Steph Benseman
Head of Community at Icehouse Ventures
Recent Posts
Startup Blueprint: Anna Mowbray, Founder of ZEIL
November 2023 by Steph Benseman posted in Startups, Founders, CEO
Startup Blueprint: Courtney McConnochie, Head of Strategy at Basis
September 2023 by Steph Benseman posted in Startups, Founders, CEO
The Startup Blueprint series shares stories of founders and team members from some of Aotearoa's most epic and fast-growing startups. Hear about their journeys, learn from their insights, and maybe leave with a dose of inspiration.
We spoke with Courtney McConnochie, Head of Strategy at Basis, about her purpose-filled and impact-driven career. From being in elite sports, working in big tech, pioneering how businesses approach strategic design, to GTM strategies that are "good for the world and good for business", Courtney is an undercover powerhouse in NZ's startup ecosystem and we're excited to share some of her learnings with you.
Startup Blueprint: Simon Pound, Partner at Previously Unavailable
July 2023 by Steph Benseman posted in Startups, Founders, CEO
The Startup Blueprint series shares stories of founders and team members from some of Aotearoa's most epic and fast-growing startups. Hear about their journeys, learn from their insights, and maybe leave with a dose of inspiration.
We spoke with Simon Pound, Partner at Previously Unavailable, host of the 'Business is Boring' podcast, and an all-around creative strategy and branding guru.
Startup Blueprint: Samantha Gadd & Jenny Busing, Co-Founders & Co-CEOs, Excellent
June 2023 by Steph Benseman posted in Startups, Founders, CEO
The Startup Blueprint series shares stories of founders and team members from some of Aotearoa's most epic and fast-growing startups. Hear about their journeys, learn from their insights, and maybe leave with a dose of inspiration.
We spoke with Samantha Gadd and Jenny Busing, co-founders and co-CEOs of Excellent. Excellent believe in a world where every employee has a voice in designing their experience of work. They are spearheading the EX revolution, calling for leaders to design with rather than for their people.
Startup Blueprint: Nick Jackson, CTO, Pyper Vision
May 2023 by Steph Benseman posted in Startups, Founders, CEO
The Startup Blueprint series shares stories of founders and team members from some of Aotearoa's most epic and fast-growing startups. Hear about their journeys, learn from their insights, and maybe leave with a dose of inspiration.
We spoke with Nick Jackson, CTO of Pyper Vision about his journey growing with Pyper Vision, how he's up-skilled and continued learning along the way, and the juggling act of innovating while also working with regulators and other stakeholders.
Startup Blueprint: ArchiPro, with co-founders Brittany Gribben & Milot Zeqiri
February 2023 by Steph Benseman posted in Startups, Founders, CEO
Introducing the Startup Blueprint series, our way of sharing the stories of founders and team members from some of Aotearoa's most epic and fast-growing startups. Hear about their journeys, learn from their insights, and maybe leave with a dose of inspiration.
To kick the series off we speak with Milot Zeqiri and Brittany Gribben, co-founders of ArchiPro, the all-in-one platform helping kiwis find trusted products and professionals for their building projects. They founded ArchiPro in 2014 and have scaled rapidly, becoming one of Aotearoa's fasting growing tech startups with over 186,000 registered users and followers.
Icehouse Ventures joined ArchiPro in their journey in 2021. Read on to learn more about how ArchiPro started, Brittany and Milot's learnings when it comes to scaling quickly, growing a team, and entering new markets, and what they'd do differently if given the chance.
Many of our portfolio companies are searching for talented developers across a range of languages and at different skill levels. We've partnered with Skillsme who have developed a powerful AI tool that assesses candidates' tech capabilities to enable us to easily match startups with qualified talent.