Recorded At Red Nine

Andy Rowe

Recording At Red Nine is all about the people behind the places we love. Hosted by Andy Rowe, each episode is a laid-back chat with the founders, creators, and characters shaping life in Canterbury, from bar owners and brands to entrepreneurs and storytellers doing cool things in our backyard. It’s part business, part culture, and all about real conversations. We’ll dig into how ideas started, the risks people took, what it actually takes to build something her. Whether you’re running a business yourself or just love hearing how people make things happen, Recorded At Red Nine is where those stories come to life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. Oct 18

    Booked Two Years Out, Never Paid for an Ad | Stacey Banfield

    Brought to you by Plato, the full-service marketing agency that drives real business performance. Connect with the team: https://platocreative.co.nz/ Stacey Banfield left school at 16 to work on the Chanel counter at Ballantynes. Today she runs a team of 12 artists under the SB Collective, is booked two years ahead for weddings, and has never spent a dollar on advertising. She also put her life savings into launching her own product brand, Soleil & Soul Beauty. Andy and Stacey cover how weekend freelance work outgrew her counter wage, and the accountant exercise that showed she was sending $30,000 of work a year to other artists and getting almost no thanks for it. They talk about why she hires for people skills over makeup skills, how she handles wedding-morning drama, and why chasing follower counts doesn’t matter when word of mouth fills the book. She also explains the gap she saw in the market for brush cleansers, the NZ-native ingredient Totarol, and getting stocked back where she started. Recorded at Red Nine | businesses building Canterbury Thanks to Plato, helping ambitious brands and businesses scale faster through strategic full-service marketing. Find out how they can help you grow: https://platocreative.co.nz/ Chapters00:00 Intro 00:56 SB Collective vs Stacey Banfield Makeup Artist 02:27 Handing clients to the team and keeping the quality up 03:47 Leaving school at 16 to get into makeup 05:48 From the Chanel counter to going full time 07:49 Low risk, a beauty blog and $30k of turned-away work 10:19 What a wedding morning actually looks like 12:20 Difficult bridesmaids and being the bad guy 15:35 Why people skills beat makeup skills 17:43 Why she’s stayed in Christchurch 19:01 Chanel, Tom Ford, MAC and the blogging era 21:10 No comments, still booked two years in advance 23:05 Launching Soleil & Soul Beauty 26:19 Skin first: SPF, actives and TikTok trends 32:30 Flown to New York by Clinique 35:04 Brush cleansers, Totarol and stocking at Ballantynes 37:30 Advice for two years into business 38:58 Quick makeup and skincare tips Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  2. Oct 11

    Selling a Lifestyle, Not a Trend: Margo Flanagan, Two Raw Sisters

    Brought to you by Plato, the full-service marketing agency that drives real business performance. Connect with the team: https://platocreative.co.nz/ Margo Flanagan is co-founder and head of product at Two Raw Sisters, the recipe app and cookbook brand she runs with her sister Rosa. What began as two sisters finding their way back to good food after their own health journeys has become a household name: six cookbooks, an app built around swapping in whatever’s in your fridge, and an audience that’s 70% aged 50 and over. Margo and Andy cover how the business grew from a first cookbook that publishers expected to sell 400 copies (it sold 800 in the first hour), why they refuse to put macro breakdowns on recipes, and the “intelligently lazy” system of twenty minutes on a Sunday. Margo also explains how they’ve pivoted from cooking school to catering to web app to mobile app, why failing fast has been central to their success, and why they’ve deliberately chosen a manageable business over chasing $100 million. Plus her advice for any founder: find your North Star and say no to anything that doesn’t fit, even a $20,000 deal. Thanks again to Plato, helping ambitious brands and businesses scale faster through strategic full-service marketing. Find out how they can help you grow: https://platocreative.co.nz/ Recorded at Red Nine | businesses building Canterbury Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  3. Sep 15

    Plato: $3,500 to the South Island's biggest agency

    John Plato left school at fifteen and spent ten years as a diesel mechanic. In 2007 — at the kitchen table of a Linwood townhouse, with $3,500 in the bank and the GFC underway — he and his wife Lisa started an agency. Nearly twenty years later Plato is the South Island's largest full-service agency, and John is turning the derelict New City Hotel on Colombo Street into a 1,600sqm home for it. This one goes deep on the commercial side of running an agency, and the honest parts most people leave out. John explains why Plato sets business strategy rather than just marketing — he sits on four of his clients' boards — and why the piece most agencies miss isn't creating demand, it's making sure the business can actually deliver on it. He's also straight about the mistakes. Growing from 55 to 87 staff in six months during the COVID boom and making no more money at the bigger size. Five years of no holidays, living at the office. The six-month question he now asks his business partners: are we a better business than we were six months ago? Plus: why he's never once looked at a qualification when hiring, what he'd tell a business two years in, and what's going inside the new HQ — gym, wellness centre with saunas and ice baths, a hidden whiskey room and a rooftop bar. Find Plato Website: https://platocreative.co.nz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/platocreative Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/platocreative Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/platocreative Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  4. May 7

