Mahesh Muralidhar: Phase One CEO says New Zealand businesses should save money to expand overseas

One Kiwi investor believes more New Zealand businesses should be putting money aside in order to expand internationally.

Phase One CEO Mahesh Muralidhar says this would boost the nation's GDP and add to the economy.

He says Kiwis have plenty of entrepreneurial ability - but they lack the ability to see scale like their international counterparts. 

"The same entrepreneur, the same university student in the US or in India has the same level of skills as anyone in New Zealand - but they see scale and we don't. We have to go out of our way to start thinking globally from day one."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here the duplicy l the key we investor reckons more
businesses in New Zealand should be putting money aside to
expand internationally. Apparently this would get our GDP up. It's
one way of doing it. Phase one Venture CEO Mahesh
Muralid is with me. Now, Maheshef is totally stuffed up
your name. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
That's all right, Heather. You're not the first one, so
that's all right.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
I would imagine that's the case. Hey, listen, thank you
very much for joining us. I'm kind of surprised that
that businesses aren't already thinking about trying to get international customers.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, I think it's a story that we have, right.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
We're an entrepreneurial country to islands in the corner of
the world, but we don't see scale, so it doesn't
happen naturally to us. The same entrepreneur, the same university
student in the US or in India has the same
level of skills as anyone in New Zealand, but they
see scale and we don't. So we have to actually

(00:53):
have to like go out of our way to start
thinking globally from day one?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Is it hard to is it a is a difficult
thing to try to get a customer overseas.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
No, it's not. I mean, look, it's it's not complex.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
It's hard, right you you're probably working one point one
one point two times what you'd have to do initially,
and it's a little bit more expensive. But you can imagine,
I'm sure you can imagine, Heather, that the dividends on
that is significantly more.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
So if you if you just go out of your
way to win one more customer or one customer in
the US, or in India or in South Asia and
Middle East, it pays so much down the road.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
So why don't we have this idea of scale.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
It's it's it's because we it's because we just don't
see that, right, Like we're on the corner of the world.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
We were richer.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Once nearly if a couple of decades ago, we were fine.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
We probably got a little bit complacent.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
We haven't connected with our Kiwi diaspro overseas as much.
I think this is a small country thing, right like you,
the kings and queens in any situation end up blaming
that glass ceiling and you don't look outside and look overseas.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
It's we talk about cutting.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
The pie up more often than growing the pie.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
So if you were to to go for certain customers,
which which countries would you be targeting?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well, you look, you look at where demand is.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
US is still going nuts, at least is going nuts,
Southeast Asia is going nuts, and India is going nuts. Right,
so you have four and of that culturally you're more
we're more connected to the US and the Commonwealth countries,
which are Southeast Asia and India, right, And so those
would be.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
The natural places.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
US obviously the easiest because law and order signals all
of that work. But you'd take a bet on any
one of this whichever is more in line with the
business that you have.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
I've got to take you from ben it says our
freight system here is third world. It's crap, and that's
part of the shildren. What do you think?

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Sure? Sure, yeah, I mean you don't have to send
stuff from New Zealand and to start a business from
New Zealand, right, Like, for example, you could start a
textile and manufacturing organization that thing in India or China
and then make sure that you marketed better Exeter and
then sell it to the US.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
A la zuru correct a la Zuo.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
You can do it by Amazon, you can do it
by Facebook, marketplaces. The thing is to try to find
ways to not make excuses. I mean, the government's gone
a good way in regards to reaching out and saying, hey,
we've got to be global, but our entrepreneurs and our
businesses have to go, hey, we've got to do this.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
We have to start earning global coin.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
I find it fascinating what you said about the diaspora,
because you're not the first person I've heard say this.
That there are other like the Irish, for example, are
really fantastic at kind of harnessing the potential of the
diaspora and making it work for them. If we were to,
and we don't, and if we were to, how would
we do it.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
I mean, I was in the US about two weeks ago.
There are so many kiwis doing so well. I think
we have to start talking about global from day one,
so reaching out to more of these, more of our
our kiwis who are doing so well overseas, right like
so more of our news media, more of our leaders

(04:13):
looking for best practice globally and saying this is not
good enough, like the all Blacks mean so much to
us I think because they're one of the best examples
of US hitting like great levels from a global perspective,
What do we want.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
To diespera to do. I mean, it's one thing to
look at somebody doing really well overseas reading the news
or something, But then what value is it to us?

Speaker 3 (04:33):
A couple of things, role modeling that we can achieve
great things, that we can achieve global things to bringing
back best practice?

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Right, how do we think about this? How do we
think about scale? For example?

Speaker 3 (04:45):
One of the things you think about when you think
about skills. Don't think about scale straight away. Just understand
the market. Just make one dollar first, and then the
systems and so forth. Global capital it's actually the US
market's US capitals.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Once you go there, it's quite easy.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
But you role models other kiwis who've done that, and
then we need to look at them and go, oh,
I can do that too.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah. Interesting, Hey, that's a very interesting thought that you've
given us. Thank you so much for that. Mahesh. It's
Mahesh Moralla. I'm going to give up Maheshim from here
on in on this show. Maheshim Phase one ventures CEO's
all me. It's not him, that's the problem.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
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