Kiwi Business Story: John Roberts at Oragene

John Roberts is the Chief Operating Officer and co-owner of Oragene, and a Virtual Business Owner Programme (formerly Taking Your Business Forward) and Icehouse Coaching alumni. 

This Kiwi Business Story is based on a podcast from 24 May 2023, and all figures quoted are from that time. You can enjoy the complete podcast here.



Tell us about your career journey:

My career started off working for the family pharmaceutical company… My parents bought the business in 2001 off my grandparents, so I’m the third generation on the pharmaceutical side.

I started helping out through the school holidays, taught kickboxing after school, picked up a job bartending during the weekends during my teenage years, and then went back to the family pharmaceutical company. I began sweeping the warehouse floor, so literally worked from the ground up, then moved into a sales role, then marketing, and operations. 

One product was going really, really, well with the veterinary sector. So that got pulled across into the company that ended up becoming Oragene. I bought into the company in 2017, and we rebranded to Oragene in 2019. And then [it] really started pumping up. The main pharmaceutical company is still up and running, and this is a sister company to that. 

I’m passionate about keeping families safer. When we had our rebrand to Oragene, I wanted to make sure that the ethos of the entire management team went alongside with what we all personally believed.

What’s been a highlight of the journey so far?

Definitely meeting so many different people. Travel is obviously nice, but really working with our distributors, clients and our team as well. We’re a relatively small team still, so it's a nice, close-knit, group.

How did you hear about The Icehouse?

I was actually looking for a coaching programme. Professional sports people, for example, always have a coach that helps them grow, and I was thinking: ‘Well, as a business owner wanting to try and grow the company, I need someone to help me along that journey.’ So that's how I came across The Icehouse.

You did the [Virtual Business Owner Programme]. What were your key takeaways?

It was nice having the community to work with and, obviously, being an alumni now, having that alumni network is massive. Being around people who think similar, but also have different experiences that you can learn from, and being such an honest and open communicative place, you don't have to worry about how you're presenting things to people. You can just have an open dialogue and get honest feedback, which is amazing.

Were there any hesitations for you before joining the programme?

None! I knew what I wanted. The course (Taking Your Business Forward) and the coaching, definitely surpassed my initial thoughts. 

I’m now receiving coaching from Kevin D’Ambros-Smith. He has helped us so much. I catch up with him once a week and it's definitely the highlight of my week. I always take a massive amount of notes during our catch-ups! 

It started off being one page of things that I can work on, and now it's sitting at about three or four pages at the end of [each] catch up… things that I definitely hadn't thought of – even if I try to take a step back and look at things objectively, or look at things from a different perspective, it still wouldn't be some stuff that I'd pick up on… His knowledge and intellect on all things business – no matter what industry it is – he just seems to find gems that you can focus on. 

Do you have any advice for owners?

Contacting The Icehouse is an obvious one! But also, [the value in] being able to take a moment away or possibly having a night off… with minimal internet, so that you can't get distracted by Facebook or Instagram. Basically, just sit there, write out everything that's in your head, and then try and look at it from an outsider's perspective, because as soon as you see things on paper, you can see it a lot easier.

What does the future look like?

The future for us is to be in a lot more retail stores and having our products more widely available to the public because we've got a goal to keep people safer, keep communities safer, and keep businesses safer. The only way that we can do that is by expanding our territory and expanding the amount of people that can access our products. 

So, by growing that way, we're able to help more people, and that's ultimately the goal for us. Before Kevin, I hadn't even thought about B2C. The light bulb switched on, and it hasn't switched off.