JERSEY CITY, Saturday: Six New Zealanders – including a Wellington agency chief – have made the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list of the hottest “game-changing” entrepreneurs.
The Kiwi is Ben Forman, co-founder and ceo of Wrestler, a three-year-old independent creative agency, based in Te Aro, that specialises in video production, virtual reality and augmented reality.
Wrestler, which has 15 staff, was also 47th in the New Zealand Deloitte Fast 50 index and 330 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific.
Forman told the NZ Herald he was nominated by someone on last year’s list. He knows who but doesn’t want to reveal the name.
His company’s bragging rights include campaigns for Singapore Airlines, NZ Post and Wellington NZ – for which it made the fully immersive WellTown, billed as the first “gamified” virtual tour of a city.
“Wellington is too small to be a dick. If you’re a dickhead you get found out.”
Forman (29) says he has ambitions to conquer the globe, but wants to do so from Wellington.
His company initially made an impact with a “360 video” campaign for woollen shoe startup All Birds, which took viewers on a trip from the Northburn station in South Canterbury to fabric milling in Milan, assembly in South Korea, to the finished product in San Francisco.
That opened doors to hot start-ups in New York, but Forman says he found the culture too hard-nosed and jarring.
Similarly, a foray into Auckland a couple of years ago didn’t work out. “We didn’t like the business culture. It was too dog-eat-dog.
“We realised Wellington is where our heart is. There are more values-based companies here – possibly because it’s a government town.”
“We’re ambitious, but we also want to live a balanced lifestyle. It’s not all about profit.
“Wellington is too small to be a dick. If you’re a dickhead you get found out and you don’t get any more opportunities, Also, the wind – you have to be resilient to cope with it. It weeds out people who aren’t resilient.”
Wrestler’s latest initiative is opening a post-production studio.
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