NZ Business Podcast - Paul Spain
00:21:05 · Jamie Beaton
And I thought that, you know, if I if I built this, you know, training program that was aligned to what I would have loved in high school, that will be quite powerful over time. So that was one inspiration. I also looked at other companies like Teladoc, you know, online health care delivery. I looked at businesses like Rocket Internet in Germany, which were really notable for execution, looking at things that were working, cloning them, launching them across Europe and Africa, and then, you know, even across different investors that I admired too. So there are some of the different types of inspiration that I took. I also was very inspired by folks like Rod Drury, because when I was first beginning at the Ice House in 2013, you know, Xero had an office across the hall from us, and I heard they were this really exciting company. And, actually, when I was getting trained as a a hedge fund analyst in New York, one of the mentors I had told me to go study Xero stock. And so I thought, wow, this Kiwi company is doing so well that this New York hedge fund is now looking at it. So I think there are couple of of the different, you know, touch points that really inspired me. But certainly, my approach as an entrepreneur is to study business obsessively, see what's going on across many different industries,
00:22:03 · Paul Spain
[00:22:03] S1: and take different ideas. And hopefully, that helps me keep adapting our roadmap. And, you know, walk walk us through your opportunity to learn from from Julian Robertson. How did, you know, how did all that come come together? And and, yeah, what were the the big kind of lessons there?
00:22:21 · Jamie Beaton
[00:22:21] S0: Totally. So I first met Julian through interviewing for his Robertson scholarship back when I was 18. And I'd... At the at the point, I knew a bit about investment banking. I'd read some books like What They Teach at Harvard Business School. My knowledge is pretty low. And I was reading about him and his background. I read about hedge funds and this idea of investing and finding good companies and bad companies and this kind of thing. Now I went along to the interview process, and I began speaking to him. Fast forward about twelve months, I was at Harvard. I was interning for a hedge fund called Weiss Asset Management. And I was building Crimson. It was rapidly growing. And I thought, okay. Maybe I should reach out to him and and check-in and get some advice. So I sent him a cold email, and I said, hey. Know, some of your Robertson scholars are using Crimson for STD tutoring, and I'd love to tell you a bit about the business I'm building. And, also, I'm working in finance now. I'd love to get some wisdom from you. So he very kindly met with me in New York. Now the short meeting ended up, you know, running, and he took a lot of fascination with our rapid growth at Crimson and this, you know, I guess, growing interest I had in stock investing, and also even just my family journey and a bit about kind of this multi generational adventure from my granddad moving to New Zealand through my mom through to me, and really took me under his wing. And he hired me to work at Tiger, and also he invested in Crimson in the seed round alongside his son, Alex Robertson. So throughout college, I was bought in Crimson, investing for Tiger, and, you know, Julian was taking me all around The US, meeting different CEOs, learning the tips and tricks of a stock investor. And I think that foundational training really helped me see how do you build a good company, you know, what do you look for in enduring businesses, strong leaders. And actually, I learned so much from him in terms of financial advice, but I actually learned a ton as well from general leadership, his principles, his integrity as a leader, and how he'd built this incredible community, the Tiger universe around him. And, you know, to this day, alongside my own family, he's definitely been the most inspirational role model that I've ever had.
00:24:05 · Paul Spain
[00:24:05] S1: Wow. And when you think about that time, what do you think was, you know, was most most impactful that you that you walked away with in terms of lessons?
00:24:15 · Jamie Beaton
[00:24:15] S0: Everyone in life needs a mentor who believes in them more than they believe in themselves. And I remember these conversations with Julian where, you know, I was thinking about how I could grow Crimson in maybe New Zealand and Australia, And he was so confident that I could build it all around the world, build it in China, build it everywhere. He introduced me to investors that had seen great success in China as inspiration to me to dream bigger. And, you know, he had this resolute confidence that, you know, we'd be able to make it work. And I think during our, you know, darkest, most spicy times where we were, you know, failing in India or we had high cash burn, you know, we had trying experiments that weren't working, you know, he was just calm, confident, and and kept backing us. And I think, you know, that really showed what the power of mentorship does. Because ultimately, whenever you build any kind of venture, almost everyone is initially a a doubter. Maybe they're neutral, but they're usually a doubter. And they might not say it to your face, but they usually are. And then over time, you know, more and more folks kinda pile into the journey. And I think having someone who just stands by you from the beginning and believes is is incredibly powerful. So I think about that all the time when it comes to our students who have these bold goals. I think about one of our students, Brendan, who went from Canberra, came through Crimson, got into Harvard. He recently sold his company to Amazon. We wanna be that kind of mentor for our students, just like he was to me and our team.
00:25:27 · Paul Spain
[00:25:27] S1: Yep. I guess to John Key is someone who's who's been important in your journey as well. You know, tell us a little bit about that.