Micheal Murphy

A departure from the usual construction-practitioner format: Andy hosts Micheal Murphy, a UK-born, long-time figure in the New Zealand tech scene, for a wide-ranging conversation framed around Strategic Planning Co's own product, Strat Apps (Micheal is in live conversations about coming in as an investor). Micheal traces a 30-year arc from importing US enterprise software (Microsoft ERP / Dynamics) into NZ, through selling his own implementation business to HP, into angel investing (chair of Ice Angels, which became Ice House Ventures) and export-tech leadership at NZTE. The core through-line is the shift from inbound services to outbound SaaS product, and the different feedback loops each demands. The pair then dig into why NZ corporates resist buying NZ technology ("not invented here"), the risk of the US "mono tech stack," data sovereignty and the case for tech choice, including Micheal's upcoming China delegation with NZ Tech, before landing on hard product advice: get to your users, kill your ego, and let customer feedback (tempered by founder vision) drive the roadmap.

Key Topics Discussed

• Services vs product / SaaS. services give an immediate feedback loop (find problem, solve, bill, profit or not); investment-funded product growth has 2-4 year feedback loops and sustained losses before validation. Micheal sees AI now blurring the line via AI-enabled services delivery (Strat Apps as an example).
• NZ corporates won't buy NZ tech. SMBs and sole traders will buy Kiwi; the corporate sector and government are "woeful" at it ("not invented here" is real). Examples: Brian Peace (Peace Computing, electricity billing, went to Florida ~96/97), Datatax (Wellington, couldn't crack IR but sells tax software to governments worldwide), Xero (won by targeting SMBs, not corporates). Andy's anecdote: a NZ tier-one's problem routed Middle East → Sweden → back to SPC 26km from home.
• The US mono tech stack & tech sovereignty. 30 years of taking almost all tech from the US (Apple, AWS, Microsoft/Azure). Real risk isn't the lights going dark, it's long-term rent extraction and lock-in. Case for choice / alternative jurisdictions; Micheal's NZ Tech China delegation to assess Chinese tech (praises Manus AI) and what could be used here.
• Data sovereignty. legal ownership vs practical access when data sits on someone else's overseas servers; matters at governmental/legislative level more than for an individual trader (whose real concern is choice and not being locked in).
• "If you were Technology Minister", three levers. (1) grants for SMEs to actually implement AI/software (Singapore SaaS-grant model, reward doing not workshops); (2) immigration settings to win the global battle for AI/robotics talent (NZ only needs ~500 of the right people); (3) investor-migrant visas channelled into productive assets, not houses.
• NZ's ambition/vision gap. world-class technical infrastructure (broadband), but too few globally-scaled companies vs Denmark/Sweden/Singapore/Korea. Diagnosis: relative shortfall of ambition, not talent.
• Product advice for Strat Apps. usability below the feature list is what makes users return; go to the coalface, watch users, get contradictory feedback, and use founder vision to sift it. The Steve Jobs "customer doesn't know what they want" exception is rare (one in a billion); most success is incremental customer-driven iteration.
• AI curiosity over tooling. for a trady getting into AI, it's not the tool or the training regime, it's willingness to be curious. Micheal's own use: Gemini Pro deep-research → NotebookLM audio overviews (now "audio overview" in Gemini) turned into 5-7 min podcasts for morning walks, sometimes deliberately biased two ways for counter-perspective.

Notable Quotes

• "When it's free, you're paying with your information.", paraphrased theme; the sharper line: Micheal on lock-in, "the bigger risk is one of that associated with long-term rent extraction... they can just keep putting the prices up. They can keep us locked in on one particular platform."
• Micheal: "This whole not-invented-here thing is a real thing... people find it very difficult in the corporate sector to buy New Zealand technologies. They will look overseas first and foremost."
• Micheal: "It's not about which tool you use... it's a willingness to be curious about how it might work for you. Just be curious. Just be interested. It's not that hard to find."
• Andy: "I've just replicated my brain... we've embedded an entire AI layer across the entire business now."

Guest Background

Micheal Murphy (rendered "Michael" throughout the auto-transcript, see note) is originally from the north-east of England, the former industrial heartland of the UK. He came to NZ on holiday in 1993, took a job offer with Ernst & Young's (formerly Arthur Young) IT consultancy division in 1994, and stayed, 32+ years, married, two children (one overseas, one heading there). He built and sold his own Microsoft ERP / business-solutions (later Dynamics / M365) implementation business to HP for a "reasonable sum." That gave him "play money" for angel investing via the Ice House; he became chair of Ice Angels (which morphed into Ice House Ventures) and remains an angel investor through another group. He led the export-tech sector at NZ Trade & Enterprise for a couple of years, did work with Callahan Innovation, worked at Datacom (which he loves) and headed Oakton, a Microsoft-deployment company later absorbed into Capgemini. He now sits on and chairs several company boards (some as investor-rep, some as independent chair/SME). He is heading to China on an NZ Tech "deep-tech" delegation. He is in active conversations with Andy about investing in Strat Apps.