Greg Sheehans Podcast
The crazy nature of early stage startups (the uncertainty, the doubters, the rejection) can be similar to the forces felt by those who at some point in their lives felt the need to make seismic shifts in their personal worlds.
My aim as your host is to bring the raw stories of startup failure and fuckup, alongside the inspirational messages of encouragement, tips and suggestions.
Alongside the business chats we will also hear stories from people living interesting and inspirational lives.
The podcast is recorded alongside the beautiful ocean beach of Mount Maunganui, New Zealand, but our guests and their experiences will be from around the world.
Thanks for your support of the show.
Greg Sheehan
Greg Sheehans Podcast
Ep 43: Mitchell Pham: From Stateless Refugee to Tech Trailblazer in New Zealand
Discover the extraordinary journey of Mitchell Pham, a revered figure in New Zealand's tech landscape, as he shares his incredible story of resilience, innovation, and community impact. From escaping a struggling economy in Vietnam to becoming a trailblazing co-founder of CodeHQ, Mitchell's narrative is one of triumph over adversity. As a trustee for the Asia New Zealand Foundation and entrepreneur in residence at the University of Auckland Business School, Mitchell offers an unparalleled perspective on bridging the gap between technology and business.
Through the lens of his personal experiences, Mitchell opens up about the challenges he faced as a refugee and the transformative moments that shaped his career. An influential lecturer sparked his passion for technology, leading to a rewarding journey with CodeHQ, where he has been instrumental in accelerating digital development across various industries. His story is not only about professional achievements but also about his mission to connect people, organizations, and ideas, highlighting his unique ability to make a lasting impact.
Mitchell's dedication extends beyond the tech world, as he passionately works to reunite refugee families through the Auckland Refugee Family Trust. His emotional recount of missing his university graduation due to family separation reveals a deep personal motivation that continues to drive his efforts. From being stateless to receiving the New Zealand Order of Merit, Mitchell's journey is a powerful testament to resilience and determination, promising listeners an inspiring and heartfelt exploration of success, community, and the power of human connection.
You can connect with Mitchell on LinkedIn.
When you go out there into the world, right, for God's sake, make an impression, Whatever you do, make an impression even if it's a bad one, because otherwise no one will know you were ever there.
Speaker 2:Mitchell is a co-founder, director ambassador for what is now known as CodeHQ, and you've been doing that for a few decades now. He is what you would consider in New Zealand as the OG of the tech world. He really is very, very highly thought of.
Speaker 1:And sometimes it's not about winning, it's just about being able to stay in the games, so to speak, just to survive long enough to kind of get to the other side of whatever the trouble was.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, it's Greg Sheehan. Welcome to my podcast, where you will hear from a range of guests, including those from the startup world and those that have had incredibly interesting lives and some stories to tell. I would really appreciate it if you could hit the follow button and share this amongst your friends, but, as you know, time is limited, so let's get on with it and hear from our next guest. I want to tell you a little bit about desk work. Desk work is your offshoring option. If you want to save around 50% of your total headcount cost for equivalent talent across accounting, marketing, sales, your operations or your admin, then check out Deskwork. Honestly, if I was looking to start an accounting firm again, it would be a no-brainer for me to use Deskwork. I've used offshoring teams before in the past. I got past my skepticism on being able to do it and it was so phenomenally successful. Go have a look at desk-workco backslash, greg, and book yourself a free discovery call to learn more about it. Better still, mention my name and get yourself some discounts. Check it out. Now back to the show.
Speaker 2:My guest today is Mitchell Pham, and Mitchell was introduced to me by very well-known founder, janine Granger from Easy Crypto, and Janine said do you know Mitchell Pham? I said I do. I didn't know him personally, but I knew so much about him. He is what you would consider in New Zealand as the OG of the tech world. He really is very, very highly thought of. Firstly, welcome to the podcast, mitchell. Thank you, it's great to have you here and you're a busy man, so trying to pin you down in the last few months has been challenging because you are involved in all sorts of things. I'm actually going to read some of these things out because I think it gives the audience a sense of just some of the achievements that you've had.
