Eric Irani an Entrepreneur in Action

In the late hours of June 30th, 60 of the finest entrepreneurs from around New Zealand traveled to Wellington for a jam-packed weekend of brutal business challenges, as part of the Entrepreneurs In Action competition, hosted by the Young Enterprise Scheme. I had the privilege of being one of them! During the weekend we broke off into our host teams where we developed and pitched a business plan in a matter of hours, then delivered it to a panel of Simon Cowell-looking judges.

To kickstart the weekend we had the Ministry for the Environment Challenge where we had to take a real-life business idea to the market. We worked long and hard on our pitch which we delivered to the rest of the teams, after which we took the judge’s questions. We absolutely nailed it and took out the first place prize, earning each team member a business scholarship to Massey University!

Our second challenge for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise was even trickier. We were tasked with designing a video game and launching it into the US market. After hours of deliberating and contacting professional gamers and manufacturers, we were ready to take our game to market.

This challenge brought fierce competition from the other teams looking for the top spot, all of whom had fantastic ideas. We were lucky enough to pull through and take out second place. To share our successes our winning team had a radio interview with TodayFM where we shared our experiences with the country.

A common saying in the business world is “it’s not what you know, but who you know”. This couldn’t be more true. Our fantastic host company Asia New Zealand Foundation provided us with a team of awesome mentors and resources to help us succeed. And that’s exactly what we did! I’m so glad to have been given the opportunity to be part of New Zealand’s up and coming generation of young business people!

Eric Irani – Year 13