Go in knowing
I help New Zealand founders test pricing, marketing, buyer assumptions, legal, and operating structure before they hire, spend, or scale the wrong plan when entering the US.
Book a US Market Entry DiagnosticThe US is either an opportunity or a trap. Which one depends entirely on the decisions you make before you commit capital to the move.
Read: 19 reasons New Zealand companies fail in the US →OPERATOR CREDENTIALS
SCALING RECORD
$110M
ANNUAL REVENUE
GROWTH RANK
#2
FASTEST-GROWING US COMPANY, Inc. 5000
CAPITAL RAISED
$22M
RAISED FROM US VCS
For New Zealand companies where entering the US market becomes a defining decision.
You have traction in New Zealand. The product works. The team delivers. Now the question is whether the model you built here can survive a market that is bigger, more expensive, and less forgiving.
NZD $3M–$25M. Proven domestic traction and the financial capacity to fund a serious US move.
Years 2–10. Past early survival. Now facing the question of whether the US is the next logical market.
Profitable B2B or B2C product or service businesses in New Zealand.
You have had early US interest. Then the questions got harder: pricing, channel strategy, first buyer, and margin structure. That is the point I designed this work for.
Design the architecture before US execution begins. Go in knowing what will break before you commit resources to the move.
Most NZ companies don't fail in the US because they lacked effort or ambition.
They fail because they started executing before they resolved the decisions the US punishes hardest: pricing, channel choice, customer acquisition economics, hiring sequence, and timing. The initial cost looks like hiring too early, choosing the wrong channel, mispricing the offer, burning cash on weak economics, and losing a year learning what should have been resolved before launch.
The deeper cost is strategic. The board and investors lose confidence. The domestic business gets distracted. Founder time gets consumed by motion instead of traction.
Expensive "learning"
A failed US entry can easily cost more than $500,000.
Premature hiring. Wrong pricing. Weak channel selection. Poor CAC assumptions. Lost founder time. Each one is recoverable. Together, they are not.
I give founders a reality check before those costs become irreversible.
I find what breaks in your business model.
I don't confirm what will work in the US. I look for what will break. The diagnostic is a structural stress test, not a market study. I scaled Paint Nite to $110M across 250+ US markets, raised $22M from US investors, and I know where models crack under US economics. That operating experience is the lens. Not a framework. Not a research methodology.
I co-founded Paint Nite and grew it to $110M in annual revenue in four years by getting the hard decisions right early: pricing, channels, unit economics, sequencing, and what not to do yet.
As an angel investor, I have advised and mentored more than 20 startups across very different industries. That breadth sharpens pattern recognition — the ability to see which structural mistakes recur across different businesses and what breaks next if the wrong decision gets made. I have also raised capital from US investors and understand how expansion decisions are judged when institutional money is involved.
Based in New Zealand
Auckland-based. Available in person.
Engagements run remotely or face-to-face. Founder-led from first conversation to final deliverable.
Edmund Hillary Fellow
Investor Fellow of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. a global fellowship for investors and entrepreneurs based in New Zealand.
SERVICES AND PRICING
One starting point. Two engagements.
Every client starts with the US Market Entry Diagnostic before deciding whether to proceed to the full six-week engagement.
US Market Entry Diagnostic — $10,000
Book a US Market Entry Diagnostic →Twelve months executing the wrong plan in the US is harder to recover from than $10,000 spent finding the right one.
$10,000
A paid decision session that identifies the most important commercial issue in your current US expansion thinking. You leave with a named finding and a direct answer on whether to go, delay, or redesign. If both sides decide to proceed, I credit the fee in full toward the US Market Entry Architecture Engagement.
$75,000
A six-week founder-led engagement that resolves the commercial decisions required before resources are committed to US expansion. Covers first buyer, first channel, pricing logic, unit economics, operating structure, first-hire sequence, and go / no-go. The output is a US Market Entry Architecture Decision Pack. Board-ready · Defensible · Operational from day one.
You have other options. Here is why they solve a different problem.
Useful for access, introductions, and market information.
They do not resolve whether your commercial model survives US economics.
Useful for research and broad market analysis.
Not designed for founder-level decisions on pricing, channel selection, sequencing, and first-move logic.
Gives you in-market presence. Presence is not architecture. Execution only helps if the underlying model is right.
Often the first instinct of a capable founder. Also the easiest way to carry NZ assumptions into a market that punishes them.
What actually happened when NZ companies went to the US.
The commercial mistakes that kill NZ companies in the US are consistent. The industry changes. The critical decision doesn't. These teardowns reconstruct what went right — or wrong — and the architecture decision that actually determined the outcome.
The company that traded New Zealand success for failure in New York
Kiki was a working business in New Zealand. In New York, their service was effectively illegal from day one. They operated for 19 months before finding out — and paid $152,000 in fines on $100,000 in revenue.
How an Australian success became a race to $0 in the US
Sendle raised $100M, shipped 65 million parcels, and still failed in the US. They entered a market where a well-funded competitor was offering the same service for free — and their pricing model had no answer for it.
From 300 Target Stores to 4,000 US Stockists in Four Years — Without a US Office.
Anihana got an inbound call from Target in 2021. By 2025: 4,000+ US stores, 384% revenue growth — and a working capital risk most NZ founders never model.
More teardowns available — forensic breakdowns of what went wrong and the decision that actually determined the outcome.
View all teardowns →Before you spend in the US, know what has to be true.
Start with a paid US Market Entry Diagnostic. You will leave with a named finding and a direct answer on whether to go, delay, or redesign.
Book a US Market Entry Diagnostic →