# About Matthew Blode

> Matthew Blode is a Melbourne AI engineer at Linktree. He co-founded Fingertip and VenueSafe, sold both, made Forbes 30 Under 30, and ships open-source tools.

AI at Linktree. Co-founder of Fingertip and VenueSafe. Forbes 30 Under 30. Melbourne-based product leader and engineer.

## Quick facts

- **6 months**: VenueSafe, idea to acquisition by me&u.
- **15M+ users**: me&u’s mobile ordering platform, after the acquisition.
- **100+ countries**: Fingertip’s small businesses, before Linktree bought it.
- **Zero to one**: The early product, engineering, and AI that get one moving.

Two startups, two exits. I am a Melbourne-based product leader and engineer focused on going zero to one.

I co-founded VenueSafe during COVID and took it from idea to acquisition by me&u (formerly Mr Yum) in six months. I stayed on for two years, helped scale me&u to 15M+ users globally, and supported the US expansion from Austin, Texas.

After that I co-founded Fingertip with Olly Hoffman and the founders of Catch and Menulog. We scaled to tens of thousands of small businesses across 100+ countries before Fingertip was acquired by Linktree.

Today I’m on AI at Linktree, building agents for creators and the people who land on their page. Not another dashboard. Software that looks at your situation and acts.

On the side I build apps, developer tools, and open-source libraries. Most of them ship together as the Blode Stack: the Glide typeface, Blode UI, Blode Icons, and DiffHub, a local diff viewer for reviewing cmux and agent-written code.

## Experience

### 2025 - Present, Linktree

*AI Engineer* · [Linktree](https://linktr.ee)

Building the AI products 90M+ creators use inside Linktree.

- One agent reads a creator’s analytics and socials, then acts on them: a control centre rather than a static list of links.
- Another answers the messages fans send a creator.
- Evals in Braintrust, run in CI. Write actions go one at a time, behind an approval gate.

### 2023–2025, Fingertip

*Co-founder & CTO* · [Fingertip](https://fingertip.com)

Co-founded Fingertip with Olly Hoffman, Gabby Leibovich, and Hezi Leibovich to help small businesses run more of their business online.

- Scaled to tens of thousands of small businesses across 100+ countries.
- Built product and engineering across website creation, bookings, payments, and invoicing.
- Fingertip was acquired by Linktree in 2025.

### 2022–2023, me&u

*Senior Software Engineer* · [me&u](https://www.meandu.com/)

Joined me&u (formerly Mr Yum) after the VenueSafe acquisition and helped scale the platform to 15M+ users globally.

- Moved to Austin, Texas to support US market expansion.

### 2020–2021, VenueSafe

*Co-founder & CTO* · [VenueSafe](https://venuesafe.netlify.app/)

Built a COVID contact tracing platform for Australian venues and hospitality businesses.

- Went from idea to acquisition by me&u in six months.

### 2019–2020, Light Creative

*Front-end Web Developer* · [Light Creative](https://www.lightcreative.com.au)

Built React frontends for enterprise clients across e-commerce and corporate platforms.


## Education

Bachelor of Design, Major in Digital Technologies from [the University of Melbourne](https://www.unimelb.edu.au/), 2018–2020.

## Community & advisory

### Startmate

*Accelerator Mentor* · [Startmate](https://www.startmate.com)

Mentoring startups in Australia’s leading accelerator and supporting the next generation of founders.

### OpenAI

*Codex Ambassador* · [OpenAI](https://openai.com)

Supporting local developer communities through community sessions, feedback, and hands-on learnings.

### Airtree

*Explorer* · [Airtree](https://www.airtree.vc)

Part of Airtree’s operator community connecting experienced builders with early-stage founders.

### VCMC

*Co-founder* · [VCMC](https://vcmc.ai)

Co-founded the Vibe Coding Micro Community with Luca Bonelli and Ryan Hendler to bring AI-native builders together. Grown to 120+ builders.

## FAQ

### Are you available for speaking or mentoring?

Yes. Speaking for meetups, panels, and internal sessions. Mentoring for early-stage founders. Ask on contact.

- [Speaking](https://blode.co/speaking)
- [contact](https://blode.co/contact)

### Where can I find you online?

I’m on LinkedIn, GitHub, X, Raycast, and CodePen, and this site is where I publish my projects and resume.

- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewblode/)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/mblode)
- [X](https://x.com/mattblode)
- [Raycast](https://www.raycast.com/mblode)
- [CodePen](https://codepen.io/mblode)
- [projects](https://blode.co/projects)
- [resume](https://blode.co/resume.pdf)