Speaker 2:You are a co-founder, director ambassador for what is now known as Code HQ, and you've been doing that for a few decades now. You are the trustee and an honorary advisor for the Asia New Zealand Foundation. You're an entrepreneur in residence at the University of Auckland Business School. You are a former co-chair of Kia. Now, for those who don't know Kia, that's Kiwi expats abroad and I'm now abroad, so I am now a newly signed up member of Kia. I'm very proud to be a part of that. Look, you have a LinkedIn profile. That is just phenomenal. You've got something like 24,000 followers or something on LinkedIn and I have never seen a profile so full. You have done a lot and it's impossible to capture what an incredible life today, but it feels like you're just sort of getting started in many ways as well.
Speaker 1:Are you implied that I still have a lot more to happen? I think you do.
Speaker 2:I'd love to start, though, Mitchell, by just hearing and we touched on this when we first had a chat I'd love to hear your early origin story, originally from Vietnam, but your story of how you got to be here in New Zealand.
Speaker 1:Great. Thank you again, greg, for having me on the program. It's a real privilege. And you know, I must admit, I was a bit ignorant and kind of didn't know I hadn't come across your program. But after Janine Granger went on the program and she, you know, literally raved about you and she said, right, I must get on that program, I must get on there and share. So here I am. Well, it's super cool having you here, thank you.
Speaker 1:So, just going all the way back, I was originally born in Vietnam, a place that's now known as Ho Chi Minh City, and I spent my first 12 years in Vietnam, growing up with my family that's my parents, myself and a younger brother, thu Minh and my younger sister that's my parents, myself and a younger brother, truman and my younger sister and we had a very challenging childhood because at the time, towards the last few years of my time there in Vietnam, we really struggled. The economy was a close economy. It was like a permanent recession, maybe even depression. Life was really tough. We were not involved with the military in any way, we were just civilians. But after the end of the Vietnam War, the country plummeted into a very deep economic black hole and I remember not having enough food to eat as a kid and all of those challenges. And so millions and millions of Vietnamese families tried to escape Vietnam. Not many made it out successfully and for those who did not, many actually survived the journey, and in my case, my family tried three times. The third time I successfully got out, but without my parents and siblings. I ended up and nearly died several times at sea the South China Sea. Eventually, my boat was rescued by an oil rig operation in Indonesia. I ended up in four refugee camps in Indonesia over the period of two years before I eventually arrived in New Zealand in 1985.
Speaker 1:Coming up, what is it July now? So next month it will be 39 years in New Zealand. I Coming up, what is it July now? So next month it will be 39 years in New Zealand. And I arrived here as a teenager, and so again, you know, I think the first 10 years was really really difficult Adjusting to the culture, the climate and also, you know, adjusting to being a teenager as well, wasn't easy. But yeah, it took me about 10 years to eventually feel like I belong and I felt like a Kiwi.
Speaker 2:What was your English like at that time, when you first arrived?
Speaker 1:I started to learn English when I was in Vietnam, just extracurricular after-school classes, and then I learned a bit more in a more concentrated environment in the refugee camps, which was where you could learn languages of the countries that you wanted to go to. And then I really learned the rest in New Zealand, once you're kind of fully immersed in an English-speaking country. So I had some English. That wasn't strong, but it was enough to kind of get me around the school yard and enough to kind of propel me through school and end up in university.
Speaker 2:Were you, therefore, because of the background, because of almost the story of nearly dying and being at sea and I can imagine that that level of hardship meant that maybe you could then tackle anything that you felt that you could do. Were you therefore just driven in a way that perhaps many other young people at the time weren't?
Speaker 1:I can't speak for other young people, but I'd be the third generation to face the challenges the country went through.
Speaker 1:The Vietnam War the American War, as it's called in Vietnam was just then the latest of a long history of challenges.
Speaker 1:And so the things that we chose to do and the things that we strive for and struggle to overcome, some of these choices were made by the circumstances.
Speaker 1:As in, you don't have a choice and you just have to get on and face these challenges and find ways to get through and to survive. And sometimes it's not about winning, it's just about being able to stay in the game, so to speak. And sometimes it's not about winning, it's just about being able to stay in the game, so to speak, just to survive long enough to kind of get through to the other side of whatever the trouble was. And so I think that was more kind of growing up and having an early life journey where you don't really think about those things, you just simply respond to the situations, the hands that you're dealt with, so to speak, and it wasn't about being tough, it was just simply about necessity. It was just a necessity to survive. That, over time, became a part of my personality and it kind of reinforced the way I look at things and the way I approach things and the way I deal with things that either don't work out or are outside of my control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have done so many things in your career, but I'd be keen to sort of understand how you got involved in tech. What was the early sort of origin in getting involved in the technology industry?
