Nā Kahurangi Milne
Kia Ora e te iwi and welcome to our very first E-Pānui and Blog post- hurō! (hooray).
Kahu here, the other better half to Chey Milne, and we are the owner/directors of Arataua. A small humble Māori business in the heart of Rotorua and have been grinding away since 2013, when we officially registered our kamupene (company).
We have an amazing team of kaimahi (staff) who are pretty much whānau or our kids go to kura together, or we are just connected in some way. We love what we do, we love doing it together and we love all of the wonderful projects we get to work on.
This blog is our opportunity to connect with our whānau, friends and anyone interested in what we are up to, and to also share any learnings, tips and tricks we have picked up along our journey.
We are always so grateful for the aroha and support we get, and this is our way of giving back or sharing back. Our blog and E-Pānui will go out every fortnight so don’t forget to sign up! Alright here we go.
Blogging or simply writing stuff down has always been something I’ve wanted to do but of course haven’t had the “time” to do. Running a business, being a māmā, wife and when possible a ‘kaupapa lady’, can be a bit stressful. But you know what? We are all grinding! So that type of kōrero (talk) can get in the rubbish! Welcome e hoa mā to our first Arataua blog post!
What’s interesting is that having a blog is actually a good little marketing trick ;-)
So here I am trying to get us to do better at our own marketing. Because the funny thing is that’s apparently what we do!
For our first blog post I wanted to focus on how and why we have Arataua! As this might give anybody (hopefully even just one reader lol) a little insight into what our kaupapa (purpose) is.
It’s quite simple really; te reo Māori and whānau! That’s our kaupapa and everything we have done or will do must align to those two things. We ask ourselves; does this fit with our whānau? And will this contribute to growing te reo Māori or not?
We are a Māori business! And sometimes when I say that to people I get the side eyes. What that means is we specialise in ‘talking to Māori’ and ‘creating Māori content’. We’ve decided that we don’t want to try and be anything else because the business world says that we should think a bit more broadly and not narrow ourselves to just Māori and just Aotearoa. I call bullshit on that! Why not? Why not call ourselves a Māori business and specialise? The reality is we aren’t as a nation and even as a people quite ready to call bullshit on that whakaaro. I remember one “entrepreneur” saying to us in our very early days, “do you only work with Māori? That’s not a good business move”.
The answer is no, we don’t just work with Māori, although to be fair 80% of our clients are Māori and or are the Māori within their organisation. And the ‘not a good business move’ is again, bullshit!
As a Māori business, the ones we have to convince the most are our own. You’ll get whānau buying Culture Kings and not Māori made, you’ll get Māori and iwi organisations using the “Pakeha” media company over the Māori media company. I always wonder why it can be so hard to convince our own that supporting our own is what will help us all grow!
Wow, this first blog post got heated real quick! Auē aroha mai (whoops apologies). Hopefully you’ll come back for the next one.
What is certain is that we are super grateful to do what we do. We are proud to be a Māori business and proud of every other Māori business out there fighting the good fight.
Today just so happens to be the first “Small Business Day” in Aotearoa. Rawe (awesome) and big ups to our business friends and all you amazing people who support us, buy from us, like our posts and sign up to read more blogs (which you can do right here http://eepurl.com/hu7M_n. See what I did there ;-)
Ka nui te mihi e hoa mā and thank you for reading, we value your time and support.
Drop us a comment below if you have any whakaaro to share we’d love to hear from you.
Kahu x
P.S Here’s more info about the “Small Business Day” campaign if you wanted to be in to win some sweet cash and prizes ;-)
