Serving up a lesson for price success

CRAIG SIMCOX/The Dominion Post

ON THE BALL: Playing competitive tennis, Andrew Pascoe learnt the essentials for successful entrepreneurship.

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Andrew Pascoe earnt valuable lessons while playing highly competitive tennis that have seen him through tough times as an entrepreneur.

A start-up business is a "bloody big factor in your life", Mr Pascoe said, and calls for tenacity, self-belief and self-reliance. Mr Pascoe set up PriceTech, a revenue management software and consultancy firm, in 2006. Funnily enough it was playing sport that also delivered his key technology man to the business.

Scott Bolten had developed a Squash Statistics website for Squash New Zealand and Mr Pascoe, as a board member of Tennis New Zealand, approached him to set up a similar website for them.

Not long after that he asked Mr Bolten to join him as a shareholder and chief technology officer of PriceTech.

In a nutshell, PriceTech's software product takes regular feeds of demand and revenue data, forecasts expected demand, and presents prices to the operator on a daily or frequent basis. For example, a car rental firm might find that cars are selling out too early at low yields in the high season; the software will give price recommendations to maximise high yield.

PriceTech has done well. It won the ICT category of the Wellington Bright Ideas award in 2010, and has provided consultancy services to a large global sporting event.

The company is looking to grow quickly over the next two years targeting 300 customers by 2012.

Why did you become an entrepreneur?

Through revenue management roles in the airline and ferry sectors I recognised the obvious business benefits of effective pricing and the fact that a lot of tourism businesses were not pricing in an optimal way. This need and gap in the market prompted the idea of developing a business to provide these smarts.

What have been the biggest obstacles in running your company?

The lack of money. Coming from a corporate setting where there is money available to make business improvements, to a financial environment where even great ideas cannot be achieved due to a lack of funds. There needs to be a constant focus on the long term while ensuring that short-term bills can be paid. It can be tough. Any ideas about holidays and trips are out the window. Any ideas that it is glamorous are quickly gone and it pays to have a supportive partner.

Name one thing you've learnt while in business and from whom?

Develop self belief and enjoy the process. Managing a start-up requires going out of your comfort zone regularly and making business-changing decisions on a regular basis without much information. You have to realise that you will make bad decisions but hopefully they will be outweighed by the good.

What are your business and personal goals?

To build a great product and have happy partners and customers. Will be looking to exit in five years or so. After that, on a personal level and at the risk of sounding like a cliche, I would quite like to do something in the way of looking at improving education delivery – in New Zealand and abroad. And play a fair bit of tennis and golf, of course.

Do you have any tips for budding entrepreneurs?

Seek out advice and try to be a part of some of the great help agencies that central and local government offer. They are of high quality and are a huge help. Stay focused on the dream. Prepare to be poor and work very hard. Prepare strategies to keep motivated and decrease stress.

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