Matthew Blode
I’m a Melbourne AI engineer at Linktree who co-founded and sold Fingertip and VenueSafe, and made Forbes 30 Under 30.
About
I built VenueSafe during COVID from idea to acquisition by me&u (formerly Mr Yum) in 6 months. Stayed two years, helped scale me&u to 15M+ users, and supported the US expansion in Austin, TX.
Then I co-founded Fingertip with Olly Hoffman and the founders of Catch and Menulog. We scaled to tens of thousands of small businesses globally before Fingertip was acquired by Linktree.
Now I’m an AI engineer at Linktree, building agents for creators and their audiences.
On the side I build the Blode Stack: open-source tools including Blode UI, Blode Icons, and DiffHub, a local diff viewer for reviewing cmux and agent-written code.
My specialty is going zero to one.
Experience
2025 - Present
2023–2025
2022–2023
2020–2021
2019–2020
Community & advisory
Startmate
Accelerator Mentor
Mentoring startups in Australia’s leading accelerator and supporting the next generation of founders.
OpenAI
Codex Ambassador
Supporting local developer communities through community sessions, feedback, and hands-on learnings.
Airtree
Explorer
Part of Airtree’s operator community connecting experienced builders with early-stage founders.
VCMC
Co-founder
Co-founded the Vibe Coding Micro Community with Luca Bonelli and Ryan Hendler to bring AI-native builders together. Grown to 130 builders.
Questions
Use the contact form, email m@blode.co, or book a call. The form goes straight to my inbox. I’m based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Within a day. I read everything that comes through the contact form.
Yes. Pick 15, 30, or 60 minutes on the schedule page. It’s a working conversation, not a pitch.
Yes, for early-stage founders working out product, engineering, or their first AI features. I mentor through Startmate and take a few asks outside that. Advice, not a build-it-for-you shop.
Yes: meetups, panels, and internal sessions. Tell me the audience, the date, and how long you want.
Open a GitHub issue on that project’s repo. It’s faster than the contact form.
Let’s connect
Whether you’re building something new or just want to swap stories, let’s have a chat. I typically reply within a day.