At just 2, little Charlie is too young to appreciate it just yet.
But Startup Dunedin general manager Rachel Butler hopes her son will get to see the impact those involved in Dunedin’s start-up scene have had in building an inclusive entrepreneurship ecosystem in the city and creating a space accessible to all.
"You can build the next global business from Dunedin, start your trade business or build a side hustle.
"And that all those various definitions of a successful life are equally as needed in our community and worthwhile."
When Charlie eventually outgrew collecting rocks and watching helicopters, she hoped there were spaces for him to continue to follow his curiosity in a world where the future of work was changing incredibly fast.
"I want him to try lots and lots of new things and be OK when it doesn’t work out because that learning is a useful and OK thing.
"That’s the entrepreneurial mindset I hope to bring home at night," she said.
She was also quick to deflect attention from her, saying that any recognition was "just a real mandate for the start-up ecosystem".
"I’ve genuinely been very lucky ... because I’m not the risk taker.
"I lead in the sense I point the direction, that direction is based on everyone walks through out door sets that. I’m not taking the risk or building the thing."
Ms Butler, 34, who was expecting her second child in February, believed there were definite synergies between parenting and start-ups.
"It takes a village to raise a child and a community to enable a start-up to thrive."
Plus, it was also about her love of learning. Being involved in the start-up scene meant the opportunity to deep-dive into radically different industries.
"Parenting is the same. You get to watch this human from scratch, it just feeds into your curiosity.
"It’s just really fun to watch, the same way it’s really fun to come to work," she said.
While many assumed she would not be returning to work in the New Year, they assumed wrong, underestimating how much she loved her job, she said.
"It never occurred to me not to come back in January," she said.
Her role was one that filled her cup and while she never expected to stay in Dunedin so long, there were still many "cool challenges" and she was still learning.
Dunedin was also a very family-friendly city and Charlie was still very much her number one priority.
Originally from Southland, Ms Butler moved to Dunedin in 2018 as programme manager for student start-up challenge Audacious.
The 20th anniversary celebration of Audacious was one of her highlights in 2025, along with the distribution of Startup Dunedin microgrants and seeing the reach in the community, the ideas coming forth and what was being achieved.
She was also a judge of the KUMA Māori Business Awards and it was a privilege to be behind the scenes for that event which celebrated excellence among the Maori business community in Otago-Southland, she said.
When it came to start-up wins this year, she loved seeing those solving complex problems, like Spellcaster, a literacy platform targeting children and teens who had become disengaged from mainstream schooling.
Or Elli Cares which was helping develop a world-first AI powered mobile phone app to assist older adults in monitoring and strengthening their cognitive health.
Then there was CourseSpy — a rapidly-growing platform to help students navigate university life with confidence — which saw its founder Josiah Bugden win the Momentum student entrepreneur category in the KiwiNet Research Commercialisation Awards.
Connecting people to opportunities and resources was an "absolute privilege".
Starting up was not only about economic development and diversification, but also as a tool for community resilience, solving real problems in the world and self-determination, Ms Butler said.
"The role we hold at Startup Dunedin is about always being aware of that privilege and how hard accessing spaces can be as a first step, even as a third-time entrepreneur.
"The support and opportunities offered change really fast and our role is to make it easy to navigate and make the most of them from Dunedin.
"I think our role is also to be the PR [public relations] for the busy founders who don't always take time to tell their stories because most people will be surprised that they know a local entrepreneur — Dunedin is really really good at start-ups," she said.
Ms Butler believed the biggest impact over her time at Startup Dunedin had been increasing its reach with no increase in funding until recently, yet posting a "massive" increase in demand.
Branding of entrepreneurship was not great in regional New Zealand where it was usually associated with Silicon Valley and not something particularly approachable.
Those in the regions did not tend to event use the word entrepreneur, preferring to describe themselves as a tinkerer or say simply, "I built something".
So what Startup Dunedin had done was simplify the language and make entrepreneurship accessible for everyone.
It had gone from seeing 40 people per year to 300, whether that was one-on-one meetings, events or workshops.
There was change in the air as the workforce was changing and more people had side hustles.
There were also more people understanding they could be the one to "solve the problem".
There was a misconception entrepreneurship was the domain of the young, she said.
In Dunedin, it was often those in careers who saw a problem within an industry and were driven to solve it.
One of the biggest things in Dunedin was the attitude that the next big idea might come from someone you run into in the street.
The city had the infrastructure for that; there were so many global companies based here and international networks, who were accessible with their generosity and goodwill, she said.
While they might be thinking globally, they were willing to "have that cup of coffee" — Ms Butler said Startup Dunedin ran entirely on goodwill and flat whites.
People were often surprised who the organisation were able to get as guest speakers.
It had a unique model because of the way it was established, founded and funded by the Dunedin City Council, University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic, who had a seat on the board.
That meant that everything it did was in alignment with the direction of the city and tertiary sector, enabling it to adapt quickly because it had the knowledge at the table every meeting.
It saw everyone at every stage.
There was "something for everyone" at every stage of the start-up pipeline, Ms Butler said.
She acknowledged it was not all rainbows and fairy dust in the start-up world and as well as celebrating the wins, it was also about learning from the mistakes.
Startup Dunedin piloted a series this year called Mistakes Were Made, where errors were shared by three people and it was so well received that more would be held this year.
"It’s such an important conversation.
"We need that alongside the fanfare and the cheerleaders," she said.
For the first time, Startup Dunedin taught into the bachelor of entrepreneurship programme at the University of Otago’s Otago Business School in 2025.
Head of programme Prof Conor O’Kane said the school was trying to strengthen the overall experience of its entrepreneurship students.
While the university was well placed to teach theory and world-leading perspectives, knowledge and methodology related to entrepreneurship, a core component of the degree was giving the students the opportunity to practise skills and apply the knowledge that was taught.
Prof O’Kane had known Ms Butler for some time and Startup Dunedin’s expertise had been core to entrepreneurship in the city, he said.
The programme has been going since 2022 and in 2024 there was a curriculum redesign based on the early learning from the programme roll-out.
Startup Dunedin’s involvement began as part of that new curriculum and emphasis on a real commitment to students practising their entrepreneurship skills.
Ms Butler said the Startup Dunedin team had loved the experience and they had "definitely" put some of the students out of their comfort zone when asked for their thoughts, opinions and experiences.
It was now a formal teaching arrangement where Startup Dunedin had full responsibility for a first-year paper and it also grew awareness of what the organisation did, within the university.
The skills gained from learning entrepreneurship were useful for whatever career path a student might be on, she said.
When it came to 2026, Ms Butler was excited to see more national connections into Dunedin like Momentum, the national student-led investment committee programme, and another round of micro-grants.
She was excited for the tertiary space; Otago Business School expanding into Queenstown and the re-establishment of Otago Polytechnic.
People were also getting better at being advocates and cheerleaders for the city’s business community and start-ups.
"I think we relied on ‘if we do a good job, people will notice’.
"You have to put time into story telling.
"We’re seeing a turning of the tide," she said.
So what were her favourite things about Dunedin?
"I love the outside spaces, we spend a lot of time at the beach and in the parks.
"The parks and rec of Dunedin don’t get enough of a shout out.
"I’m very passionate about our coffee both from a start-up and parenting perspective.
"The food here is awesome, great eateries.
"It’s just the people.
"We’ve got some amazing international successes and they are just here and you can meet them and run into them."
