Ben Reynolds

When Ben Reynolds says entrepreneurship is New Zealand’s most effective wealth-creation tool he’s speaking with the voice of experience.

Ben is the co-founder and head of Spalk, a company that is all about the voice.

Spalk works with sports organisations to enable them to provide live match commentaries in as many languages as their audiences demand.

Among users of the company’s Virtual Commentary Studio software is the world’s most lucrative sporting business, America’s NFL or National Football League, whose games can be viewed in 200 countries.

Spalk’s software allows a commentator sitting in a home studio in Santiago, for example, to call NFL matches in Chilean Spanish, or another in Osaka to cater to a Japanese audience.

Commentaries made using a laptop and internet connection with a consumer-grade microphone and headset are brought up to broadcast-quality on Spalk’s cloud-based mixing and synchronisation platform.

And if a broadcaster or streaming service needs a German, Spanish or Malay commentator, Spalk’s talent marketplace may be able to oblige.

American football is just one of the sports whose international reach Spalk is extending. The company also works with the English Premier League, Six Nations Rugby and others.

Ben, a University of Auckland Bachelor of Commerce graduate who now divides his time between New York City and a home in New Hampshire, is chuffed at Spalk’s success.

“I am proud to have built a profitable business in my twenties that employs more than 20 people around the world, including ten in high-paying R&D jobs in New Zealand,” he says.

How the business has been built is also a source of pride.

“We only ever do paid internships, we provide fully paid parental leave and have a well-used vacation policy.

“Co-founder Michael Prendergast and I have a strong set of values and do our best to operate with pragmatism, humility and transparency.”

But he says success is a spectrum.

“We are only scratching the surface of what is possible with this business.

“We have celebrated major milestones over the years. Our first $1, $100,000 and $1 million in revenue – $10 million is coming soon – as well as other major achievements such as producing 21 languages of commentary for the FIFA World Cup in 2022.”

A longer-term measure of success will be to have equipped Spalk employees with the knowledge and skills to build flourishing businesses of their own.

“There is nothing better for New Zealand than highly skilled, well-paid jobs generating export revenue for this country,” Ben says.

Two of the notable people Ben credits with helping bring Spalk to life are Terry Shubkin, head of the entrepreneurship-fostering Young Enterprise Trust, and long-time broadcaster Mike Rehu, Spalk’s chairman.

“Terry’s endless encouragement and support in my late-teens and early twenties set me on this path,” Ben says.

“Mike was there on day zero in his role as an executive at Māori Television when he became Spalk’s first customer, through to today helping us navigate multimillion-dollar deals with major sports businesses.”

Spalk won’t be the only beneficiary of Ben’s entrepreneurial zeal. As someone with type 1 diabetes, he was taken aback at the cost of insulin in the US.
“In my first month here I spent more on my type 1 diabetes care than I had in 15 years in New Zealand.

“My big, hairy, audacious goal in the next 10 years – following the successful growth and sale of Spalk, of course – is to build a vertically integrated, direct-to-consumer insulin manufacturer in the US.”

As a possible model, he looks to the Cost Plus Drugs Company started by US entrepreneur – and Dallas Mavericks basketball team owner – Mark Cuban to produce low-cost versions of high-cost generic drugs.

“I intend to solve the insulin-affordability crisis in America before I am 40,” says Ben.