Todd

"But for a time, all the ingenuity made no difference to the company’s struggle. A year after its launch, Sky had just 18,000 subscribers when the company had expected more like 100,000. For a period in early 1991, Sky was losing $1 million a week. Smart recalls some months where he would sit down with others to decide whether they should use the available cash to pay wages or the previous month’s PAYE, because there was insufficient money to do both. Board meetings were spent discussing loans and how much the shareholders—Heatley, Jarvis, TVNZ, Tappenden and Todd—would put in on a pro-rata basis and whether more could be raised from the banks. Gibbs and Farmer were particularly irritated. More money was required every week."

"Around the time that Sky floated, all the talk in the investment community was about the internet. Even though it was years before the advent of social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram, there were already fortunes being made by those who invested in the right companies. Trying to analyse or use instinct or simply guess which the ‘right’ ones were was the key to making money. Walker Wireless was part of the hype. To tap into these opportunities, Heatley, Todd, News Corp and Japan’s Softbank Corporation formed a company that they thought had bright prospects. They called it eVentures New Zealand and Heatley had a 20 per cent stake. Its role was not only to invest in e-commerce and internet-related companies but to create new ones. Its founders were hoping to experience the sort of success with start-up companies that the original shareholders in PayPal and Trade Me later enjoyed. They also wanted to introduce to New Zealand online products that were working overseas."