Halter has been one of the country\u2019s most notable startup success stories over the past decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chief executive Craig Piggott was just 21 when he founded the company in 2016, but he demonstrates a maturity beyond his years when discussing leadership and how he runs his Auckland-based operation, which now sells his cow trackers worldwide.<\/p>\n
Piggott grew up on a Waikato dairy farm and, with a first-class honours degree in engineering from the University of Auckland, was a Rocket Lab engineer before striking out on his own<\/a>.<\/p>\n International growth \u00a0<\/p>\n BusinessDesk columnist Peter Griffin describes the Icehouse Ventures alum as an innovative, award-winning leader who has focused on leveraging precision agri-tech. His solar-powered cow collars, with app integration, solve real on-farm pain points.<\/p>\n Over the past decade, Piggott and his Halter team \u2013\u00a0now comprising more than 300 members<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 have raised approximately $290 million and scaled the business to become a global leader in agri-tech.<\/p>\n According to Griffin, Halter has achieved international growth and demonstrated a positive impact on productivity and sustainability on farms.<\/p>\n Despite his success, Piggott stresses that nothing has come easily<\/a> to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt took four years and $50 million before we even truly knew if the product would work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Piggott is shortlisted in the startup category of the inaugural BusinessDesk CEO Index, and our independent panel of judges say they \u201clove the resilience\u201d of his company in a crowded space.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCraig Piggott is an incredibly powerful role model for where and how New Zealand\u2019s primary sector should be world famous. He’s come and done all the right things in terms of startups.\u201d<\/p>\n Billion-dollar valuation <\/p>\n The judges add, and you won\u2019t see this quote very often: \u201cGetting to the unicorn status [a billion-dollar valuation] exemplifies the whole thing. He deeply cares about cows.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s true, he does. Piggott has built his team and products by closely engaging with end-users (farmers), and targeting major expansion into international markets, especially the United States, says Griffin.<\/p>\n BusinessDesk asked Piggott for his experience in dealing with the five criteria in the CEO Index: vision,\u00a0impact,\u00a0innovation,\u00a0resilience,\u00a0and influence.<\/p>\n Vision: Piggott is a leader who understands the power of storytelling and has a clear idea of Halter\u2019s raison d’\u00eatre. \u201cOur vision is to be the operating system for farms and ranches across the world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n And his customers are a huge factor in how he communicates and achieves that vision. \u201cWe speak to our farmers and ranchers constantly, and it\u2019s their experiences, their opinions, their dreams and goals for their own businesses that drive our stories and how we communicate publicly,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The founder ties annual, quarterly, and monthly goals back to that vision, which sounds very conscientious, but there\u2019s more to it than that. \u201cWe work hard, but what we do is also enormous fun. Everyone at Halter is here because we want to be, and we have a blast doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Impact: Piggott is not driven by what he can do alone. \u201cA leader\u2019s impact is measured by the collective results or outcomes of the team,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a truth you can\u2019t hide from. There will be ups and downs \u2013 everyone expects that in a startup \u2013 but on average, you are winning if the team is winning.\u201d<\/p>\n Innovation: Piggott likes to think he has led the way in understanding, exemplifying, and accepting failure at his company, which has made it something that is openly embraced and discussed.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the early days of Halter, I lost count of the number of times I fell flat on my face. But we kept trying, we kept innovating, and eventually we made something that worked.\u201d<\/p>\n Failure has triggered some of his company\u2019s best breakthroughs, says Piggott. He says he loves seeing ambitious people take on hard things.<\/p>\n Resilience: For the first few years of a startup, you are \u201cdead by default\u201d and every day is a fight to exist, Piggott says.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything from making the collars light and comfortable while still being tough enough to withstand the rigours of constant exposure to the elements, or making the solar panels and battery small and powerful enough \u2013 everything took longer and was harder than we thought, but that\u2019s life at a startup,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cYou learn you can do hard things, you learn grit, and that the most important skill is to just never quit,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Influence: There\u2019s not a lot at Halter that he tells others to do that he wouldn\u2019t do himself, Piggott says.<\/p>\n He tries to be both demanding and supportive, wanting people to believe they can do their life\u2019s work at the company.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t really do hierarchy or strict rules at Halter. We do agency \u2013 the power for everyone to make decisions that are best for our farmers and for our company.”<\/p>\n