Possibilities turn into probabilities

The winning team of Ben Canaguier, Matt Cowley, Victoria Hodge, Rachel Meikle, Rachel Southon, Dylan Johnston, Tessa Mackenzie and Saraniyaa Sukumaar celebrate. Photo / Supplied

The Tauranga Startup Weekend resulted in the launch of 10 new business ideas in the Bay of Plenty - three of which are already moving towards commercialisation.

Six new businesses have come out of the last two startup events with the potential to create new areas of industry specialisation in the region, say organisers.

This year's Startup Weekend was at Venture Centre's Basestation, which moved to its new Durham St premises in time for the event.

The Tauranga result bettered the national average for Startup Weekends run across New Zealand, in which one business moves through to a commercial reality per event.

After the 2013 Tauranga event, local Kimberly Cleland resigned from her position at Tauranga City Council to start a business, Done by People. She secured funding and has created the Night Owl Cinema and Neighbours Day community events.

"It's a challenge for us all to have people in positions of power facilitate the process and support this work by being willing to take risks with new ideas," said Ms Cleland.

Paul Slatin has built a community of customers in five countries and will relaunch his business, currently known as Speech Council, under a new brand in 2015. Former Tauranga locals Maria and Dylan Johnston, now living in Hamilton, received seed investment from Katikati investor Simon McDonald this year to build their business idea Clevercare. This year's prize-winning business, SeeSpray, led by Victoria Hodge and Rachel Southon, is already working at Venture Centre.

Their idea was to provide users with real-time notifications of growers spraying near them.

Ellis Bryers, who came up with the idea for Business Connect Aotearoa, and Ellyn Brunskill, whose concept was named SponsEASE, are working on growing their businesses.

"It's a testament to the calibre of the entrepreneurs and also the designers, developers, mentors and everyone else who contributed to Tauranga Startup Weekend that these people feel able to get the tools, skills and resources they need to build businesses," said Pascale Hyboud-Peron, director of Tauranga-based business Think Agency.