Seeds Steven Moe

In this panel discussion arranged by Ministry of Awesome, got the chance to share about governance for startups along with Flip Grater, Jeff Wallace and Zach Warder-Gabaldon.  We kept it practical and relevant for founders on what you need to know when it comes to advisory boards, directors, legal duties, paying people, finding the right fit, selecting investors, how to keep on track and quite a lot more!  If you like this, check out the other content at www.theseeds.nz 
Resource on how to chair a meeting well: https://www.parryfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/How-to-Chair-a-Meeting-Well.pdf 
"Ministry of Awesome presents a dynamic panel of expert advisors offering quick-fire advice to guide you through the early stages of your business journey. Our experts will demystify industry jargon about governance and structure and clarify how today’s decisions can impact the future success of your business.”
Bios on panellists
Zach: Zach is responsible for developing and managing the startup innovation programmes at Ministry of Awesome. After spending two and half decades in the Valley immersed in and surrounded by entrepreneurship and innovation, he is incredibly well equipped to helping Aotearoa’s startup sector realise its potential as a unique and powerful incubation nation.
Jeff: Jeff is a long-time Bay Area resident who works with global startup ecosystems, including governments, corporations & startup accelerators/entrepreneurs, to help catalyze startup environments & create a bridge to Silicon Valley. He is an Adjunct Instructor at UC Berkeley and is co-founder of Silicon Valley in Your Pocket, a global virtual startup accelerator, serving 1000s of companies across 40+ countries. He is co-founder & former President of Batchery, an incubator for seed stage startups. He is an active angel investor with equity positions in 250+ companies and an active advisor & investor at Berkeley SkyDeck. He is an Executive Board Member for the Rutgers Business School Road to Silicon Valley Program (RSVP). Previously, he worked at Cognizant & Brillio as founder & Global Head for Mobility & UX practices. He is a frequent keynote speaker at global tech & startup events. He holds a BA in Economics/Finance from Rutgers College & an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Flip: Flip Grater is an author, musician and activist, founder and CEO, chef and entrepreneur. After 15 years in the music industry as a music label owner and singer-songwriter, touring the world and releasing five albums and two books she moved home to Otautahi and started plant based food production company and restaurant Grater Goods. She is currently the CEO of Grater Goods and a Press columnist.
Steven: Steven Moe is a Partner at Parry Field Lawyers with a focus on start-ups and small business and helping them succeed through practical support on topics such as structures, shareholders, raising capital and IP. He has edited free guides for startups including this one on raising capital and this one on common start-up issues. He has worked as a lawyer for 20 years including 11 years overseas based in Tokyo, London and Sydney, and since 2016 has been based back in Aotearoa. Steven hosts seeds podcast which has a focus on “for purpose” organisations and people doing inspiring things which has 388 episodes and another on governance for the IOD called Board Matters.

So what really is Impact Investing?  A short explanation ...
(This is the transript of the episode and all the links mentioned in it)
Having now interviewed almost 400 guests on Seeds Podcast a recurring theme which has emerged is how they are using impact investing to effect positive change in our society.  A question I get all the time though - both from companies, charities, directors and Trustees is - what exactly are you meaning when you keep talking about the rise of Impact Investing?  
So let’s break it down and give you some further listening if it does interest you.  
First the traditional approach.  Someone has a spare $10 million dollars - now this is a hypothetical scenario rather than being my situation.  Anyway, they have a choice about where they put that money.  One option is a traditional approach which means they put it into a long term deposit which makes interest.  They get some financial return, even if it is relatively low, and the offshore owned banks recycle that money to make themselves a nice profit.  
Impact investing steps in at this point and offers another approach.  What if that person has a particular cause that they care about - unfortunately the list is long - social housing, food deprivation for children, education on mental health and suicide prevention, climate change and green tech - there are many needs.  Let’s choose social housing because I know it really well.
So what if our friend took a portion of that $10 million and invested it into a startup company that wanted to provide social housing - this could be as equity and result in owning shares, or it could be as debt and they would have a loan they make.  The crux of the difference with traditional investing is that they would be able to make a financial return because it is not a donation, it is an investment.  But at the same time they would be able to have impact which is far greater and more satisfying than the interest they make from that long term deposit.
I am not saying they invest the full $10 million they have, but they do invest a portion of it - doing so may involve some risk but often ethically motivated companies that provide real solutions to our most wicked problems perform better, not worse, than traditional investments - and a tsunami of consumer support for such initiatives is on its way as people consider the supply chain and where their products come from.  
Even easier than a direct investment might be joining a fund which has those ethical lenses and thinks about where they put their money - and this is a choice that each of us can easily make with our Kiwisaver - I’ll put the links to Pathfinder, Simplicity and Generate as examples of that.
A real life example of this approach is Community Finance where I am the Chair of the Board.  We identified social housing as a massive need and we support Community Housing Providers by providing them with finance at a lower rate than mainstream banks, which we get from philanthropic investors and Kiwisaver funds like those I just mentioned.  Have we raised $50k or $100k for this?  No, actually in just a few years we have pulled together more than $160m for this. Before you all knock on the door this is for wholesale investors, rather than retail investors.  
So that is what impact investing is - simple, right?  We may be on the cusp of going even further though. 
Recently I released a legal opinion on how I think Trustees of large Trusts or Foundations that sit on large untapped pools of wealth now have a duty to consider Impact Investing and where their funds are invested - Shamubeel Eaqub interviewed me about that and why I think the law itself has changed for Seeds and will put a link to that in the show notes.  The point is that those funds that have billions of dollars in aggregate often were set up by a founder who wanted to tackle one of those problems in society, but the Trustees only think about how they can use income from