Speaker 1:Oh, repeatedly over the decades I seemed to get involved in things that I initially told myself that I didn't want to, or I was initially not interested in. It's quite strange. So I was never interested in computer studies at school. I was not interested in computer science. At university I took a business direction and studied commerce. But something happened in the first year I was at university in an information systems lecture and it was just first year, so everything was very basic. It was just all about possibilities really, rather than knowledge.
Speaker 1:But I had an incredible lecturer and I've always been influenced and inspired by others pretty much. I can't really claim any credit for anything myself, and this is an example of that where this lecturer he wasn't teaching technology per se and he wasn't teaching business per se either, but he connected the dots between the two and he talked about the possibilities and after about three lectures I was completely hooked. I could visualize, I could imagine how information technology would and indeed after 30 years proven to change business completely, and not only business right entire industries, economy and societies as well. It was really inspiring and I think that got me hope. You know it is.
Speaker 1:I'm always motivated much, much more by the why rather than the what and the how, and then either I figure out the what and the how or I actually work together with people who are far smarter than myself and better than myself to be able to figure those things out and do them really well, because none of the so-called successes that I might be credited for really was achieved on my own. It's always been because I had really amazing people and teams I worked with and organizations that I was part of. So that's probably the long answer to your question. That was how I ended up in tech, and the rest is history, as they say.
Speaker 2:And if you look at that history and you have just done so many things like it's a phenomenal number of things that you've achieved. What is it that you most enjoy about this industry and what you do Like? What is it? I mean, you talk about people, and I'm going to take that as a given working with great people, but what area of the industry do you particularly love? Do you love being a problem solver? Do you love being an investor? Do you love being an advisor board member, an ambassador? What is it? What is it that you really love doing.
Speaker 1:I think to narrow it down to one thing is probably too hard for me to do, so I'll answer your question in a slightly different way. As many things as you might see listed, I've only been doing two things, really, and it's because I'm only passionate about two things. One is tech, but it's not the technology I'm passionate about. It's how technology impacts businesses, industries, economies and societies, and the more I see the impact, the more I'm driven to be part of it, to contribute to it, to accelerate it and so forth. So that's one of my two core passions that are very, very personal to me, and for me it's very difficult to separate business and personal when it comes to the why, when it comes to the motivation. So one of the only two things I've been doing the last 30 years or so is that, that passion for tech. The other is passion for New Zealand's opportunity in Asia. So if you look at everything I've done, whether listed or not, they fall into either of those two camps and literally nothing else. Now, occasionally, some things I do ended up fitting into both camps at the same time, and that's when there's extra magic, like working with some tech companies that want to expand into Asia, I was like, wow, this is a cool space, you know, that combines both of my passions. I don't need both to be present right for me to be driven about it. Those are the two passions. But why am I driven to do all these things in the first place in following those two passions? Because I could follow those two passions in different ways. But because I could follow those two passions in different ways, that's what I've done.
Speaker 1:I think it just goes back to how I and my siblings were raised by our parents. We've always been raised to grow in advance and become productive citizens of whichever society that we live in, and to also basically be part of things that are much bigger than ourselves and make sure that we make an impact when we're there. Right? My most favorite is that.
Speaker 1:One is from Mark Twain and he wrote that two most important days in your life are the day that you were born and the day that you discovered why. That is super profound. And then, when I was in my sixth form chemistry class back at school, my then chemistry teacher, who was teaching his very final year before he retired and he said oh, I'm going to miss teaching you, kids, I want to leave you with a piece of advice that hopefully you will one day understand. And we were all listening. He said look, when you go out there into the world, right for God's sake, make an impression. Whatever you do, make an impression even if it's a bad one, because otherwise no one will know you were ever there. And so somewhere between those two sayings are pretty much the reason behind everything I do.
