Business Stories
Stories about New Zealand businesses, startups and entrepreneurs building something worth noticing.
Property Market: The NZ Property & Real Estate Forum Built So It Can't Disappear
New Zealand’s biggest property community vanished when Facebook deleted it overnight. Property Market is the independent NZ property and real estate forum built so that can’t happen again.
Why New Zealand's Biggest Property Facebook Group Vanished Overnight
Property Investor Chat Group NZ had 73,000 members and a decade of local knowledge. Then Facebook deleted it overnight, and the archive went with it.
How to Buy an Existing Business in New Zealand
Half the country wants out of the grind. The other half wants in. Buying a business in New Zealand sits in that gap, if you can tell a tired owner from a tired shed.
From Oma's Spray Bottle to a Hawke's Bay Bathroom Brand
A little spray bottle by her Oma's toilet in Germany seemed unremarkable. Decades later, buried in wet wipes with her own kids, Leslie turned it into TinyBum.
How Many Billionaires Does New Zealand Have?
Ask how many billionaires New Zealand has and you get three different answers: 26, four or one. Each is correct. It depends who is counting, and in what currency.
Top5.nz: The Solar Quote Spreadsheet That Became a Rankings Site
Jan Dunlop works in digital marketing and still ended up building a spreadsheet to choose a solar installer. Top5.nz is that spreadsheet, opened up to everyone: local businesses ranked on what their customers actually said, with no way to buy a spot.
Wedding Vendors and the New Zealand wedding suppliers list you can trust
You can find a wedding photographer before lunch. Trusting the list you found them on is another matter. How Wedding Vendors tries to fix that, and what sits beside it.
The Mowbray Family Net Worth: Inside the Zuru Fortune (2026)
Three siblings from Cambridge turned a $20,000 loan into a NZ$20 billion fortune and the top spot on the 2026 Rich List. This is how the Mowbrays built Zuru.
Built Here, Sold There: Inside New Zealand’s Game Studios
A New Zealander made one of the biggest games of the decade, walked away from it, and came home to build a studio in Dunedin. His story is the whole country’s games industry in miniature: build something the world wants, then decide whether to keep it or sell it.
Charleez Chicken & Chips: The National Brand With No Stores of Its Own
Drive through provincial New Zealand and you will pass the Charleez sign in a dairy, a superette, a service station, a café or a bakery. None of those shops belongs to Charleez. That is the whole idea.
How Graeme Hart Made His Money and Became New Zealand's Richest Man
He left school at sixteen and became the wealthiest New Zealander who has ever lived. Graeme Hart made his fortune buying dull, essential businesses that the rest of the market had stopped paying attention to.
Off the Map: The Kiwi Businesses Google Barely Shows
The good local operators have not vanished. They are still busy, still the first name a local gives you. They have just become hard to find for anyone who is not already a local.
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