In this conversation with Jeff Wetzler he reflects on his new book "Ask: Tapping into the hidden wisdom of people around you".  We talk about the approach that it involves and the five key steps that it involves.  
But before that like all seeds podcast episodes we go back in time and find out about Jeff's origins and what has led him to write this book - because this show is not a moment in time or just talking about today, it is capturing a whole of life story and finding out why a person does what they do.  
So we talk about his childhood, early years growing up and moving around, what he studied and his first jobs so as to get a more complete picture.  I met Jeff through the Edmund Hillary Fellowship which we are both part of, and this is one of about 25 interviews with Fellows I've talked to over the years.  If you enjoy this why not look at the back catalogue too as there are evergreen conversations with almost 400 other people who share their wisdom on diverse topics - www.theseeds.nz  has more.
Website for the Ask Approach book: https://www.askapproach.com 
* Amazon link to order the book 
* Recent HBR article
* Free Assessment: https://Assessment.AskApproach.com  
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-wetzler-9ba3824/  
* Instagram: AskApproach
Current organization: www.TranscendEducation.org  
From the website, the 5 elements discussed in the podcast are:
"The Ask Approach™ is a research-backed method for learning from people around you, with five key steps:
- Choose curiosity, so you are genuinely interested in what others think, feel, and know
- Make it safe, so it’s more comfortable and appealing for others to tell you the truth.
- Pose quality questions, which uncover what’s most important to people
- Listen to learn, so you are truly hearing what matters most to them
- Reflect and reconnect, to translate what you hear into the right insights and actions"

Patricia Allan was born in 1938 and so we get to learn from her life on this episode - she got her doctorate when she was close to 80 years old!  We also hear about her memories of the end of World War 2, how she travelled to Europe back when you did that by boat, moving to work in Pakistan, deciding to get married within a week, raising 4 children, spirituality and finding meaning, serving in the Church as an Anglican priest, and writing her PHD on 'The Once and Future Cathedral’ ... and falling in love and geting married a second time.  
If you enjoy interviews like this then why not check out the almost 400 others on seeds podcast at www.theseeds.nz 
More on her life: https://anglicanwomen.nz/patricia-allan-pathways-to-a-ph-d/

Patsy Bass founded the Reefton Distilling Co and it is one of a number of businesses which are adding to the community feel of West Coast town Reefton.  Its also her home town, so In this episode we talk about her childhood there, what it is like, coal mining of her Father and why she started the business and the plans for the future.  If you enjoy this then why not check out the other episodes of Seeds in the back catalogue as there are hundreds there.  
Website: https://www.reeftondistillingco.com/pages/our-team 
www.theseeds.nz 
Patsy's bio: "Patsy was born in Reefton and returned in 2018 after a successful career in Human Resources, Change, Project and General Management to contribute to the revitalisation of her home town.  She attributes roles with Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu, Outward Bound New Zealand and some of New Zealand’s largest cooperative and not for profit organisations, with leading her back home to create a business with an intergenerational focus."

This episode is a short reflection in response to a listener's questions about how I use my time and how I choose projects.  If it helps your thinking why not share the link, so others can see the content as well and benefit from it?
This is also a written article here https://theseeds.nz/articles/on-using-time-being-efficient-and-choosing-projects/ 
If you want to have access to more on this topic, I’ve also written on similar things in these posts:
• On being efficient and some tips on that are over here https://theseeds.nz/articles/on-being-efficient/ 
• On what we are building with our lives and how we should aspire to grand things – the vision to construct a cathedral not just a wall https://theseeds.nz/articles/what-is-your-cathedral/ 
• A reflection on 10 lessons I have learned that I wish my younger self had known https://seeds.libsyn.com/10-lessons-learned 
• A recent episode of seeds on weaving in creativity into all of your life that I presented at my former high school to 55 students aged 16 https://theseeds.nz/podcast/weaving-creativity-into-all-of-your-life/ 
Impact Investing legal opinion mentioned in the episode https://www.parryfield.com/impact-investing-information-hub/ 
For more content visit www.theseeds.nz