This article is intended as a provocation for Indigenous researchers to reflect on their cultures and life stories, and consider how sharing their intergenerational experiences can engender cultural empathy with Indigenous peoples that originate from a different community and are at the heart of their study. I explore how an Indigenous researcher’s life story, from a childhood in the African continent to adulthood and parenthood in Aotearoa, influenced his research direction and design toward Indigenous entrepreneurship as an emancipatory and empowering endeavour.