Who is Start It For?

Start It is the perfect place to kickstart your new idea or business. 

Designed to teach you the basics for business planning, marketing, and selling your product from experts in their field.

Purchase the online course and guide yourself through and learn at your own pace or add on mentoring sessions for added accountability and guidance. 

Start It is for you if you're someone who:

  • Has a business idea in their head and is ready to take action on it.
  • Is in the early stage of your business journey and is looking for some guidance on getting clear on your idea, marketing and finance.
  • Is looking for mentoring support and accountability to talk through their business idea.

Start It Online Course

Purchasing the online course by itself allows you to go through the content at your own pace. Experts in their fields will take you through business, marketing and finance. Check out the course curriculum below for the full details of the online course. Once purchased you will get lifetime access to the course.

1:1 Mentoring + Online Course

Ramp up your business by adding on three 1:1 mentoring sessions. You can use these to unpack the course content, and tailor the learnings to your own business with the support of the COIN South team. Mentoring sessions need to be booked and used within 4 weeks of purchasing the course.

Your Experts

Business, Finance & Marketing

Fran Hesp

COIN Canvas

COIN Canvas will help get your idea out of your head and onto paper. Often this is the very first challenge founders face when trying to get clear on what they are trying to achieve. Fran will run you through how to use a COIN Canvas with practical examples.

Fran Hesp

Customer Journey

Understanding your customer helps to determine every part of your business from product development, to marketing. Fran will guide you through the process of getting inside your customers head and understanding what problem you are solving for them.

Emma Lindsay

Elm Marketing | How to get that first sale.

Learn how to build a brand and communicate it to gain an audience that wants to live, breathe & invest in your product or service.

Emma Lindsay

Elm Marketing | Keep 'em hooked.

Find out how to make the most of your advertising so you can spend marketing dollars efficiently, build your brand and hold on to your audience for life.

Jesse Hall

Malloch McClean | Building your breakeven

Practical tools and examples to figure out how to make a profit & how much money you need to start your business.

Jesse Hall

Malloch McClean | Value pricing your product

Everything you need to know to get the pricing of your product or service right.

Pricing options | All GST Inclusive

We aim to keep our courses as financially accessible to founders as possible. All prices are GST inclusive.

Testimonials

Camelle Pink

Sip & Dance

"The COIN team rock. They are creative critical thinkers and doers. If you have an idea or an existing side hustle or business, this is the place to review what's working, what isn't working, get support to make changes and make cool shit happen in Invercargill or globally."

Kim Spencer-McDonald

Just Like You Aotearoa

"Ideas are really the easy part. But actually making the idea a reality is the challenge. When you’re a small business, it’s easy to feel like you’re on your own. Having the Start It group and the Coin team there all rooting for you is awesome."

Kristen McKenzie

Mckenzie Marketing

"Before starting I was unsure if I should spend this money when just beginning business - however I know now this course is invaluable so would be willing to pay more! The in-person mentoring sessions were definitely the most valuable."

Turn your idea into reality.

The Start It Course Curriculum.

  • 1

    Welcome to Start It.

    • Welcome to Start It

    • Help us Get to Know You

    • Course Expectations

    • About COIN South

    • COIN South's Values

    • Thinkific Walk Through
  • 2

    Are you Southland's Next Entrepreneur?

    • Have you got what it takes?

    • Entrepreneurial Mindset
  • 3

    Your Roadmap

    • Goal setting for the course

    • The Big Hairy Goal

  • 4

    The COIN Canvas

    • Why we use a COIN Canvas

    • Business model canvas example

    • Lean Canvas example

    • Costarter Canvas example

    • 'The COIN Canvas' with COIN South presenting

    • Start your own COIN Canvas here
  • 5

    Start with Who

    • 'Start with the Who' Customer Journey Presentation

    • 'Start with the Who' with COIN - Powerpoint slides

    • Talking with Potential Customers

    • Validation Handout

    • Priority Cards Template

    • The Five Whys

    • Finding Your Customer

    • Create Customer Personas

    • Using Digital Media to Find and Observe Potential Customers

    • Why leading is important, but following is more so.

    • Build Your Crowd

    • Building a successful Team

    • Your Working Style Handout

  • 6

    The Customer Journey

    • How to draw toast. Or, how we can solve our biggest, most complicated problems.

    • How to create your customer journey.
  • 7

    Getting to Market

    • 'How to get that first sale' with Emma Lindsay, ELM Marketing Presenting

    • 'How to get that first sale' Presentation Slides

    • 'Keep 'em hooked' with Emma Lindsay, ELM Marketing Presenting

    • 'Keep 'em hooked' Presentation Slides

    • Social Media 101: Safe = boring = unnoticed

    • Social Media Cheat Sheet

    • Get your website right

    • Marketing with Kathryn Apt, ex Marketing Director of Google, Twitter, Medium

    • 100 Days of Growth: hacks to grow your startup

    • Instagram Reels- with Your Content Creators
  • 8

    Money and Things

    • Determining Your Break-Even Point

    • Try this: Calculators and templates

    • Pricing your product or service

    • What Startups Cost

    • Where can I get the money I need?

    • What accounting package do I need?

  • 9

    Building Your Break Even - with Malloch McClean Presenting

    • 'Personal Success' - part 1 of 4

    • 'Business Success' - part 2 of 4

    • 'Break Even' - part 3 of 4

    • 'Worked Example' - part 4 of 4

    • 'Building Your Breakeven' presentation slides

    • COIN Break Even Calculator

  • 10

    Selling Your Value - with Malloch McClean Presenting

    • 'Selling and types of Seller' - part 1 of 4

    • 'Top 10 things to do' - part 2 of 4

    • 'Sales Techniques' -part 3 of 4

    • 'Worked Sales Example' - part 4 of 4

    • 'Selling Your Value' presentation slides

  • 11

    Business Building Blocks

    • Choosing a business name

    • How to choose a business structure?

    • What else do I need to set up?
  • 12

    Legal 101

    • Meeting with a lawyer

    • I'm setting up a company, what do I need?

    • Checklist to think about

    • How to protect my idea?

  • 13

    The Art of the Pitch

    • Write your Elevator Pitch

    • Write your Popcorn Pitch

    • Tips for a 1 Minute Popcorn Pitch - Miriam from Say it Clearly

    • Tips for 5 Minute Pitch

    • Air BnB First Pitch Case Study

    • Presentation Skills Handouts
  • 14

    Other Resources

    • Overview of Callaghan Innovation help for Startups

    • MYOB Start Up Guide

    • Getting Started with Biz.Govt

    • Read these!