Make the most of your existence

Start a company that supports your life goals

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.

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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.

Entrepreneurs Unleashed, Paul Organ, Founder of Boardingware

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

Profile picture of Natalie Robinson, founder Mum's Garage
Natalie Robinson

Founder

Profile of Nelson Shaw, co-founder of Contento and startup mentor
Nelson Shaw

Product development

Profile picture of Carl Thompson, co-founder of Contento
Carl Thompson

Advisor and Co-creator

Patrick O'Reily, Sustainabilty expert and founder of Captail Practical
Patrick O'Reilly

Community development

profile picture of Eddie
Eddie Marriott

Content creation

Emily Bradley, Roll Camera
Emily Bradley

Community development

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead

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.

Business Resourcesr start a business

Community

Our online community connects people and gives them access to other founders and startup experts to get support when it's needed.

David Bosman delivering the Blockchain 101 workshop at Mum's Garage

Education

We run courses and workshops to teach people solutions to common problems and necessary development areas when starting a business.

Group of people discussing marketing strategy at digital marketing deep dive workshop

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.

Where did the name come from?

There is a story...