Silicon Valley Culture arrives in New Zealand

Welcome to The Hangar: Silicon Valley culture arrives in Auckland

Could an international movement dubbed ‘co-living’ solve the city’s housing crisis and grow the creative and technology economy at the same time?

A group of 20 somethings flatting and working together in a mixed-use, Bay Area-style ‘hacker house’ on the Ponsonby/Grey Lynn fringe believe the answer is a resounding “Yeah.”

Five males may live under its roof, but this is no beer and misogyny-soaked frat house – the boys belong to a whip-smart start-up basking in the mobile screen glow of the release of their first app, YeahNah.

YEAHNAH

Drawing on the tried-and-true aesthetic and functionality of Instagram and Tinder, the app’s premise is appealingly simple: it does exactly what it says on the tin, inviting users to respond to a captioned image with a single swipe to indicate approval (Yeah) or rejection (Nah).

Like Facebook Reactions, or the dreaded comments section, this allows users to instantly crowdsource and gauge public opinion on anything from a trending news story to an idea for a new product to whether that super weird hangover cure is legit.

“It’s a familiar yet unique premise that leverages an existing behaviour and the ever-popular human desire to have your say and know where you stand in comparison to others”, says Luke McIntyre, resident and YeahNah co-founder.

“As well as publishing your own posts, you can follow and privately message friends and check out what people in the vicinity are thinking. Trending posts gives you ‘the mood of the nation’, so to speak, on anything from Brexit to Kanye to online voting.”

McIntyre believes the latter feature has the potential to change the world.

“Social media and technology has really amplified the shareability of our lives and collective opinions, and we’re influencing culture at a scale never seen before”, says McIntyre.. “We’ve seen huge jumps in equal rights, transparency in business and connection to global issues, especially amongst the younger generation.

“We’ve coined this idea of ‘meaningful social’ – something at the centre of the brand we’re building, and at the centre of our belief in YeahNah. Those with millennial mindsets are hugely opinionated but often don’t express it in a constructive way – some might argue we’re lazy, or apathetic, or entitled – but this platform provides transparency on our opinions to make them more accessible, more open, and most importantly, more actionable.”

On other social platforms, engagement can be inherently passive. YeahNah motivates action – it promotes what the team calls IRL (in real life) social behaviour – a recent example being the user-generated “Good Morning” project.

Initiated when an early user asked, “Do you say hi to your neighbours?” after reading a news story about the breakdown in traditional community relationships, this inspired the team to start saying a cheery “Morning!” to every person they encountered on their before-work runs – a behaviour that has quickly spread amongst their peers.

“As well as making our way through a barrage of Harambe, Biden and Kermit memes, we want to make a real difference to things we care about”, says McIntyre.

“We’re ready to contribute more than just memes to an election – just give us a platform to be heard and where we can see the movement we’re influencing! Whether that’s the beer we buy, the cafes we rate or the causes we rally behind.”

A NEW BUSINESS MODEL

The team have aspirations beyond releasing an app.

McIntyre, a digital entrepreneur who built his first app, OMEX, at 16, says they want to “empower a new generation of social changemakers and contribute to an economy that we reckon young Kiwis should be driving.

“New Zealand may be small, but that allows for flexibility, agility and the rapid adoption and spread of new ideas. It’s the perfect test market.”

McIntyre admits that cracking into the industry and attracting investment has been a challenge.

“It’s a brand new concept, and traditional funding models don’t generally flex to take a risk this big – so we’ve had to figure out how to fund YeahNah ourselves. We knew we could do this overseas, but we’re Kiwis and pretty attached to making a difference here first – especially because New Zealand is often the voice of common sense in the modern world.”

The seed was planted when photographer Mat Blamires considered tapping into the power of imagery that’s now at the centre of how we consume news and entertainment to crowdsource feedback.

Blamires funded the initial stages of development, enabling the team at YeahNah to expand on the idea and create something useful for those of a millennial mindset.

Students in Dunedin have had a chance to use the app already, with a recent trial seeing YeahNah become a huge hit with flatters on the infamous Castle Street.

“We released an early version of the app in Dunners – we couldn’t afford the servers to test en masse but wanted to prove the concept to ourselves early on and ensure the app was influenced by how people wanted to use it. These early learnings have helped us prioritise the release features and makes sure New Zealanders feel a part of what we believe could be as mainstream as an app like Snap (formerly Snapchat) or Instagram.”

