No. 8 Wire: a New Zealand lifestyle or growth model: a case study of Auckland technology companies

NZ Statistics figures indicate the technology companies in New Zealand's main business center Auckland are mainly in the 6-9 FTE bracket and rarely grow beyond this 'magical lifestyle entrepreneur' threshold. New Zealand's technology entrepreneurs rank highly on the GEM scale of generating niche ideas. The same entrepreneurs seem to be suffering the New Zealand disease or are life style entrepreneurs. Our hypothesis is that Auckland technology companies have multiple inhibitors to growth. An investigation of the contribution of each of these growth inhibitors is subject of this paper. We will compare the results of our studies of Auckland companies with experiences based on running the Connect Programme in Edingburgh, Scotland, for over eight years.