    The Earthquake That Sparked a Children’s Book Company

    What if a boozy rosé lunch and a magnitude 7.1 earthquake were the unlikely origins of a children's book business? That's exactly the story Hannah Davison tells in this episode. Hannah is the co-founder of My Big Moments — a range of children's books backed by neuroscience, child psychology and play therapy, designed to help kids aged 2–7 navigate the big milestones and challenges of early life. Think: new siblings, starting school, going to hospital, grief and loss, and building resilience. The books can even be personalised, putting your child in the story as the empowered helper rather than the one in distress. In this conversation, Hannah talks about how the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake — waking up to a freight train sound, running through broken glass in bare feet, jumpstarting a car with bricks falling off the roof — drove home exactly why this project had to exist. She also gets into the science behind why hearing your own name fires your neurons, the Einstein quote that guides her business philosophy, how a spontaneous conversation about leaking boobs led to a multi-award-winning podcast, and why trusting your intuition might be the best business advice there is. 📚 My Big Moments 🌐 Website: https://mybigmoments.com 📸 Instagram: @mybigmoments 🎙️ Untidy Podcast (Hannah & Matilda Green) 🌐 Website: https://www.untidypodcast.com 📸 Instagram: @untidypodcast 🎙️ Red Nine Studios 🌐 Website: https://www.redninestudios.com 📸 Instagram: @recordedatrednine 🎧 Recorded at: @redninestudios Chapters 0:00 – Intro 0:39 – What is My Big Moments? 1:11 – The books: topics, ages, and what they actually do 3:32 – Starting school, hospital visits, grief — why the big stuff matters 6:18 – Born over a boozy rosé lunch with business partner Flicka Williams 7:37 – The 2016 Kaikōura earthquake: waking up to a freight train 9:46 – "There is nothing I can do to protect my children" 11:11 – Getting out of the house: bricks, glass, bare feet 13:11 – Jumpstarting the car with the roof falling apart 15:03 – Pushing boulders off the road in your pyjamas 16:38 – The morning after: it wasn't a bad dream 16:58 – How the earthquake became the "why" behind the books 18:28 – Resilience, trauma, and turning hard experiences into superpowers 19:44 – Working with neuroscientists, psychologists and play therapists 21:40 – Why personalisation isn't just cute — it fires neurons 22:14 – Three years of work, then COVID hits the launch 24:00 – The unstoppable drive to put this thing into the world 25:10 – Pivoting during COVID: supporting parents instead of selling 26:28 – How Matilda Green came into the picture 28:29 – The conversation that became the Untidy podcast 30:09 – Business advice: what would you tell Red9 Studios? 30:58 – The Einstein quote that guides everything 32:04 – Trusting your intuition: 100% alignment, every time 33:23 – Expand your consciousness — the best advice Hannah has 34:14 – Where to find My Big Moments and Untidy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  5. May 7

    From Caravan Startup to a Trillion-Dollar Vision

    In this episode of Recorded at Red Nine, we sit down with one of the founders of Partly — the Christchurch-based startup transforming the global automotive supply chain using AI. If you’ve ever had a car repaired, you’ve experienced the inefficiencies firsthand. Wrong parts. Delays. Supplementary orders. Wasted time. Insurance costs blowing out. Partly is solving that. By using AI to identify the exact parts required for a repair — down to the precise SKU — and intelligently selecting the optimal supplier, Partly is eliminating billions in inefficiency across one of the world’s largest industries. With over 120 people across Christchurch, Auckland, London, Manila and San Francisco, and four funding rounds behind them, Partly is building what could become one of New Zealand’s most ambitious global tech companies. We cover: • Why 95% accuracy in parts ordering is still a huge problem • How AI can identify car damage from video • Why project selection is the most important decision in business • The difference between good opportunities and great ones • What it really takes to raise venture capital • And why this could be a trillion-dollar opportunity This is a story about ambition, scale and building from Canterbury to the world. — 🎙 Hosted by Andy Rowe 📍 Filmed at Red Nine Studios - https://www.redninestudios.com 🌍 Businesses Building Canterbury Subscribe for more stories from the founders and operators shaping the region. CHAPTERS 01:01 The Broken Parts Ordering System 03:55 Why 95% Accuracy Is Still a Huge Problem 05:20 The Two Big Problems Partly Solves 07:28 AI Analysing Vehicle Damage From Video 08:54 Why Car Manufacturers Make It Complicated 10:53 Standardising 30,000 Parts Per Vehicle 12:20 From Homeschool to Startup Founder 14:33 Building a Business From a Caravan 17:01 The Most Important Rule in Business: Project Selection 18:38 Saying No to “Good” 19:46 Why They Shut Down Their First Company 22:28 Growing Partly to 120+ Staff Globally 23:54 Brutal Reflection and Cutting Average 25:01 Are They in the Black or the Red? 27:10 Raising Venture Capital 29:02 The Trillion Dollar Opportunity 30:40 Thinking in Decades, Not Years Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

About

Recording At Red Nine is all about the people behind the places we love. Hosted by Andy Rowe, each episode is a laid-back chat with the founders, creators, and characters shaping life in Canterbury, from bar owners and brands to entrepreneurs and storytellers doing cool things in our backyard. It’s part business, part culture, and all about real conversations. We’ll dig into how ideas started, the risks people took, what it actually takes to build something her. Whether you’re running a business yourself or just love hearing how people make things happen, Recorded At Red Nine is where those stories come to life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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