Every company gets one chance to write its first article, so here's ours: who we are, what we're building, and why we decided to do this in the first place.
Who we are
Studio Phoenix is a software engineering team based in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. We design, build, and run apps, platforms, and automation entirely in house - from the first idea on a whiteboard to launch day and long after.
We're a senior team by choice. Everyone here has spent years shipping real products in real industries, and we've carried that experience into how we work: small, hands-on, and accountable for the whole thing. When you work with us, the people you talk to are the people building your product.
When you work with us, the people you talk to are the people building your product.
What we do
Our work falls into three buckets.
Web apps and platforms. The systems businesses actually run on - operational platforms, client portals, and the tools that hold a company's day-to-day together. We've built everything from document signing, social planning, CRM, health and safety trackers and quarry management systems.
Mobile apps. We design, build, and publish apps to the App Store and Google Play, both for clients and under our own name. Find out more here.
Labs. The R&D side of the studio, where we explore ideas that sit between software and hardware - from remote livestock health monitoring to an automated mushroom-growing operation. Some of it becomes product. All of it makes us better builders.
Why we build our own products
Plenty of agencies build for clients. Fewer put their own name on the line in the app stores.
We do both on purpose. Shipping our own products keeps us honest - we live with our own design decisions, answer our own support emails, and feel every rough edge a user feels. That experience flows straight back into client work. When we tell a client something will or won't work, it's because we've been there ourselves.
It also means we can offer things most agencies can't, like white labelling our existing products or taking over a half-built project without flinching.
What happens next
We'll be using this space to share the stories behind each of our products - the problem we saw, how we solved it, and what we learned along the way. If you're curious about how software actually gets made by a small team that cares about the details, stick around.
And if you've got an idea of your own, or a system your business has outgrown, we'd love to hear about it.
