Building Wealth With Purpose

We brought together four women who have built wealth, survived setbacks, and kept going. Financial adviser Jess, multi-business founder Iyia, and Moodi founder Kate and I sat down for an honest, no-fluff conversation about money, property and what it actually takes to build something that lasts.

No sponsored content. No polished presentations. Just real talk.

Here are the key takeaways:

1. Your KiwiSaver fund type matters more than you think. If you have never actively chosen it, you are in the default and it is probably not right for your life stage. Speak to an advisor to see what fund works best for you. Jess

2. A budget written on paper is easy to ignore. Software is not. Jess recommends PocketSmith for real-time tracking that pulls your actual bank transactions. The data will surprise you. Jess

3. Captial gains do not pay the groceries. Ilse learned this the hard way after ending up in negative equity with a 3-month-old baby, having to move in with her in-laws. Cashflow is everything. Ilse

4. Time, Knowledge and capital. Most of us have two of the three - bridge that gap by finding someone who has already done what you want to do and reaching out. The worst they can say is no. Ilse

5. Adding a bedroom is the ultimate Cashflow Hack in property investment. Adding a bedroom can move you from a negative cashflow 3-bedroom to positive cashflow 4-bedroom rental. Ilse

6. Map the best and worst case before any big decision. Kate turned down six-figure job offers to start Moodi. The downside was embarrassment and reapplying for a job. The upside was building her dream. When she laid it out clearly, the downside was not actually that scary. Kate

7. Write it down. Make it measurable. Check in every year. Kate kept a 40-year plan since she was a teenager. By her mid-twenties, most of it had come true. Clarity is a strategy. Kate

8. Do not tell people your idea too early. The people who love you most will try to protect you from risk. Share it when it is too late to be talked out of it. Kate

9. The thing you start with probably will not be the thing you end with.Moodi launched as a protein powder. Now it makes up 1% of revenue. Back yourself to adapt, not just to execute. Kate

10. Start with almost nothing. One of Iyia's clients went from $1,000 to $300,000 in a year selling kids' learning cards. The barrier to starting is almost always lower than you think. Iyia

11. Test before you build. Try five things, measure everything, and migrate toward what works. Constant small tweaks beat big bets. Iyia

12. Wealth is not a number. For Jess it is freedom of time. For Iyia it is flexibility. For Kate it is a tool that makes the world go round. For Ilse it is the ability to make strategic decisions from calm, not urgency.

13. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Keep that in mind. Especially when you are building something. Kate

14. Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is king. You cannot eat bricks. Whatever you are building, make sure cash can actually flow. Kate

15. Use AI to buy back time. Kate records every advisor meeting, transcribes it, and feeds it into Claude. One tool, used well, can save thousands of dollars and hours every month. Kate

What to Do This Week

Jess: Log into your KiwiSaver and check which fund you are in. If you have never actively chosen it, change it to suit your needs.

Ilse: Identify one person who has already done what you want to do in property. Send them a message today. A discovery call costs nothing and the worst outcome is a no.

Iyia: Find 10 people who would pay for your business idea. If you cannot find 10, refine it. If you can, you already have a business worth starting.

Kate: Apply for the Moodi Female Founder Grant. $15,000 across four founders, no strings attached, no equity, no repayment. Especially if you have already talked yourself out of it.

Know Who to Talk to Before You Need Them

One of the clearest threads through the whole evening was this: the women who move fastest are not the ones who know the most. They are the ones who know who to call.

Jess put it plainly. The moment you have a financial question, whether it is about KiwiSaver, getting investment-ready, or understanding what your money is actually doing, the answer is almost never to figure it out alone. It is to talk to the right person, sooner than feels necessary.

The same goes for property. I didn’t figure out property investing by reading about it. I did it by connecting with people who had already made the mistakes she was about to make.

That is what this evening was about. Not information. Connection.

One More Thing…

At the end of the night, someone in the room asked what kept each of them going when things were hard.

Iyia said she literally could not fail. There was no safety net. That was her fuel.

Kate said it was purpose. On the hardest nights, she would open her DMs and read messages from women whose lives the product had genuinely changed.

Ilse said the least you have, the more hungry you are. Comfort is the enemy of growth.

Jess said to come back to your why. When the goal is clear, the hard work feels less like sacrifice and more like the obvious next step.

Whatever your version of that is, we hope you find it.

Until next time, keep going.