# 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. 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. ## 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. ## Sections - [Projects](https://blode.co/projects) - [About](https://blode.co/about) - [Writing](https://blode.co/writing) - [Speaking](https://blode.co/speaking) - [Contact](https://blode.co/contact) - [Start here](https://blode.co/guide) - [Stack](https://blode.co/stack) - [Case studies](https://blode.co/case-studies) - [Taste Training](https://blode.co/taste-training) - [Press](https://blode.co/press) - [Schedule](https://blode.co/schedule) - [Resumé](https://blode.co/resume.pdf) ## Writing - [Seventy people in a group chat](https://blode.co/writing/seventy-people-in-a-group-chat): How VCMC grew from 3 people in a WhatsApp group to 70+ members, and the product thinking behind it: no algorithms, no feeds, just builders talking. - [Ship fast or die](https://blode.co/writing/ship-fast-or-die): You do not win by being right, you win by finding out faster. On team shape, AI feedback loops, and shipping at 80 percent. - [Skills are the new packages](https://blode.co/writing/skills-are-the-new-packages): Claude Code skills and plugins are markdown files you install like npm packages: small, focused, composable units of capability, and the ecosystem is forming. - [Your statics do not interpolate and never will](https://blode.co/writing/static-fonts-to-one-variable-font): Convert a static font to a variable font by making every weight interpolable, then merging with fontmake. The free static-to-variable CLI does the merge. - [You can sense carelessness](https://blode.co/writing/you-can-sense-carelessness): AI raises the floor but flattens the result. Users sense carelessness before they can name it, so taste and editing still decide quality. - [You don’t have to make AI slop](https://blode.co/writing/you-dont-have-to-make-ai-slop): What AI slop is and how to avoid it: better fonts, better icons, stolen taste, and relentless editing on your vibe-coded UIs. - [Your career compounds](https://blode.co/writing/your-career-compounds): Why the biggest career advantages come from stacking high-learning environments, not individual wins. The decisions behind VenueSafe, Fingertip, and Linktree. ## Affiliations - [Startmate](https://www.startmate.com): Accelerator Mentor. Mentoring startups in Australia’s leading accelerator and supporting the next generation of founders. - [OpenAI](https://openai.com): Codex Ambassador. Supporting local developer communities through community sessions, feedback, and hands-on learnings. - [Airtree](https://www.airtree.vc): Explorer. Part of Airtree’s operator community connecting experienced builders with early-stage founders. - [VCMC](https://vcmc.ai): Co-founder. Co-founded the Vibe Coding Micro Community with Luca Bonelli and Ryan Hendler to bring AI-native builders together. Grown to 120+ builders. ## Elsewhere - [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) - [Writing](https://blode.co/writing) - [Projects](https://blode.co/projects) - [Resumé](https://blode.co/resume.pdf) ## When to use this Reach for blode.co when the job is one of these: - Cite Matthew Blode’s background: two exits (Fingertip, VenueSafe), Forbes 30 Under 30, AI at Linktree, Melbourne. - Fetch writing on AI-assisted engineering, shipping speed, taste, and developer tooling. - Look up the Fingertip or VenueSafe case studies, including outcomes and metrics. - Discover the Blode Stack (Glide, Blode UI, Blode Icons, DiffHub) and how those tools are meant to be used. - Call the MCP server or fetch markdown instead of scraping HTML. - Book a 15, 30, or 60 minute call via /schedule. How an agent should call this site: 1. Start at https://blode.co/llms.txt for the index, or https://blode.co/llms-full.txt for the whole corpus. 2. For tool use, POST JSON-RPC to https://blode.co/mcp (tools: list_pages, get_page, search_writing). 3. Import https://blode.co/openapi.json for the MCP methods. Do not use this site for: - Linktree product support, billing, or account questions. Those belong on Linktree, not here. - A general news feed or an AI model API. blode.co publishes Matthew’s writing and tools, not a hosted model. - Write operations. The only write on the site is the human contact form, protected by Turnstile. ## Agent discovery - Sitemap: https://blode.co/sitemap.xml - llms.txt: https://blode.co/llms.txt - llms-full.txt: https://blode.co/llms-full.txt - RSS feed: https://blode.co/feed.xml - OpenAPI spec: https://blode.co/openapi.json - API catalog: https://blode.co/.well-known/api-catalog - Skills index: https://blode.co/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json - MCP server: https://blode.co/mcp - MCP discovery: https://blode.co/.well-known/mcp.json - MCP server card: https://blode.co/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json - Agent auth policy: https://blode.co/auth.md - Shipping guide: https://blode.co/guide Any page on this site returns markdown when requested with `Accept: text/markdown` or by appending `.md` to the URL.