How Kiwi couple built tax powerhouse in wake of redundancy.
It all began with a redundancy.
When Josh Taylor was let go from his steady job in 2011, he and wife Nicola were in a precarious position. With two kids under five and a third on the way, finances were tight and careers on hold as the Auckland couple went through the process of assessing their options.
“That was actually quite a painful process,” Nicola recalled in an interview with Common Grounds, a new NZME podcast series in partnership with Nespresso Professional that takes listeners inside some of Aotearoa’s most loved small - and medium-sized businesses.
Refusing to be cowed by the situation, though, the Auckland couple sensed an opportunity to combine their skillsets – Nicola’s entrepreneurial spirit and lawyer background with Josh’s innate understanding of the tax system – to start a new business together.
So, the following year, they took a “leap of faith” and launched Tax Traders – a financial technology company helping businesses manage their tax bills more effectively.
“Things like cashflow flexibility, access to funding, timing of your tax payments – they sound technical, but they make a real difference for a business and the people that work there. They actually make a real difference for our economy,” said Nicola.
“But that was really only available to very big corporates who paid very large tax bills, so we wanted to make that available to every New Zealand business that paid provisional tax.”
The Taylors were united in their unwavering belief in the potential of Tax Traders, and felt Josh’s redundancy had “opened the door” to giving it a proper go.
But starting the new venture came at a huge personal cost.
“We sold our home and moved into a friend’s home when our youngest was six days-old – so we had a five-year-old, a three-year-old and a six-day-old baby,” Nicola recalls.
“We worked for 18 months without any income coming in and got down to about $3000 to our name as a family with three little ones. So it was pretty rough.”
That year-and-a-half spent grinding for little reward pushed the Taylors to their limits – but they were resolute in their belief in their purpose, and eventually gained traction.
“I believed that this was what we were supposed to be doing, and I just believed that it would work,” remembers Nicola.
“That power of belief is actually really important for founders because when you believe that something’s going to happen, you interpret the world through that lens…
“It’s actually been a story after those 18 months of extraordinary growth, of real success. We’ve got this beautiful office now, this amazing team that we work with, and we just feel like the luckiest founders in the world.”
Fourteen years on, Tax Traders is one of New Zealand’s most accomplished fintech companies, employing 38 people and providing their service to some of the country’s best-known companies.
Their humble beginnings guide the values of the company – they know what it’s like to struggle, which is why they care about optimising the customer experience and continue to work with businesses of all sizes.
“I look at the number of clients that we work with, and I think, ‘wow, look at that’,” says Nicola.
“I remember when we had no clients. I remember when the phone didn’t ring, or if the phone did ring, we’d do, like, a happy excited dance because it could be a client – and then it was probably just a survey.
“So every client that interacts and works with us is incredibly special. We never take them for granted and we give them the very best service. That’s why our net promoter score is globally off the charts, because people get a really good experience with us.”
One of the Taylors’ core beliefs is that business can be a force for good, and is well-placed to solve many of the problems the world is facing.
“For us, that starts with first and foremost being an amazing place to work, to be an amazing place for our people,” Nicola told Common Grounds.
“The workplace is going to have a bigger impact on their mental health than their therapist or doctor, and as much of an impact on their mental health as their partner – this is what the research is showing us. So gosh, it’s important to get that right…
“But it goes way beyond that as well, in terms of how we think about our profit, both how we make that and what we do with that; how we are with our clients; how we deal with our competitors; what we do in the community.
“It’s a much broader purpose, but we start with our people.”
Wearing their values on their sleeve has put Tax Traders in good stead – the company has been recognised in the top 5% of B Corps worldwide for ethics, accountability, and transparency, and was named the overall winner in New Zealand’s 2024 Best Places to Work awards.
Values-based decision-making even extends to their choice of office coffee. With sustainability the “most important factor” for the Taylors, Tax Traders opted to go with a Nespresso Professional coffee machine for their team.
“Because we’ve been a B Corp for five years, it’s very important to us that we’re supporting other businesses that are B Corps, because every decision we make as a business needs to be tied back into that ethos – and we take that very seriously,” said Nicola.
“Any business can say that they’re doing good, that they’re giving money away, whatever – but B Corp is an independent assessment of every aspect of your business practice and that it’s at the highest standards of sustainability.”
The Tax Traders team love that they’re getting coffee from a fellow B Corp and say the Nespresso Professional machine is “super easy and super fast”, providing ample opportunity for staff to connect.
“There are a lot of offices who invest in what they see as a really high-quality coffee machine, but it’s really confusing and complicated for a lot of people… but everybody loves this one,” says Nicola.
“There are a lot of great chats around this coffee machine, a lot of great ideas that are born and inspiration that happens – surprising connections that you can make when you’re not expecting it.”
Want to create the perfect coffee corner in your workplace? Find out more about Nespresso Professional’s tailored coffee solutions here: www.nespresso.com/pro
Listen to the full episode here: