Day in the Life

WE TALKED TO WELLINGTON TECH POWER COUPLE AND WRESTLER CO-FOUNDERS Kat Lintott AND Ben Forman TO SEE HOW THEY GET THROUGH THE DAY, HOW THEY ORGANISE THEIR TIME AND HOW THEY HANDLE THE MADNESS OF BUSINESS.

Wrestler's Ben Forman and Kat Lintott

Ben wakes up at 7am (he used to wake up at 6:30am but that somehow crept later). Kat sleeps in because she’s growing a baby and gets up at 7:30am.

Breakfast at 8am at Prefab (opposite the office) with a catch-up on what we’re each working on.

Ben: I do 60 sit-ups and 40 push-ups, then 10 minutes of meditation with the Headspace app. We don’t eat breakfast at home, we just get ready and leave. I only wear black jeans and a white T-shirt, so getting ready is very easy. I kind of play out an Edgar Wright style montage in my head as I do it.

Kat: My current morning routine while pregnant is to sleep in as much as I can, then eat and check my emails for the day. I also love breakfast, so breakfast meetings are a common ritual.

Ben: I’m pretty addicted to media. Like, an unhealthy amount. I’m always looking at Instagram, news sites, Facebook, etc. I try to listen to a few podcasts a week. I usually go to Tim Ferris, Seth Godin, Recode Decode and Vox. I’m interested in a lot of things, from self-improvement, to American politics, to tech and food. I just subscribed to masterclass.com and am learning cooking from Gordon Ramsey.

Kat: I wish I watched more media and played more VR, but my days are usually pretty packed with meetings and actioning things so my media consumption usually happens in the evenings, weekend and when someone suggests something to me. Ben’s definitely the larger media consumer and he keeps me up to date, which is awesome.

We run Wrestler, which is a storytelling agency. We create video campaigns, virtual and augmented reality experiences and do a whole lot of other interesting things in the storytelling space. Think of it as a hybrid between the ad world and the film world. And the future world. Wrestler is also building its own creative IP and this is a newer part to the business where we develop our own games, short films, and a news documentary series with The Spinoff called Frame. The latest is a partnership with Miramar Creative called Pohewa, which is practical masterclasses turning creativity into commercial reality.

Ben: I’m mostly on the hustle, trying to find new clients, grow the brand and learn about what’s new. This is kind of new for me. I’ve always been a hustler, but never full time. I do find it challenging not having projects that start and finish, I’m more big picture now, which is fun, just less tangible. I’m also the finance person, so I have to make sure the business is doing well and our budget is on track and the forecast is looking good. I like this, because it means I know exactly the pulse of the business e.g. Do I need to hustle more or are we going to be overworked? I also get involved in the creative and oversight of projects, so ensuring things are going well and people are happy and clients are happy and the work we’re producing makes me proud.

Kat: My main focus is around our VR and AR offering – finding opportunities to help the VR/AR part of the business grow, whether it's through projects with clients or creating our own games/ experiences and building relationships with people who are interested in knowing more about VR/AR and creating experiences. Hopefully they become clients and we work together to create something mīharo! I also educate the market on the importance of tech and storytelling and the different ways to use it today and in the future. I’m also doing a lot of talks and panel discussions around tech and storytelling. I mainly talk around my passion of empowering people to take action towards a positive future using technology as a way to help equality. I also talk a lot about how we need to change our general purpose. At the moment it’s ‘our purpose is to work’, but I want that to change to ‘our purpose is to live’, and I’m using education as the centre point for this discussion.

We have an amazing studio in central Wellington that we custom built. It’s spacious and very open, which creates an awesome vibe. The only problem is that