim percentage of home rent, power etc
- Get in professionals to help
Diversity in Tech
- Diversity is important
- Why is it important?
- Does it mean the same for everyone
- Have people with different “ways of thinking” then we will have a diverse views then wider and better solutions
- example “Polish engineer could analysis a Polish specific character input error”
- example “Controlling a robot in Samoan”, robots are not just in english
- Stereotypes for some groups to specific jobs, eg “Indians in tech support”
- Example: All hires went though University of Auckland so had done the same courses etc
- How do you fix it when people innocently hire everyone from the same background? How do you break the pattern? No be the first different-hire represent everybody in that group?
- I didn’t want to be a trail-blazer
- Wow’ed out at “Women in tech” event, first time saw “majority of people are like me” in a bar.
- “If he is a white male and I’m going to hire him on the team that is already full of white men he better be exception”
- Worried about implication that “diversity” vs “Meritocracy” and that diverse candidates are not as good
- Usual over-representation of white-males in the discussion even in topics like this.
- Notion that somebody was only hired to represent diversity is very harmful especially for that person
- If you are hiring for a tech position then 90% of your candidates will be white-males, try place your diversity in getting more diverse group applying for the jobs not tilt in the actual hiring.
- Even in maker spaces where anyone is welcome, there are a lot fewer women. Blames mens mags having things unfinished, women’s mags everything is perfect so women don’t want to show off something that is unfinished.
- Need to make the workforce diverse now to match the younger people coming into it
- Need to cover “power income” people who are not exposed to tech
- Even a small number are role models for the future for the young people today
- Also need to address the problem of women dropping out of tech in the 30s and 40s. We can’t push girls into an “environment filled with acid”
- Example taking out “cocky arrogant males” from classes into “advanced stream” and the remaining class saw women graduating and staying in at a much higher rate.
Podcasting
- Paul Spain from Podcast New Zealand organising
- Easiest to listen to when doing manual stuff or in car or bus
- Need to avoid overload of commercials, eg interview people from the company about the topic of interest rather than about their product
- Big firms putting money into podcasting
- In the US 21% of the market are listening every single month. In NZ perhaps more like 5% since not a lot of awareness or local content
- Some radios shows are re-cutting and publishing them
- Not a good directory of NZ podcasts
- Advise people use proper equipment if possible if more than a once-off. Bad sound quality is very noticeable.
- One person: 5 part series on immigration and immigrants in NZ
- Making the charts is a big exposure
- Apples “new and noteworthy” list
- Domination by traditional personalities and existing broadcasters at present. But that only helps traction within New Zealand