Speaker 2:It's super clear when you talk about those two things, one being the power of technology and the second one being the connection between Asia and New Zealand. Where do you think the Asian-Kiwi relationship is? How do you see that now? Do you think it's in a good place generally? There's always more work to do, right. Where do you see that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a very important question. I've been involved with the Asian-New Zealand Foundation for about 17, coming on to 18 years now in different roles, and the organization's been around for 30 years this year, I think. So I think 20 years ago the level of connection between New Zealand and Asia, I would say it was an infant, and 20 years later now it's a toddler, right. So maybe that gives you a sense of I don't mean much more work, but actually it's much more opportunity as well. Right, we have ahead of us and I'm even more excited about that now, nearly 20 years later, than when I started. So it's an exciting time for New Zealand and the rest of APAC. It's an exciting time for Asians who live in New Zealand and, yeah, so it's time opportunity, I think yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you look at the things that you've done in your career to date, what is it that you look back on with the most fondness, Like the thing that you? I mean, it might not even be something necessarily that's a highlight on LinkedIn, but it's something that you look back on and maybe you're still involved in it, but you look on it really fondly and I know I'm making you choose, oh if there is one thing Well, I think the longest running thing then how about that?
Speaker 1:I don't like having favorites, because then it makes everybody else feel less important.
Speaker 2:I knew you'd say that.
Speaker 1:Too hard, right? So let's flip it and say, right, okay, what have you been involved with for the longest? And you're still involved with it, because clearly you must still be passionate about it.
Speaker 2:You'd make a great politician Mitchell. You really would oh okay, you'd give me another idea.
Speaker 1:There you go. It's another idea for you Maybe that's the case. Then it's CodeHQ, what used to be known as the Elgin Software Group, and for me it is a perfect example. And I know it's a bit unfair, because this example I created it or I co-created it and other examples, people and organizations and projects and technology that I've worked with I didn't create and control as much as this one, but this is a tech company that is dedicated to help New Zealand businesses accelerate their digital development right, so that in itself is a very strong purpose that I've always felt aligned with, and so it's really awesome because it is a company that has allowed me to be able to engage with so many different industries over the last three decades. You know, financial services and healthcare and education, supply chain services and all that. It's been wonderful.
Speaker 1:That's one part of it, and so it contributes to that whole kind of passion about the impact of tech on businesses and industries, but at the same time, because for nearly 20 years now, 19 years now we've had a very successful extension to the business back into Vietnam.
Speaker 1:So we have sort of like a 30, 70 split now in terms of the headcount in the business operating out of Auckland and my other office in Ho Chi Minh City and that, as you can see, brings the Asia and New Zealand part dimension into the mix. And not only that Vietnam is my country of origin and Ho Chi Minh City is where my parents still live. So when you look at this one single business and, yes, sure, your business is what you make of it, right, but still I am infinitely grateful that I have been able to create and have had a lot of amazing people join the company and build and grow to what it is today that really represents so many parts of me as a person. Even though now, for the last three plus years, I've stepped away from running the business and being part of the leadership team, I still feel infinitely connected with the company and the people in it. I'm heading up to Vietnam again and joining the team up there next week for a team building exercise in Ho Chi Minh City.
Speaker 2:Hey, just let me pause you there for a second and tell you about some help that's available for startup founders. One of the biggest reasons startups fail is that the founders give up. They just burn out through struggling with aligning all of their people to what it is they're trying to do. It doesn't have to be like that, though. Jess Dahlberg is an expert in startup performance, and she works to align your team to the performance you need so that you, as founders, can get on and scale with confidence. Simply head to jessdahlbergcom backslash scaleup. That's jessdahlberg D-A-H-L-B-E-R-Gcom backslash scaleup. Use promo code Scalab2024 and start removing those headaches. Let's get back to the show. It's very powerful, actually, and what would you say is your superpower? What are you supremely good at? And I know you're a humble guy, but there will be something that you would look at and say that's your key strengths.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh. Well, first of all disclaimer I'm not good at anything.
Speaker 1:So nobody believes that I just want to set the expectation, set the value. But what I'm more natural at, I think, is connecting with people, being able to develop ideas. I'm attracted to problems and I problem solve entrepreneurially. So I connect people, I connect organizations, I connect ideas. I figure out how you kind of bring all the pieces together to create a business you know and work with others to kind of build and grow that. I'm kind of naturally wide that way. I think if you can call that being good at something, it's very organic. Everything I've done is kind of, in a way, just I've done many business plans but never had a career plan. I don't know how to interview for a job. I see a problem and if I care about it, I do something about it. That seems to be the one thing that connects all of the seemingly different together no plans, still don't have a plan.
