It was an honour today to welcome Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Minister of Finance Nicola Willis, Minister of Commerce Cameron Brewer, and Minister for Social Development and Employment Louise Upston to Hero HQ.
The visit included a tour of our bookstore, warehouse and HQ, followed by a media stand-up with the Prime Minister and Ministers. We also put the Prime Minister to work! He joined our warehouse hero Dom (the weapon!) to pick a customer order, before heading to the dispatch benches to pack it up and send it on its way to a happy Book Hero customer.
Book Hero didn’t exist two years ago. Since then, we’ve grown to serve more than 125,000 customers, employ a full-time team of 20, and now deliver between 1,000 and 2,000 books every day to New Zealanders around the country, including rural communities without a local bookstore.
We love being part of the Hobsonville community, and have appreciated the support of our local MP, Cameron Brewer, since we first set up shop in a little 100m² warehouse just around the corner from his electorate office. Starting a business is hard, growing a business is harder, and it’s always appreciated when people are positive, lift you up, and do whatever they can to help.
Today was a great opportunity to share our love of reading and books, something that was genuinely shared by every Minister we met, and to talk about our experience starting and scaling a business in New Zealand.
We also had the opportunity to talk about the local book industry, some of the challenges Book Hero has faced, and how we’ve worked to overcome them. All the Ministers we spoke to were enthusiastic readers who shared our passion for getting more books into the hands of more Kiwis.
It was particularly rewarding to have the scale of our investment recognised, and to share with Nicola Willis our approach to AI-assisted software development. Bringing complex warehousing systems in-house, while still having a small technical team, has helped us scale Book Hero efficiently while continuing to improve the service we can offer our customers. We believe technology needs to be at the heart of every business, even one as long-standing as physical books!
Of course, we know New Zealanders hold a wide range of political views, and with an election approaching there will naturally be people within our own team and our wider Book Hero community who support the current Government and people who don’t. We think that’s a good thing. We’ve always tried to build a culture at Book Hero that is inclusive, curious and welcoming, where different ideas and perspectives are respected.
Politics was actually my major at university, and I’ve always been fascinated by democracy, the debate of different ideas, and the fact that we can disagree while still respecting both the process and each other.
For us, today wasn’t about endorsing a political party. Having the Prime Minister of New Zealand visit Book Hero was an honour, and pretty incredible recognition of what our team has built together in just two years. Whatever your politics, having the opportunity to show the country’s Prime Minister through our warehouse, introduce him to our team and tell the story of a Kiwi business that started with an idea and a tiny warehouse was a pretty special moment.
We’re proud of what we’ve built, and wish nothing but the very best for anyone in New Zealand who takes the risk to start a business, create jobs and make life better for their customers. We thank and support those in government, past, present and future, who support and cheer on New Zealand businesses.
Today was special, and we’d like to thank the Prime Minister and his team for taking the time to visit Hero HQ, understand our business, meet our team, and share and encourage our love of books and reading.
If Chris Hipkins, Chlöe Swarbrick, or the leaders of any other party would like to spend time understanding our team and our business - you will always be welcome at Hero HQ so get in touch! (and we’ll let you know if you can pick and pack faster than Christopher Luxon 😂).