MEDIA RELEASE

Thursday 7 June, 2012

ICEHOUSE Network Event Headlines Leading Entrepreneurs and Futurist

The ICEHOUSE Network Event is all about looking to the future. On July 6, 2012 the Network Event will introduce an impressive line-up of keynote speakers and panellists including Rob Adams, U.S entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author; Sarah Gibbs, co-founder of Trilogy; Tim Longhurst, futurist; Vinny Lohan, founder and CEO of OneBeep; and Chris Quin, CEO of Gen-i Australasia.

The world’s business landscape is changing at a rapid pace. As entrepreneurs and business owners, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day challenges of running a business, without stopping to think about the impact of upcoming trends.

“It’s a challenge to get a start-up or an owner-managed business with big ambitions off the ground. Often times the business owner is so focused on building their product or servicing their clients, they have little time for anything else, said Andy Hamilton, CEO of The ICEHOUSE. The ICEHOUSE Network Event is a great opportunity for business owners and entrepreneurs to hear from people who walk a similar path. It is also an opportunity to take a step back to consider the impact of evolving business trends and get inspired by the success stories of others.

Rob Adams, a leading U.S. entrepreneur, is a panellist at the Network event as part of a two week visit to New Zealand mentoring local businesses and investors. An expert in market validation, Dr Adams is also a globally recognized speaker on entrepreneurship, product and financing strategy. He is on the faculty of the MBA program at The University of Texas at Austin, and is an active angel investor and board member for several start-ups. He has founded or financed more than 40 companies that launched more than 100 products with transactions exceeding one billion dollars of capital.

Dr Adams said, Launching new products or start-ups is tough. More than 65 percent of new products fail. If we switch over to start-ups, the failure rate jumps to 90 percent. Market validation aims to increase these odds through the use of a series of common business practices that, when assembled in a unique way, can prove the validity of a market opportunity. The process is very similar for both start-ups and established companies and looks for concrete evidence of an opportunity before considerable amounts of time and money are invested pursuing it. New Zealand

has a great environment for early stage businesses. Im looking forward to visiting again to share and learn from Kiwi business leaders.

As a futurist, Tim Longhurst is a passionate advocate for innovation and collaborates with organisations to think about the future. He identifies trends and helps organisations adapt to a changing world. Mr Longhurst will talk about three key future trends that are redefining our lives and the opportunities these bring.

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