It was the $50 dinner date that did it.
One night Wellingtonian Sonya Williams and her partner Ben Crotty, a designer and illustrator, were discussing whether to go out to dinner or eat in when she thought about what she could do with the $50 she'd save if they stayed home.
"I thought I'd love to be able to invest that online in a fun way. I took the idea to work and talked to people who knew a lot more about investing than I did.
"They took to it, and next minute, there were six of us who had a love of technology and a love of empowering people who were rallying around this idea that we all deserve the opportunity to grow our wealth. We thought, if we could crack this, it could be really powerful."
Crack it they did and soon after Williams and other like-minded partners founded online wealth development platform Sharesies, which today is used by over 570,000 people in New Zealand and Australia as an investment platform.
Williams's story is included with those of a number of successful Wellington business founders and leaders of acclaim featuring in Only in Wellington, an inspirational campaign focussed on highlighting Wellington as a place of opportunity with the hope of attracting talent to the city from across the country.
WellingtonNZ General Manager, Todd Barberel, says the campaign aims to showcase what is possible in Wellington, a region renowned for creativity, by showing a notable selection of people who have channelled the city's "special kind of magic" to support their success.
"The effect of Wellington as a place on its people and communities has for years helped shape and provide an environment for business innovation and entrepreneurship," he says. "As these stories demonstrate, Wellington is a place where you can be yourself, dream big - and attract talent."
Barberel says a diverse range of people working across myriad industries are attracted to the region.
"We are pround of knowing that each person or family are drawn here for different reasons and with campaigns like Only in Wellington, we want to keep letting people know that they will find a connected and collaborative place to live a life of ease and balance here - and the opportunity to succeed at an international level."
Williams believes being in Wellington helped with the foundation of Sharesies because it is a dynamic city that encourages entrepreneurship.
Her partner Crotty and the other founders, Brooke Roberts, Leighton Roberts, Richard Clark and Martyn Smith, were not part of the same friend group before starting Sharesies but came together organically thanks to connections as ex-colleagues and – in the case of Roberts and Smith – playing together in the Wellington Brass Band.
"We realised were all connected by a shared vision and passion to change things," says Williams. "We were also at a point in our careers where we wanted to try our own thing. If we'd lived somewhere else we might not have even crossed paths and had that same level of tightness that we have.
"Wellington has some really good ingredients to support entrepreneurs and we could see other companies, like Xero – where Brooke and I had worked at various stages – that had achieved so much from Wellington. That re-sets your ambitions."
The aim of Sharesies was to create an easily accessible digital platform that would enable financial empowerment for everyone, whether they had $5 or $5m to invest. All the investing is done online - with confusing jargon removed - and support provided to help people learn about making their money work for them.
"In the past investing has been too hard and too scary for many people," says Williams. "What came through in the research we did before we launched was that (while) money is a part of people's lives, many have a negative relationship with it.
"It tends to be associated with words like guilt and shame, no matter how much money you have. We imagined a world where that's not the case, where you have choices, and where growing your wealth can enable you to live the life you choose."
Investments through Sharesies can start from just 1c and the 570,000 people using the platform range in age from newborns to octogenarians.
Over 8000 investment possibilities are available on the platform from bonds, cash and international shares through to local sustainable funds. The company has gone from the six original Wellington-based founders to over 200 staff spread around the country.
Others featured in Only in Wellington include Joe Harawira from 3 Māori Boys, Rachel Taulelei from Oho, Claire and James Fuller of Hnry, Sir Richard Taylor & Tania Rodger of Weta Workshop, Roman Jewell founder of Fix & Fogg, Enzo Bresolin of Scopa, Jos Ruffell from Garage Project, Sarah Meikle, founder of Wellington on a Plate and Nick Foster of Delivereasy.
Read more about these stories and the people behind them at: www.WellingtonNZ.com/OnlyInWLG