Trademe speaks - Rowan Simpson’s blogging

To many they’re the guys who made a fortune building and selling web business Trademe for a sum so big ($NZ 700 mil) it’s hard to believe what people like this in NZ actually end up doing with their lives. The mind wonders; perhaps they jet around the world to exotic locations heli-skiing, skydiving, renting out resorts and hosting dream get togethers for family and friends, and slide into holiday homes scattered around beautiful New Zealand only to wake up and take the family out on the boat to a close by island.

Well maybe they do, that would be cool, but one thing seems certain, they’re still real deal quietly confident New Zealander’s making things happen and enjoying the best of NZ and staying close to the family.

RowanSimpson.com

Over the last month I’ve bumped into Rowan Simpson on a few occasion’s, seems like a real cool guy. One of those very rare, special and much needed mixes of entrepreneur/developers, Rowan started flathunt and sold it into Trademe back in 2001. Nice one! I think he’s a bit of a mad road cyclist, (something I hope I may be able to join him at least onceat some point this year, once I get up to speed), look forward to getting to know him better over the coming year.

Stay Connected To Rowan

If you haven’t seen him out and about yet, he’s just started blogging over at www.rowansimpson.com, so pop over, subscribe to his RSS and stay up to date with his thinking. Rowan’s making a real point of getting out and sharing himself around, which is great for all of us around Silicon Welly. He’s just made a post on Developer Opportunities at Trademe, wicked opportunity to get involved with what must be an amazing team Rowan, Sam and the crew are building. If you didn’t catch his presentation at webstock, then pop over and view the video online here.

I also met Sam Morgan a couple of months back at a pre-launch for zoomin John Clegg hosted. He said he saw me in the paper earlier that week, which was great to hear, and that he’d signed up for the beta of PlanHQ, excellent!!! Only had the chance for a quick conversation, but I have to admit it made an already great day just that bit better. Sam seemed like a straight up cool cat, although I still haven’t invited him in to the beta yet as I really want PlanHQ to be pretty sharp by the time it hits his eyes.

Having guys like Rowan and Sam around Silicon Welly and being able to connect with them is brilliant, 2007 is going to be great here in Silicon Welly.