Speaker 2:And what about regrets? Are there things across your career that you regret? Ooh, it's a heavier one.
Speaker 1:It's a heavier one. Actually, your other question kind of alluded to that in my mind. What do you think about that? Actually, I don't think a lot about what might have been achieved, but I do replay in my mind kind of mistakes and errors I've made, whether or not consciously or unconsciously kind of made.
Speaker 1:When you are an entrepreneur and you operate in an innovation space it's mostly trial and error. You can make a lot of mistakes, or you can. You know some of it is making mistakes. Some of it is discovery right, discovery journey. You know some of those making mistakes, some of the discovery right, discovery journey. You know discovering that some things don't work or something, and the right certain, that sort of thing, and so you pivot and all of that stuff. So I think about those things that you know didn't go well and that I've had to learn from them. You know expensive mistakes that may lose, you know, some money or may lose some valuable people in the company because of those mistakes. I think the successes don't stay, it's the failures that stay, and maybe that's part of survival, you know, so you don't make the same mistakes again.
Speaker 1:But other than that, I think the only one thing that I did regret actually and it's a genuine regret, other than just learning experiences is that when I was at university actually at school, and those two years so I had received four entry visas for my parents and siblings to migrate to New Zealand and that was part of family reunification program to come and help former refugees. My two missions for getting out of Vietnam was one to survive the journey and build a life for myself that's meaningful, and two was to, once I am out successfully and ended up in a destination country like New Zealand, australia, wherever that, I would send my family out of Vietnam and we would reunite together. So I had two rounds in a number of years to get those visas approved, finally got them approved, but the visa only had a two-year period where you can bring your family into the country, otherwise they would expire, and once they expire, that's it. You're not given them again. And so during those last year of school and then first year of university, I busted my guts, you know, I busted my guts, studied full time and had two part-time jobs to make a living to feed myself, but also to send money home to help mom and dad and the family. Because it was very expensive, right, but then, over the course of the two years, it didn't happen. We didn't have enough, and so they couldn't come. They couldn't come into New Zealand, and I felt so devastated by that, by what happened there, and so I decided that, you know, I was not going to.
Speaker 1:When it came to graduating at university, with all the great friends that I studied with, I decided not to turn up to the graduation ceremony and just graduated with an absentia, because I just couldn't bear the thought of going to graduation. All my friends were there, they all have their families there, and my parents were not going to be able to be there, just couldn't go through with it, and so that was what I did. But then, after that passed and I was able to think again, I'd realized how big a mistake I made. Not only I didn't have my family at my graduation, but because I didn't turn up, I didn't graduate alongside my friends either. We all spent four years of hard work at university to eventually graduate, and I was in none of the graduation photos. I was not at the graduation dinner and that was it.
Speaker 1:It was just like that whole thing never happened in my life, you know, and it was my choice, right, and this was. It was a moment when I learned the true meaning between, the true meaning of the difference between a glass half full and a glass half empty. I threw the baby out with that bathwater. I couldn't have my parents there, but if I had turned up still, I still would have had all my friends and their families and been in all the photos and have the memories, the shared memories, with my friends graduating together. So long story short, I think that is my biggest regret and it was really about feeling sorry for myself. I think ever since then, I made a conscious effort to not let myself feel sorry for myself ever again. Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2:That's actually a very people will resonate with that story in their own lives. So, yeah, really really appreciate you sharing that, and so do you think that has in some way sort of inspired you in a weird way to never let that happen again or to be successful in what you do? So to turn your mind to doing the various things that you're doing, and doing it well and doing it fully. It's part of that early, that early experience absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in general, absolutely, but also specifically with one thing as well, and that one thing was to get together with some like-minded friends and co-founding the Auckland Refugee Family Trust.
Speaker 1:This trust is just a whole bunch of volunteers.
Speaker 1:I was a co-founder and I was a trustee for a long time and just a patron, but it was actually the team of volunteers that came together and did all the work.
