We support people to start and grow purpose driven companies
To allow more people to do work that provides purpose, freedom and a sufficient financial return.
Our Mission
We provide startup education, community and business development support to help people to be successful at starting and growing companies.
But what we're really on a mission to do is create a better way of existing, for the founders we help, the people they employ and the customers they serve. We do this by helping people to discover their unique value and turn it into products and services that can be used and enjoyed by others.
Our Story
When we started Mum's Garage our purpose was to create a community of people with the drive and knowledge to bring interesting ideas to life.
We were sick of people saying that an idea was nothing without execution, yet no one teaching us how to execute.
We also couldn't find a 'home' where people cared about us as people more than they cared about whether we were investible or not.
So we started our own community, to bring together like-minded, interesting people to support each other with idea and business development.
We started running events, inviting startup founders to share the raw and rugged stories of how they started out in business.
By running these events, talking to as many other founders as we could, and Natalie's own experience growing Mum's Garage, we realised that there were some really important factors behind business success that very few people talking about or teaching it in a way that was accessible and easy to understand. Things like, how to identify and develop a uniquely valuable idea, how to influence people, how to develop your own productive mindset, how to use customer feedback to make decisions, how to build products.
So we started running workshops to teach these fundamental, practical ideas and business development principles.
We've continued to learn more about the needs of New Zealand's aspiring entrepreneurs and founders, and we've created products and services to fill the gaps. Our primary focus is on doing what's best for the people we work with, to help them turn their uniquely valuable skills and insights into business opportunities.
We provide learning opportunities, a well-connected community, startup services and freely available content.
Meet the people involved
Natalie Robinson
Founder
Nelson Shaw
Product development
Carl Thompson
Advisor and Co-creator
Patrick O'Reilly
Community development
Eddie Marriott
Content creation
Emily Bradley
Community development
The evolution of people and business
Under our current education system, most people in the developed world have been 'optimised' for slotting into existing systems and doing as they are told. This has been the underlying requirement for most jobs.
Most businesses have been optimised primarily for making a profit. This has been a socially acceptable norm for a long time.
But the world is changing. Repetitive jobs are being automated, and people have a high enough quality of life that they are looking for more out of a job than just enough money to meet their most basic psychological and safety needs.
Consumers are also more self and environmentally aware. They are choosing to buy products and services that align with their values, from companies who have a purpose beyond just making money. This has given rise to the opportunity for a new kind of business, one that puts people first.
At the same time, starting a business is more accessible than it has ever been. Easy access to information and consumers, through the internet, and cheap technology allows small startups to compete with large corporations. It has meant that starting a business, something that previously required significant investment, can now be done by a small group of passionate, intelligent people with very little capital.
But the majority of people are ill-equipped to make the most of the opportunities that are now so much more accessible. The existing social systems and structures are difficult to overcome, meaning not many people are successful in pursuing their ideas and business aspirations.
To allow people to prosper in the future, we need to evolve to a new model of education and work. People need to be taught to understand their own unique value and develop modern skills to turn this value into something that is valuable to the world. To not just do as they are told, but instead, make decisions based on their own well-considered principles and values. We believe the best way to do this is by supporting people along the journey of entrepreneurship. Not only does this better prepare a person for a future of prosperity, but it also helps them to experience the highest level of human needs, self-actualisation, and allows them to bring others on the journey, their team and their customers.
This is why we are deeply passionate about supporting more people to become entrepreneurs.
How we do this
Our primary pillars are education and community. We also offer services, where we work hands-on with companies.
Community
Our online community connects people and gives them access to other founders and startup experts to get support when it's needed.
Education
We run courses and workshops to teach people solutions to common problems and necessary development areas when starting a business.
Services
Marketing, product development and general business development services to help companies start and grow.
Tools & Resources
As part of our mission to make entrepreneurship more accessible, we do our best to share useful tools and resources relating to starting and growing a company.