01Live · In pilot
Body Corporate Compliance
Lifts, fire, ventilation, emergency lighting — handled.
Schedules IQP inspections with preferred contractors. Files paperwork with council. Chases 30, 14 and 3 days before any cert lapses.
Vol. 01 — AotearoaThe commercial company
Traditional New Zealand businesses, made exponential.
Totara is the commercial operating company that takes good, grounded Kiwi businesses — trades, services, manufacturing, primary — and helps them compound. We do this through engagements, vertical Playbooks, and a Platform we're building in the open.
Slow-grown. Hard-wooded. Built to outlast the storm.
The thesis
No. 01
Most NZ businesses are linear by accident, not by destiny. We change the architecture, not just the effort.
For two generations the playbook for a successful Kiwi business has been: work hard, stay humble, hire your nephew, sell when you're tired. It produces decent livelihoods. It doesn't produce compounding companies.
Totara exists for the owners who suspect there's another mode — productised offers, leveraged operations, structural pricing power — and who'd rather install it than read about it. We don't write strategy. We do the work alongside you.
The library
Vertical Playbooks.
Each Playbook is a sequenced, opinionated install — written by operators who shipped the change in their own businesses first.
02Opening Q3 2026
Allied Health Clinics
Wake the dormant patient list.
AI voice and SMS to every patient dormant six months or more. Books directly into your PMS. Monthly recovered-revenue PDF to the principal. Performance pricing: pay a share of recovered revenue, not a fixed fee.
03Practitioner anchor wanted
Real Estate Operations
Eighty-five minutes per listing becomes seven.
Auto-generated weekly vendor update PDFs from forwarded enquiries and SMS-logged open homes. Currently recruiting a working real estate salesperson as practitioner anchor.
04In development
Marketing & Creative Agencies
The reporting, briefing and production stack.
Client reporting, briefing-pack generation and content production stacks for boutique NZ agencies. Recruiting an agency owner as practitioner anchor.
How we work
Three doors in.
You don't need a retainer to find out if there's a there there. Start with a diagnostic. If the thesis is real, we'll tell you. If it isn't, we'll tell you that too.
- 012 weeks
Diagnostic
We sit inside the business, map the constraint, and leave you with a written growth thesis your team can argue with.
- 0290 days
Playbook Install
We run a vertical Playbook with your operators — pricing, offer, sales motion, ops. Outcomes are measured, not promised.
- 0312 months
Operating Partner
Embedded with the founder. Quarterly compounding. For owners who want a partner in the work, not a deck on the wall.
The operating spine
Seven agents. One spec.
Every Playbook ships through the same seven-agent team. Roles are fixed. Handoffs are gated. The spec is the contract.
Marty
Product Manager
Owns the what and the why.
Dieter
UI/UX Designer
Designs every state, not just the happy path.
Margaret
Fullstack Developer
Stack-agnostic.
Charity
DevOps Engineer
Infrastructure, security, reliability, cost.
James
Tester
The last line of defence.
Gene
Delivery Lead
Gates every handoff.
Peter
Talent Manager
Audits capability against the spec.
The other half
The framework is open. The company is not its keeper.
Totara has two halves. The open-source Totara framework is the body of ideas: free to read, fork, argue with. We're the commercial half: the operating company that turns those ideas into installs inside real businesses.
We respect the line. The framework belongs to the commons. The engagements, Playbooks and Platform belong to Totara Co.
Framework coming soonStart a diagnostic
Two weeks. One thesis. No deck.
We take a small number of diagnostics each quarter. Tell us about the business, what you've tried, and where it stalled. We'll come back within three working days.