Kiwi's design wins $450,000

JOHN SELKIRK/The Dominion Post

Surprise win: Victoria Ransom created an application for Facebook.

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A Kiwi entrepreneur who won $450,000 in an international Internet business competition says she is no techie but is good at setting goals and reaching them.

Victoria Ransom's company Wildfire Interactive beat more than 600 entries to design an application to be used on the social networking site Facebook.

Her design allows companies, such as Pepsi and Red Bull, to create branded promotions that can be used to reach the 130 million members of Facebook as well as other sites such as Bebo and MySpace.

Ms Ransom, 32, who grew up in the small community of Scott's Ferry, near Bulls, said she was very, very nervous and surprised to win the competition.

The prizemoney would be put back into the business she started with her partner, Alain Chuard, less than a year ago.

Ms Ransom now lives in Silicon Valley, California.

She laughed off the tag of over-achiever despite the fact she has graduated from Harvard with an MBA and co-founded Access Travel, an adventure travel firm active in 16 countries.

"I set myself goals and work pretty hard to reach them. It all feels like a natural progression, one step at a time."

The self-confessed "non-techie" said she was excited about the future.

"The economy's not great, but things are great for us. Our industry is still growing and won't be as affected as others, I think."

Her father, John Ransom, said his daughter's upbringing in Scott's Ferry fuelled her entrepreneurial skills.

"There's only 45 dwellings there, so the big kids taught the little kids things at school," he said. "She attributes a lot of her success to the tiny community."

- © Fairfax NZ News