2 Commas: The $multi-million exit show with Josh Comrie

KiwiSaver fees in New Zealand will hit a billion dollars this year. Sam Stubbs has been the loudest voice in the country saying that's a scandal and building something to prove it doesn't have to be that way. Sam is the founder and CEO of Simplicity, an $11 billion KiwiSaver fund owned by a charity. It makes almost no profit. It is worth essentially nothing. It can never be sold. That's the point....

Carl Thompson flew to Singapore with $3,000, shared a pullout bed with his co-founder in a room so small he could touch the wall sitting up, and cold-called New York at 2am because that's when the market was awake. That was the start of TradeGecko. He left the company two and a half years in, halfway through his vesting schedule, because he needed to come home for his relationships and his health....

Lisa King had a goal from the very first day of Eat My Lunch: the business would be a success the day it became unnecessary. She built it in 2015 to solve a problem she couldn't stop thinking about, kids going hungry at school in a country of abundance. By week 12 she was making 2,000 lunches a day out of her own kitchen. At peak, nearly 5,000, with police officers, politicians, and grannies in th...

Most founders won't give up 80% of their business. The ones who did walked away with more than if they'd kept 100%. Murray Schnuriger made the jump from 20 years advising founders on exits to actually owning the risk at 5V Capital, a mid-market PE fund across Australia and New Zealand. Toby King has spent his career at Cameron Partners, one of NZ's most established M&A firms, allied with Roths...

What if the most successful version of your company is the smallest one? This week I sit down with Mark Zeman, co-founder of SpeedCurve, who quietly built one of the most unusual software businesses I've come across. No VC. No sales team. No marketing function. A team that never grew beyond seven people, paid two to three times market salary, and shared the monthly profit with everyone. SpeedCurve...

What if the biggest risk in your company isn't your product, it's whether your people are actually ready to lead? This week, I sit down with Logan Yonavjak, founder of the Readiness Engine, to explore how AI can now measure leadership capacity at scale. We get into coachability, the grit myth, the early warning signs a founding team is in trouble, and my own method for testing resilience and value...

Most of us have no idea what's actually going on inside our body. John Bessey has been in the room for three major tech exits as CEO of Merkle (Davanti), head of revenue at Introgen, and on the executive team when Gen-I sold to Spark. He's also a certified metabolic and health coach who reckons most high-performers are flying blind on the things that actually matter and he's got the blood work to...

Ken Crosson nearly became a dairy farmer milking one cow in mid-Canterbury, instead, he walked into the Christchurch Town Hall at 16 and never looked back. In this episode of 2 Commas, I sit down with Ken, founder of Crosson and Co, one of New Zealand's most quietly celebrated architects, as the firm approaches its 40th year. We cover the pivot from farm kid to globally recognised designer, what i...

She was asking people if they wanted Botox before most New Zealanders knew what it was, and they were asking her if their face was going to fall off. Dr. Catherine Stone pioneered cosmetic medicine in New Zealand in 2001, set up her first clinic in Vulcan Lane for $13,500, and built one of the country's most recognised aesthetic brands from scratch. In this episode of 2 Commas, I sit down with Dr....

Rafael Niesten built a nine-figure exit, woke up at 5:30am to watch the money land, and celebrated by going to Indian for $62 and buying three USB-C cables. In this episode of 2 Commas, I sit down with Raf, founder of PropTech Labs, to unpack what it actually looks like to build, acquire, and sell a portfolio of PropTech businesses without an investment banker in sight. We cover three strategic ac...

He cold-called American trucking companies from a dark office in Auckland at 2am — New Zealand accent and all — and built a nine-figure SaaS exit out of it. In this episode of 2 Commas, I sit down with Tim Boyle, co-founder of Whip Around, to unpack what it really takes to go from a commercial real estate career and a half-baked idea to a fleet compliance platform operating across the US with thou...

He pre-sold a SaaS product for $150 before it even existed — then discovered it was harder to sell the real thing for $30/month once customers could actually touch it. In this episode of 2 Commas , I sit down with Yuan Wang , co‑founder of Studio Ninja , to unpack what bootstrapping really looks like when you choose customers over investors. We talk about the early crowdfunding-style pre-sell (inc...

