After the recent post on corporate resilience that played out at iFLY in Queenstown, click here, we return to New Zealand for a contrasting tale. This time it is a skydiving operation in Taupō, a town on the North Island, that fell victim to SARS-CoV-2 and that is forced to succumb to the consequences.
“There are a lot of broken hearts out there tonight as we propose Skydive Taupō cease to operate in the wake of COVID-19.” That is how the owners/operators summed up their emotions as well as those of their clients in a recent (25 August) posting on Facebook. "All your comments cement just how heartbreaking this conclusion has been for us and we endeavor to go out with as much passion as we started up with."
Probably more than in many other, more 'normal' businesses, passion is one of the key ingredients that an entrepreneur needs to bring to the mix of talents and traits in order to be successful.
In a Project NZ newscast, Skydive Taupō CEO Roy Clements spoke about this passion – and about the need for it to be balanced properly with other considerations at a junction such as the one his company has reached in August 2020.
We don't know any of the specifics of how the decision on closing the drop zone that the Kiwi media label as 'iconic' was reached. And we definitely do not want to second-guess whether anything could have been done to salvage Skydive Taupō. All we can do is wish the crew of 23 (!), the people who have worked very hard for more than 15 years on building it from scratch, the best of luck for their future.