CEO Q&A: Vend chief executive Vaughan Rowsell

Vaughan Rowsell. Photo / Jason Oxenham

What are the challenges around building a company from New Zealand? Is it easier as a technology business?

It's pretty simple to start a business in New Zealand, and an international one at that too. The internet brings everything closer, but you do need to travel overseas if you are serious about building great business relationships. Meeting people face to face always trumps a Skype call for example. Technology businesses are both easier and harder to do from New Zealand. If you are shipping software, then it's all online so you don't need to put things into containers and put them on boats so that's easy, but we still don't have the same access to talent that you would find somewhere like San Francisco. So there are pros and cons. But the cons are not enough for you to not consider starting something here, and the more of us who do, the deeper we grow the talent pool here.

What is it around doing the "impossible"?

I find the word "impossible" curious, because when people say or think it they usually don't mean it. So I make a thing of finding things I once thought impossible and then go out and do them. I am not exactly into physical fitness but I set goals to cycle the length of New Zealand and to run 1000km for example. For someone with a desk job and not very active they seemed impossible, but then I set out to do them and found that by taking things one step, quite literally, at a time you can actually do most things.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

My kids (ha ha). Being with amazing people. I am lucky to work with some of the most talented people I have met at Vend and the same goes for the work we do at OMG Tech! - the charity I co-founded with Michelle Dickinson to get kids into studying technology. I find talented people with a purpose have the most amazing energy about them, and it energises me to be around them. My kids fit into that category too, they have such a passion for life.

How do you stay ahead of the competition?

Keep your eyes forward and don't look back. Focus on what you do well and then execute the crap out of things. Competitors validate what you are doing, but you don't need to pay too much attention to everything they do. Stick with your plan and your strategy then execute, execute, execute.

Have you always been passionate about technology?

Ever since I touched my first computer I was fascinated by what was possible with technology. My mum saw this when I was 10 or so, and she bought us boys - I'm one of three sons - a computer which was one of the most amazing things my mum did for us. This was in the 80s and computers were expensive. Mum was a paraplegic solo mum on the DPB and took out a bank loan to be able to afford that computer. Then she upgraded that computer to another one, then another. Everyone thought she was crazy, borrowing money for computers when putting shoes on our feet was a challenge. But she saw the future and invested in us boys. And it paid off. And that is why I founded OMG Tech! to do the same for other kids who may not have access to the same technology as most. Get kids from low decile schools to discover robotics, coding, 3D printing and discover new futures for themselves.

Ten years from now, where do you want to be?

Wow, 10 years is a long time but I am going to guess I am in Auckland as it is one of the most incredible cities on the planet, working with technology companies. Technology will be amazing, we won't even know what it will do for us in our lives today. I want to be part of whatever that technology is. OMG Tech! will have inspired tens of thousands of kids to get into technology as a career and some of them will have already started inventing our new future as 20 somethings with their own businesses. My daughters will have grown up too and may even be in the industry. My oldest says she wants to take over running Vend one day. She is 11 now and I reckon if that's what she wants to do then, sure. Because nothing is impossible if you really want to do it.