Speaker 1:What we've been doing was just raise money and use the money that we raise and allocate to refugees who are trying to bring their families over, who have only less than six months left on their visa, but they can't fill the gaps themselves, the remainder of the gaps themselves, so we kind of give them pop-ups and that has helped many, many families reunite and avoid the situation that happened to me.
Speaker 1:So for me it's empowering and liberating in that, whilst I can't change my own history, what happened to my family's situation, but together with these amazing people, I've been able to flip the coin and prevent that from happening to other families. And then, over time, eventually it would have been last year where the government established a funding category for the majority of the cases that we've been raising money and trying to help. So now the system itself has recognized this gap and has put a measure in to address it, and for me that is the ultimate victory, I think. So I wanted to take something that I had no control of into something that we could change permanently, going forward for everyone else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you were awarded your New Zealand Order of Merit, that must have meant a lot, you know, for a guy who had sort of come out here as a teenager and gone through all of the struggles that you'd gone through to then not just be recognised as a Kiwi but really honoured amongst the most highest of Kiwis. How did that feel?
Speaker 1:How did that feel? Oh man, that still feels surreal to this day. I say this day. It was only last year. I'm still not completely sure how I feel about this. It's quite surreal For someone who was stateless.
Speaker 1:Refugees are stateless. No country, no country, wanted them to be accepted to New Zealand and to be given the environment and the opportunity to get educated, to build a life, to go into business and all of the. I mean. New Zealand is still, you know, one of the easiest country to set up a business, right Alongside Singapore. So that's all of these privileges that I've been given, you know, since arriving in New Zealand, right Out of living in this country. Not only that, but then the opportunity to lead, stepping up and sharing the tech industry.
Speaker 1:There have been so many surreal moments where I have had to pinch myself and also, along the way, while doing these things, I've been feeling like a complete imposter, but still these opportunities keep on presenting themselves to me and I never took any of them for granted and just applied myself 100%. So I feel that I've been lucky and privileged, more so than, as you might say, an achiever of any kind. I think all of these things have just been seeing the need, more so than, as you might say, an achiever of any kind. I think all of these things have just been seeing the need, having the ability to do something about it, and my dad has always reminded me that if there's a need and you have the skill, the education, the ability to address it or to solve a problem or to make a difference, having those things are gifts and, as such, you have the responsibility to apply yourself right, especially on behalf of those who don't have those gifts.
Speaker 1:I just followed how I was raised, just followed my nose, and then one day I got an email about LNZM and you know I thought it was a hoax, I deleted it and then three weeks later I got another email, sounded more urgent, like, oh, we need to hear from you so that we can, you know, begin our process and stuff.
Speaker 1:And, being a tech guy, I went and checked the IP addresses of the domains and all of that, making sure, and then felt completely bewildered, thinking, gosh, this is like. I mean, I read about these people twice a year in the newspapers, right, and here I am receiving it. It's completely proud, but probably not as much of myself as of all of the people and organization I've had the privilege to work with over the three decades, and so, whilst I wasn't sure myself, I was very sure to accept the honor on everyone's behalf, and I've spent the last year just sharing with all these friends and colleagues, you know, and carrying this around. I didn't leave it at home and I've been just sharing it with everybody that I feel, you know this rightfully partly belongs to trying to take as many of the selfies with them as I can to build this collection. That's probably the only thing I know what to do.
Speaker 2:Mitchell, it has been such an honour to be able to catch up with you and I can see in you you are an incredible character, actually, given what's actually happened in your earlier life and what you were wanting to escape from and the life that you're wanting to build. Some of the hardship that you've gone through, some of the family separation issues, learning to adjust into a new culture, and yet to rise above all of that and connect with people, connect others together around something that's important to you and important, certainly, to the success of the nation. So I really want to thank you for everything that you have done to date and, as I said earlier, like I still feel like there's a lot more in the tank for you. You're a motivated guy, but it has been a really, you know, it's been a real honour to be able to chat to you today, so really want to thank you for the time that you've given.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Greg. The honor is all mine. So once again, thank you. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:Hey, don't forget to check out Deskwork, the team behind you, being able to build high-performing offshore teams for your startups and SMEs. It's deskworkco. Backslash, greg, and go and save yourself some hard-earned money.