The New Startup Playbook: How New+Improved is Changing Who Gets to Be a Founder
Inside the venture studio reshaping startups—where ideas are validated, risks are reduced, and leaders are built differently.
Forget the tired cliché of the lone genius tinkering in a garage, fuelled by ramen and rejection. At New+Improved, a groundbreaking venture studio co-founded by the well-known crew behind two of New Zealand’s fastest-growing tech companies Tracksuit and Ideally, startups are being built differently—and the old rules of who gets to be a founder are being rewritten.
New+Improved [a company that starts companies] doesn’t leave founders floundering through years of trial and error. Instead, the studio identifies problems, rigorously tests ideas with customers, and validates the solutions before inviting someone to step in. By the time a founder is at the helm, the opportunity is already in motion.
“We’re giving founders the keys to a running car,” says Pound. “By the time we ask someone to join, we’ve already validated that this is a real thing. Customers are excited. They’re already willing to pay. The idea is de-risked and ready to go.”
This radically different approach changes not just how startups are built but who gets to lead them. The studio focuses on finding operators—business builders, not code builders—who thrive in leadership roles. It’s a shift designed to open doors for people who might otherwise never have had the opportunity to lead a venture.
“There are so many talented people who haven’t had the chance to build something themselves,” explains Bray. “These are leaders with families, mortgages, and other commitments—people who can’t take two years in the wilderness living on ramen. With our approach, they can step into a validated opportunity and just go.”
The studio is also creating space for underrepresented founders, including women, to lead. By removing the traditional barriers of time and risk, New+Improved broadens the startup ecosystem in a meaningful way.
“We’ve talked a lot about how this model can make it easier for women and parents to step into leadership roles,” Bray adds. “The traditional startup journey excludes so many people. We’re changing that.”
New+Improved operates primarily in the marketing technology (MarTech) space, solving pain points across the marketing lifecycle. From acquiring customers to retaining them and turning them into advocates, the studio creates tools that empower marketers to act faster, think smarter, and replace inefficiencies.
This isn’t just theory—it’s already working. Tracksuit, a brand tracking tool, and Ideally, a platform for testing innovation, were the first two proven ventures from the founding team. Both have gained international traction, securing major clients and reshaping the marketing technology space. They’re living, breathing examples of how New+Improved’s focus on empowering marketers can replace outdated processes with powerful tools.
This existing success has also helped fuel a $6 million raise to build the first new firms, coming from TRA, Previously Unavailable and Icehouse Ventures.
“Marketing is often seen as the ‘spending department’ rather than the ‘doing department,’” Pound notes. “Our ventures bring strategy and creativity back into marketers’ hands, letting them act faster and more effectively.”
The process driving these ventures is brutally honest. “We don’t fall in love with our ideas,” says Bray. “We started with 25 concepts, narrowed it down to six, and now we’re at four. By Christmas, we’ll be down to one. The market tells us what’s worth building. We don’t decide—it’s customer demand that drives everything.”
The studio begins by talking to CMOs and other industry leaders, uncovering inefficiencies and mapping out pain points that businesses are willing to pay to solve. Once ideas are tested and validated with customers, only the strongest survive.
This relentless focus on market validation sets New+Improved apart. Every decision is informed by customer conversations, mapping pain points, and testing ideas until only the best survive. The founders describe it as a methodical approach that combines creativity with discipline.
Once an idea is validated, New+Improved carefully matches the venture with a founder who has the skills, experience, and passion to scale it. “It’s about creating founder-product fit,” Bray explains. “We’re looking for builders who thrive on turning validated ideas into thriving companies.”
And while the studio remains proudly New Zealand-based, its ambitions are global. New Zealand’s reputation as a creative and efficient market has made it an ideal testbed for ideas, while Tracksuit and Ideally have already proven that Kiwi ventures can thrive on the world stage.
“The thing about New Zealand is that companies here have to be efficient—it’s a small market,” says Pound. “That makes it a great place to test ideas. The success of Tracksuit and Ideally shows that when something works here, it can go global.”
As New+Improved prepares to launch its next venture, it’s clear that the stakes are high. Tracksuit and Ideally have set a high bar, but the studio isn’t looking to scale itself. Instead, it stays obsessively focused on launching the best ventures and helping them grow into industry leaders.
“Our job is to match the right ideas with the right people,” says Pound. “When we find that fit, magic happens.”
For those who’ve dreamed of leading a startup but felt locked out by the risks, New+Improved offers a bold new way forward. It’s a model built on inclusivity, precision, and a commitment to changing how startups are built—and who gets to build them.
Starting from a garage may work for some, but New+Improved is proving there’s more than one way to create something extraordinary—and they’re ready to lead the charge.