Author

Chris Dunlop

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Steve Jobs

4 years ago, we started Cub and if you had told me the following:

• There would be a global pandemic
• There would be a recession (pretty much the whole time)
• I would get cancer for and require treatment for 18 months

Well just the above is quite a lot to navigate in 4 years! If I told you that your business would still be around in 4 years after all of that, you would probably take that!

Espcially given the average failure of new businesses.

But then if you also told me:

• We would work with the Olympic Team at the Tokyo Olympics, the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, the Beijing Winter Olympics and the Paris Olympics
• We would have a growing team of 12 people!
• We would helped cofound and launch a new childcare marketplace that makes it easy to book a childcare visit and that business would get funding to launch into Abu Dhabi
• We would be working with the NZX
• We would be working internationally with clients in Dubai, Melbourne and Sydney

I mean that is pretty cool!

Origins

The first day of our new company - Alex & Connor

The different names we brainstormed - we could have been called lunar digital or lion digital

The original 5 of us - Alex, Connor, Sara, Chris & Dave

The first AI project we did, rendering AI images on a supercomputer that we bought with a credit card and that we had no clients for

Our first website with Sara's awesome prototype

Sara is my sister and our amazing graphic designer and this is still probably the best wireframe that we have ever done

The Olympic Team

The Olympic Team was our first big client that we managed to get 2 weeks after starting the business.

It's been an incredible ride working with them and to help New Zealand succeed on the world stage has been a real honour.

He got the bread

Dave sending moral support

The IT crowd

Logan is the CEO of Kindello and a client of mine when I was a civil engineer

Kindello is a childcare marketplace that we helped cofound and launch. It's been an incredible journey and we are so proud of what we have achieved.

Watching the commonwealth games with Mat. Mat has been with us from the beginning and someone I am so glad I met on a beach in Waiheke.

Mat works at High Performance Sport New Zealand and has been a huge supporter of us from the beginning. He has been a great friend and we worked on the boxing project together. He is the physiologist of Lisa Carrington.

Enjoying the Journey

It's been awesome to host our friends in the office - this was my 33rd birthday party

The Olympic Gala dinner! 2022

Resilience

You have to have a lot go right in business. I think a measure of your company and your culture is what happens when you get tested. Does it bring you closer together or does it tear you apart?

I am so proud of the team and how they have come together. The word resilience is a word that I have been thinking about a lot lately.

The team, all of them have picked up the slack when I have been sick and I am so grateful for that.

It's not common for a company to have been tested like this so early in our journey, but I think it has made us stronger.

The first day of chemo - Battling health issues for 18 months!

Yay! Cancer free party in the office

The Team Grows

I'm proud of the team that we have. There's an intensity and a love of work that I think is rare.

We are a company that works in the office everyday because I believe it's important to be together. I think that the best work comes from being together and I think that the best relationships come from being together.

Enjoying the Process

When you put a series of photographs like this together, it trivialises the stress that you feel along the way.

There is still some lingering stress and anxiety from everything but we have been doing better to take stock and insert rhythms to enjoy the process.

We've started a monthly movie night and have started doing a weekly team lunch. These are all things that are quite difficult to do when you are in the thick of it in crisis mode but it's these memories that you remember the most fondly.

Present Day

Will McGill - Managing Director of Bold Consulting Group is an awesome guy. I first met him at a climate festival event and really respect the skillset that he brings. The team at Bold have added significant capability and maturity to our offering!

We have partnered with Bold and are working on some cool projects together. I'm excited as one thing I have learned along the way is that you need a good group of people around you to succeed.

Bold helps us with project management, advisory and has a lot of experience with budgets, business cases and programme management. Our website is coming soon

It's a priviledge to be able to work with so many good friends.

The NZX

For the last 6 months we have been working with the Smartshares team and the NZX. It's been a real priviledge to work with them and I'm looking forward to seeing all the ways that we can help assist them to grow.

Present Day

Going to the Paris Olympics was a real career highlight - Barbara Kendall has been an awesome supporter and friend throughout our whole journey

I first met Eliza at the Tokyo Olympics Gala dinner where she was injured - so it was a special moment to see her overcome that to compete again. She had so many insightful things to share throughout my cancer journey

Alex and Raiya - at the Stade De France! Alex works in London now, so it was a real treat to go and visit him and travel around London and Paris together

It's been nice to tick of a bucket list and a good chance to reflect on the journey that we have been on.

Looking forward

Now that one goal has been achieved it's time to set some new goals for the future. I'll do that in a separate post!

Lessons Learned

• Resilience: You have to have a lot go right in business. I think a measure of your company and your culture is what happens when you get tested. Does it bring you closer together or does it tear you apart?

• Enjoy the Journey: Take time to enjoy this. Sure it is testing, it's hard and stressful but you also are growing and learning at a rate that you never would have otherwise.

• Find the Joy in Each Day: This is a tip that Eliza shared that helped with cancer treatment. I try to apply this to business as well. No matter how stressful things get, there is always something to be grateful for.

• The Dinner Test: Now to be our client, I would only really work with people that I would have dinner with. This has been a good rule of thumb for us.

• Single Threaded Ownership: This is a concept that I learned from Amazon. It's important to have a single person responsible for a project. This has been a good rule of thumb for us that we have started implementing recently.

• Read: One thing I love about the team is that they are all readers. I think that reading is a great way to learn and grow. I think that it's important to have a culture of learning and growth.

Here's to the next 4 years!