A decade in business, bar owner Kurt MacIntosh has seen it all.
“A taxi drove through the front door one night,” he laughed. “We were closed, obviously, but we were still here, cleaning up.”
He took over ownership of Auckland’s Eagle Bar back in 2013 after working shifts as a student.
“The opportunity came up here to buy this place at the end of uni and so we just took it and ran with it.
Being a small business owner here in New Zealand isn’t necessarily rare, with small operations making up 97 per cent of businesses across the country.
But what is rare, is how many of them stand the test of time - an achievement Macintosh didn’t realise the magnitude of until recently.
He was awarded with a “letter from the king” (New Zealand music royalty King Kapisi that is) in collaboration with Mastercard to celebrate the milestone.
It comes amid Stats NZ data which recently revealed that only about 28 per cent of businesses founded in New Zealand a decade ago are still in operation today.
In fact, you’re actually more likely to live to around 100 years old than you are to be in business for 10 years.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get buy-in from the royals,” Mastercard NZ country manager Ruth Riviere told Focus.
“We thought the next best thing, or actually even better some might argue, was to have King Kapisi involved and he was super keen. He also has a passion for small business and the achievements so it worked really well.”
MacIntosh described the visit by Kapisi as “special”.
“I didn’t expect that it was such a remarkable cause to people outside the business,” he said.
“So to get that recognition has been really heartening and, you know, I’m really very proud.”
Cracking it as a small business owner is as hard as ever and some industries are tougher than others.
Only about 25 per cent of those in food services survive for 10 years - the pandemic, cost of living crisis and labour shortages the most recent challenges owners have had to face.
It’s left many sadly forced to shut their doors.
The Restaurant Association said it was mostly down to the “small margins” they deal with.
“It is challenging at the best of times to be profitable,” Nicola Waldren, Restaurant Association general manager, said.
“Profit sits at around between 4-7 per cent, so what we’ve seen this year in particular is that there have been a number of quite large cost increases.
“You can see when you’re working with quite small margins that that has a big impact.”
While it’s been a tricky few years to navigate, there’s hope for an uptick in business.
“There is some optimism for next year,” she added.
“There’s also some optimism for the summer trading … and one of the things that we’re seeing as a positive is the return of the international traveller.”
Hoping for a bumper summer himself, MacIntosh said the hard times have come with valuable lessons and even better advice for him to now share to those starting out.
“There are some great perks, I love being able to set my own hours and be my own boss. But there is, there’s a lot of responsibilities that come with it too,” he said. “The buck stops with you.
“You have to have tenacity and be adaptable. I think those are probably the two most important things to keep in mind starting your own business because it will take a while before you probably start to see the growth or the stability.
“But I’d say hang in there!”
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