Most founders think selling a business is a transaction. Find a buyer, get a multiple, sign the papers. In reality, it’s an identity shift, a relationship test, and a stress event that shows you what your company is really made of. In this episode of 2 Commas, I sit down with Vivian Bryant‑Taukiri, founder of Brand Spanking, to unpack what it takes to build and scale an experiential marketing agen...

Most founders hear “AI” and think they get it. Smarter emails. Faster content. A few basic automations. In reality, that’s a jet engine being used as a desk fan, and it creates a dangerous illusion of progress. In this episode of 2 Commas, I lay out why 2026 is a once-in-a-generation land grab for Western businesses, and why “power is never given, only taken”. I share the moment that snapped this...

Founders often think they can tidy things up when it’s time to sell. In practice, the value is won or lost earlier—depending on how much complexity, weak infrastructure, and preventable errors are allowed to accumulate. In this episode of 2 Commas, I sit down with Jeremy Moon, founder of Icebreaker, to unpack what it takes to build a global brand from New Zealand and then execute a successful acqu...

Most founders assume they will be able to sell their business when the time comes. In reality, many are unprepared and lose significant value during the process. In this episode of 2 Commas, I sit down with M&A expert and CPA Holli Moeini, author of Finding the Missing Millions in M&A , to unpack why deals fail, how diligence erodes valuations, and what founders must fix long before going...

Selling your home to fund a business is a decision most founders only talk about in theory. In this episode of 2 Commas, Rick Agraval shares the real story behind that moment and the journey that followed. After co-founding his business with his wife, Rick made the bold call to sell their home in order to finance the next stage of growth and keep full ownership of the company. What began as a scra...

50 million mandarins processed every single day. In this episode of 2 Commas, Nigel Beach shares the story behind Compac, the New Zealand engineering company that quietly became a global leader in automated fruit sorting. Nigel spent more than two decades inside the business, starting as a graduate software engineer and eventually becoming a shareholder as the company expanded across the US, Europ...

In this episode of 2 Commas , I sit down with Stan Murphy to unpack how he turns underperforming businesses into high-growth companies — and why momentum is the single biggest driver of enterprise value. From qualifying as a fitter and turner in Whakatāne to scaling JR Wholesale Meats to $65M in revenue before its sale to Foodstuffs, Stan shares how he identifies distressed assets, restructures br...

The M&A market is moving again. The question is... who’s ready? In this episode of 2 Commas , I sit down with Neil Millar , Partner of M&A at MinterEllison, to unpack what really happened in 2025 and what it signals for 2026. Global deal volume surged back toward $5 trillion, international buyers are re-entering New Zealand, and private equity still has significant dry powder. At the same...

He bought 51% of a business that was already going down the gurgler… then the GFC hit. In this episode of 2 Commas , Ray Delany shares the full story behind turning a struggling technology services company into a 5X+ exit. What followed the acquisition wasn’t momentum. It was cash bleed, lost customers, leadership doubt, a global financial crisis, and significant personal upheaval. Ray walks throu...

In this episode of 2 Commas , I sit down with Joaquin Cordero to unpack one of the defining moments of his entrepreneurial journey and the lessons it shaped for everything that followed. Joaquin has built businesses across twelve countries, often entering industries he’d never worked in before. We talk about how trust is built and broken in partnerships, what happens when misalignment surfaces too...

He started as a police officer, nearly lost everything in his first business, then built and sold a capital-heavy security company before going again. In this episode of 2 Commas , I sit down with Joshua Parsons to unpack a founder journey shaped by early responsibility, hard-earned judgement, and an obsession with solving problems properly. From policing at 17 to bootstrapping Crosbies Security ,...

Strategy only works when it’s anchored in something that actually matters. In this episode of 2 Commas , I continue the strategy series by going deeper into direction, long-term objectives, and purpose. We start with why self-awareness on its own isn’t enough, and why founders need a clear North Star that aligns with the kind of challenge they are built to take on. The episode explores how BHAGs f...

Trying to build a business without clarity is like heading into the bush without a map. In this episode of 2 Commas , I unpack why so many founders feel stuck, exhausted, or uncertain even when the business is moving. Not because they lack effort or capability, but because they haven’t clearly answered two foundational questions: what they want from the business, and what they’re willing to sacrif...