THE HANGAR (aka. The Flat/Space)

Enter Rafe Custance – First Mate and fellow Hangar resident..

Custance and McIntyre first locked eyes across the room at a TedX event. A quick chat quickly escalated over a beer, and soon, they decided to move in together. This ‘bromance’ led to the invention of what is now known as ‘The Hangar’, and Rafe now leads the marketing approach for the team.

“Our living situation subsidises our office requirements – and vice versa. What we want is an integrated life – there’s no distinction between work and social life here – we’re always on. We work hard because it’s what we want to do. What’s better than working with your mates, on something you are all passionate about, when you’re all at similar stages?”

Sharing an integrated work/life space has cultivated a strong bond and culture between the YeahNah developers, a team of seven.

The YeahNah team champion the idea of a flexible work week, allowing everyone to work on projects they’re passionate about, blurring the line between what constitutes social and work life.

The office is a stark contrast to a ‘high tech’ environment; hammers and nails litter desks rather than A4 notebooks and Bic pens. Creativity is celebrated, natural light floods in from outside – there’s no clinical hum of fluorescent overheads. There are shared lunches and home brewed kombucha and the team have swapped lanyards for a lockitron.

“The morale is outstanding, we’re all just bloody great mates. There is very much no distinction between who we are as people and the work we do. While we’ve never been busier it’s incredibly social and so pleasing to be able to work in with other young business also looking to make a mark on the industry”, says Custance.

The YeahNah team don’t subscribe to an existing business model or hierarchy, and adopting titles such as CFO or CTO made no sense.

“Whilst what’s happening here is very Silicon Valley in terms of innovative tech we wanted to bring a humble Kiwi twist to the concept”, says Custance.

“We want to encourage creativity and contribution from anyone that chooses to be here – regardless of the day to day role they play.”

Providing a female touch is ‘First Lady’ Jessica Moloney – the ‘Mother Duck’ figure of YeahNah. The oldest of seven and proud sister of five brothers, with a passion for ‘no bullshit branding’ and authentic social media, it’s a role that has come naturally.

After 11 years in digital and agency land, Moloney now runs her own social business from The Hangar.

“When I first met Luke and Rafe – I knew I had to be involved. The concept, the team and the movement happening here was something I fell in love with straight away – I immediately wanted to like, comment and share this in real life – the hallmarks for me of what this industry should enable. There’s something so genuinely magic about what is happening here – I’ve helped the team here realise what they’re sitting on – a story we can all fall in love with and get behind.”

"For us, Jess has been a game changer, which is what we openly refer to her as” says McIntyre.

"The whole exercise of building this app has been eyeopening in terms of appreciating the power of social. It's often stigmatised and labeled as time-wasting or for the self-obsessed, but that's so reductionist, and, frankly, lazy."

Custance agrees, "It's the modern day distribution method for knowledge and ideas, it's empowering for our generation and its influence will only increase. I think you’d be pressed to find someone in New Zealand who understands this better than Jess."

"I believe she has a rare skillset – not only does she understand social both strategically and operationally, she's got the business savvy to really make it work for us from a commercial standpoint”.

McIntyre describes the flat as “business at the front and party at the back.”

Materials were sourced out of old commercial fit outs and mates’ trade accounts, and walls were put up to partition the space into workspace and bedrooms.

In typical entrepreneurial fashion, the boys are also renting out hot desks in The Hangar and AirBNB’ing a spare room – enabling them to connect with like-minded individuals and sharing ideas.

“The energy here has proved magnetic – we’ve got mates who left six figure jobs to come work with us, one sold his ute to help out, someone dropped out of Uni. Every person here made a considered decision to rally behind the cause.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

“We’re building a social media app, but at the same we’re building the future/brands of the future”, says McIntyre. “YeahNah will be a new way of interacting, changing the way we work and thinking long term about how digital can change society for the better. Launching Summer 2016/2017 – we can’t wait to see what the world will do with it and what positive change it will empower, what transparency it will provide, how media can use it to unleash the voice and opinions of a new generation”.

McIntyre adds, “Be part of our story. It’s pretty bloody magic.”

WANT MORE?

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Download the BETA* version for iPhone of the app now - full product launch coming Summer 2016/2017.

*It’s BETA guys, that means we’re still testing it and it’s a bit rough around the edges. Bloody good though.

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