Marsh doesn't remember the exact moment when the trio decided to launch a business. But it would have been over a regular beer session at the pub. They decided their selling point would be an emphasis on service, which was lacking in the industry - and bocapa was born.
They started from a bedroom, progressed to a living room and then an office at Hasler's apartment. One of their earliest projects, before even moving to offices was the website NZBus.co.nz.
Marsh said the owners' previous experiences were complementary. Hasler had worldly experience, Marsh had come from a management background and Heddington from customer services in corporates.
There are an awful lot of what-ifs to consider before going into business with your best mate. You may be great friends, but are you compatible financially? Do you have the same expectations for money?
Ngaio Merrick, a business development manager, says some of the pros of setting up a business with friends are:
That the devil you know is often best.
* You know who you are dealing with.
* You like spending time with your business partner.
* You know what is going on in their personal life.
* You have someone to celebrate the good times with.
But there will be hard times, which can test friendships. Paul Cafferkey and Robert van Heiningen have been friends for 30 years and have had to thrash out some difficult issues since they bought Alert Taxis together in 2002.
The pair met while driving cabs for Co-op Taxis. Young taxi drivers were a rarity in the 1980s so Cafferkey and Van Heiningen struck up a friendship. Political issues in the organisation led one and then the other on to the board of the co-operative where they stayed for six years.
Having taxi company management experience under their belts when changes meant they were no longer needed at Co-op was a help when the pair decided to buy Alert Taxis. They put some of their success down to good legal structures; advice echoed by many.
Set very clear expectations, roles and responsibilities in writing, says Merrick.
"I think it is very good advice to say you should never go into business with friends and family," says van Heiningen, slightly tongue-in-cheek. "Paul and I have been through some very, very tough times together. You really have to be sure you are both capable of taking criticism and dishing out criticism to resolve issues."
Life can also simply change. That's what happened at bocapa when Heddington decided to move on. He had a young family and couldn't cope with the financial insecurity of being the owner of a fledgling business. "He had a couple of kids and a mortgage," says Marsh. "It just wasn't for him and there are no hard feelings."
Merrick says some of the cons of being in business with friends are:
* Friends can be difficult to performance manage.
* You may not push as hard as you would if another employee isn't being productive.
* They can take liberties.
* The friendship could be at risk.
* It can be tougher to thrash things out with friends.
* When life changes direction, it can be hard to be dispassionate.
Friends in business need to know their business partner/s very well. They sometimes appear like husband and wife. Van Heiningen jokes that his business partner Cafferkey knows him better than his own wife.
Marsh and Hasler "have an understanding". Marsh says: "We have 'the look'. We can look at each other in a meeting and the other one will take over."
Merrick says an important rule for friends in business is to have clear, documented accountability in place from the outset. Van Heiningen says at Alert, the owners are transparent about money. "We bend over backwards and don't even take a newspaper home."
Ecoflow owner Karl Sentch knew his mate, Jon McGettigan, was the right man to go into business with when the latter broke his leg kite surfing. He was back on the job at ITT Flygt, where the pair worked together, the next day.
Sentch says in the 4 years since they set up Ecoflow together, they haven't had a single argument.
He puts this down to "personalities, legal structures, the way we split the responsibilities, and the fact that the business has gone very, very well, which relieves pressures in other areas".
Friendships can fail when businesses struggle. There are lots of reasons that businesses fail. It may be nothing to do with the friendship. But a business fallout or failure might be the end of the friendship.
