I might tell the AI, \u201cDave\u2019s a real dick. He\u2019s always late to meetings. I find it incredibly disrespectful and I can\u2019t stand him.\u201d<\/p>\n
If I did, Ward says, \u201cHuckleberry would hear that comment, then tell your boss he needs to work on punctuality. It\u2019s the same feedback, but without the toxicity and the barbs that could damage your relationship.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ward says it\u2019s all about being constructive and the AI acting as an executive coach.<\/p>\n
Others like that approach. Ward has just raised $2.1 million in an oversubscribed \u201cpre-seed\u201d round from backers including Rowan Simpson (Trade Me, Vend, Xero) and Serge van Dam (M-Com, Movac, Re-leased).<\/p>\n
And Ward\u2019s already signed an anchor customer, NZX-listed retirement village giant Oceania Healthcare, for Huckleberry\u2019s just-released Version 1.0 (which is free for individuals or $110 a month for a team of up to 20, with custom pricing for corporates).<\/p>\n
Ward has been here before. In 2014, he co-founded AskNicely \u2013 a maker of those quick online surveys that pop up after you\u2019ve just bought a product or completed a service \u2013 in an Auckland garage.<\/p>\n
It went on to raise US$50m ($89m) across several venture capital rounds and saw Ward and his family relocate to Portland, Oregon, as its North American business grew.<\/p>\n
He is still on AskNicely\u2019s board and involved as a co-founder, but he stepped away from his chief executive role in mid-2023. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s now splitting his time between the United States and NZ, but says he wanted his new venture to have \u201cKiwi DNA – Kiwi investors and Kiwi employees\u201d.<\/p>\n
His Huckleberry co-founder Diogo B\u00f6hm (a former Eroad development team lead) is based in \u014crewa, in North Auckland.<\/p>\n
On the VC side, the Oregon Venture Fund and Oregon tech investor Nathan Christensen are also on board. Ward wants strong Kiwiana roots but will also utilise his own and others\u2019 corporate American links to open doors in the US.<\/p>\n
The name comes not from the Mark Twain novel Huckleberry Finn but the wild-west phrase \u201cI\u2019m your huckleberry\u201d – recently popularised by Val Kilmer\u2019s character in Tombstone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means \u2018I\u2019m the right person for the job,\u2019\u201d Ward says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt reflects the idea that each of us is blessed with a particular set of skills or strengths that qualify us for a particular purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe career journey for most people looks like a drunkard\u2019s walk, zig-zagging from one role to another, hoping to stumble into work that fits,\u201d Ward says. <\/p>\n
\u201cHonest feedback can help people discover the work they love, where they can play to their natural strengths. Huckleberry turns that insight into a regular habit, not a once-a-year event.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald\u2019s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I might tell the AI, \u201cDave\u2019s a real dick. He\u2019s always late to meetings. I find it incredibly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[77615,6117,1443,365,10007,363,364,3021,6183,9517,18957,77614,8482,77618,111,139,69,17146,77617,11596,20441,1516,23123,145,61,57284,5977,77616,17708,28045,1959],"class_list":["post-107853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-21m","tag-aaron","tag-about","tag-ai","tag-aipowered","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-bring","tag-dozens","tag-fans","tag-feedback","tag-huckleberry","tag-huge","tag-incessant","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-questions","tag-quietly","tag-raises","tag-sometimes","tag-staff","tag-surveys","tag-technology","tag-to","tag-wards","tag-which","tag-whisper","tag-workplace","tag-workplaces","tag-your"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}