🎙️ Rural Kiwi roots, global marketing leadership, and now startup innovation — Anna Henwood helps brands get real consumer truth in just 48 hours with Stickybeak.
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4is21QIApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/42KZ2x1
Anna Henwood is a New Zealand tech entrepreneur and co-founder/CEO of Sticky Beak, a fast, affordable, global consumer-testing platform that recruits real people via social and panels to help marketers validate names, packs, claims, and ads—before they burn media dollars. She shares how leading Les Mills’ marketing through COVID’s chaos (and a rocket-ship D2C pivot) primed her for startups, why “test ingredients, not the cake,” and how tariffs and export shifts are reshaping where brands grow next. 📈
Sticky Beak just passed 100 customers and leans into hard-to-reach markets (Africa, Eastern Europe, SE Asia) while expanding in the UK and Australia. We dig into defensibility, platform-agnostic recruiting (Meta, TikTok, research panels), and smart ways founders can use AI as an “expert co-pilot,” not a synthetic audience replacement.
🤝 From corporate CMO to startups: lessons from the jump
📲 How Sticky Beak recruits real people globally (Meta/TikTok/panels)
🧪 “Test ingredients, not the cake” — pre-testing creative & packs
📈 COVID’s D2C surge at Les Mills and agile marketing pods
🧭 Tariffs, exports, and why UK/EU/Asia are hot for NZ/AU brands
🤖 Using AI for expert guidance vs. synthetic audiences
🛡️ What makes the model defensible beyond simple A/B ads
Connect with Anna Henwood
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-henwood/
Sticky Beak: https://www.stickybeak.co/
Learn more about NZVC & HostsNZVC: https://www.nzvc.co.nz
Mark Pavlyukovskyy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlyukovskyy/
Hendrik Remigereau: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendrik-remigereau-09a03067/Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
00:47 – What Sticky Beak does (fast, global consumer testing)
01:00 – Rural NZ roots → marketing career
02:04 – Waikato Uni, marketing path (sports focus)
09:16 – First roles, overseas stints, London vs. ANZ work styles
11:32 – Les Mills: brand story & global scale
21:25 – COVID hits: daily taskforce & D2C app surge
24:48 – Tens of thousands → hundreds of thousands subs
25:25 – Equipment sold out; LTV and CAC math
33:52 – Why Anna joined Sticky Beak; what changed
36:37 – Re-platforming; hyper-global reach (incl. Africa/E.Europe)
42:54 – Pre-testing vs. ad A/B; “test ingredients, not the cake”
48:42 – Where AI helps (expert co-pilot)
51:10 – Competitors, agencies, legacy panels
53:48 – Defensibility & platform-agnostic recruiting
57:10 – How respondents are sourced; charity option with Oxfam
1:10:59 – Vision: 100 customers, UK/AU expansion over US
1:16:37 – Tariffs, exports, and consumer sentiment
1:19:29 – Founder life: what Anna loves about startups
If this helped your startup or business brain, hit 👍, drop your questions in the comments, and subscribe for more New Zealand founder stories and global growth tactics.
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