Around 20 vendors gathered in the Paeroa War Memorial Hall on August 30 for the Eastern Waikato Rebel Business School Trade Show.
The event aimed to introduce new local businesses ways to develop through selling and promoting their products and services.
Paora Raharaha was one of the vendors with his new Paeroa-based t-shirt business called iLOVE and told The Profile he intends to donate some of the profits to Mike King’s charity I Am Hope.
“I love helping people, I’ve run ultra marathons and fundraise money for whoever needs it,” he said.
“We’re looking to set up an online store through a website and at the moment we only have t-shirts but we’ll look to get hoodies and other clothing.”
Vendor Paul Bains said his new Waihī-based toy animal barn business called Kea Play was developed from a weekend at a Paeroa bed and breakfast with his daughters.
“We couldn’t ride the rail trail because it was raining so we built a toy stable out of cardboard and the owners of the bed and breakfast gave us some medium-density fibreboard and hence the first stables were built,” he said.
“People said they like them so we thought we would have a go at selling them and that’s what we’re doing, it’s a bit of fun.”
Rebel Business School chief kiwi Tony Henderson-Newport acknowledged the local businesses for attending the event.
“This is the first time the event’s been held in this region. Our attendees here will form into our alumni programme and they’ll join over 1000 graduates from around Aotearoa getting access to more tools and processes to support their businesses,” he said.
“We’re very grateful we’ve had the support of three different district councils to fund all of our attendees coming for free to learn how to build their businesses.”
