Founder and CEO at AskNicely

Aaron was first introduced to startup culture in London, where on his first day at a high-growth telecommunications company he was told to ditch the corporate kiwi attire, leaving him with the choice of one of the two Metallica t-shirts he has crammed into his suitcase.

The culture of this particular company left a lasting impression on Aaron as it allowed him to foster his hunger to find ways of doing things better. Fast forward a few years and Aaron found himself back New Zealand in a corporate board room, surrounded by consultants and executives talking about customers that they could not have been more removed from.

He had seen the impact of the instant feedback loop Uber was getting by asking customers to review their drivers immediately after their rides and began pondering if that could be applied across other customer-facing industries.

He thought that this would not only create better customer experiences but also help recognise and reward frontline staff who were doing great work. After some market research and sense-checking with a trusted friend who quickly became a co-founder, AskNicely was born.