TALES OF GRASS ROOTS RESILIENCE
Well here we are at the tail end of 2020. If we hit ‘pause’ and review the past nine months we can be forgiven for thinking “did all that really happen?”
Unfortunately we’re surrounded by reminders – the ubiquitous face-masks and sanitisers, the shuttered business premises and ‘closed’ signs, the struggling tourism, hospitality and tertiary education sectors.
For business owners there have been countless stories of resilience and reinvention to draw inspiration and lessons from – many featured through NZBusiness. I’m sure you will also extract value from the following four contributors, and use it to help fine-tune your business for summer and on into 2021.
GETTING BACK ON THE BIKE
When Frank Witowski, owner of Nelson-based Hybrid Bikes1 , first heard that covid had arrived on these shores, he was worried. The entrepreneur had friends in China who had kept him informed of the situation there. The Wuhan lockdown had been severe. Would that happen here?
As New Zealand entered Level 2, his phone went dead and orders dried up overnight. Frank immediately went into survival mode,
