If you're here for commentary on the Pope, Trump, or the geopolitics of frontier AI - this isn't that episode. If you're here for the unfiltered view from the people actually building Claude - stay.

This one is for the builders, the tinkerers, and the curious. Two of the people behind Claude - not here for governments, the press, or the Vatican. Instead, here to zero in on what they're seeing, and how you can get more from AI, however you're using it.

Katelyn Lesse runs engineering for Anthropic's Claude Developer Platform. Angela Jiang runs product. They're the people closest to what builders are actually doing with the technology and are exactly the kind of spark people they'll tell you every team needs.

What they're seeing: teams that transform overnight because one person in them is genuinely obsessed. Founders who move with the model instead of against it. A shift from "content is king" to "context is king" that most people haven't caught up to yet. And a clean slate advantage - available to anyone willing to look at an old problem as if it's never been solved before.

Earlier this year, Eucalyptus sold for $1.6 billion - one of the biggest exits in Australian startup history. Charlie Gearside co-founded it.

A year on, he's spending his time on YouTube and on Build Australia, the nonpartisan movement he launched last month to make space for a more ambitious version of this country. He talks publicly about property investing, the universities, and a culture that calls earnest people try-hards. None of it is comfortable, and none of it is what most people do after an exit.

He's also the first to admit that none of this pays off quickly. The work is to shift what Australians think is acceptable to want. A project that’s measured in decades, not quarters.

Kate sits down with Charlie to talk about untangling your identity from a company you built. The brutal question he had to ask himself before leaving Eucalyptus. Why he won't go into politics. Why he thinks the most risky thing right now might be doing nothing. And the one topic he's still too nervous to make a video about.

There’s a graveyard of robotics companies—billions torched on beautiful demos we’ve all seen before, but never felt. This episode explains why the economics, the software, and the demand curve have finally flipped—and how Alloy plans to fuel the winners.

Joe Harris returns to Wild Hearts—but this time as a founder. An engineer by training (ML for telecoms), operator by practice (Eucalyptus growth & product), and obsessive systems thinker, Joe unpacks why robotics is finally crossing from hype to inevitability. We trace the structural shifts powering the moment—collapsing hardware costs, foundation-model intelligence, and urgent customer pull—and the hard lessons from failed vertical farming plays that recalibrated what reliable automation actually demands. Joe introduces Alloy, a horizontal data and observability platform for robotics teams: find the 1% of mission data that matters, surface edge cases, track reliability toward “four-, five-, six-nines,” and shorten the loop from failure → fix → redeploy. If you’re building, buying, or betting on robots, this is the market map and playbook for the next decade.

• The three real drivers: cost curves, capability (VLM/VLA), and customer pull
• Reliability as the business model: why 99% isn’t enough—and how teams get to 4–6 nines
• Data, not demos: robots emit GB/min; how to isolate the 1% that changes outcomes
• Horizontal vs. vertical: what failed in indoor/vertical farming and why
• Alloy’s wedge: multimodal search (images, time series, logs), “scenarios,” alerts, and instant mission summaries to accelerate deployment and reduce unit costs
• Team & culture: hiring for speed, humility, and learning in a field moving weekly

00:00 First operator-to-founder return: Joe’s path (engineer → Atlassian → Eucalyptus → Alloy)

02:00 Maker roots: coding tutorials at 12, early internet leverage

03:30 Many small businesses → the “one-thing, 10–20 years” decision

08:30 Why now for robotics: cost curves + reusable rockets as mindset shift

10:45 Vertical farming post-mortems: unit economics, reliability, scale errors

13:40 Reliability is everything: from 99% to 99.999% in the physical world

15:45 The data firehose: GB/min, multimodal chaos, and missing tooling

18:40 Operator-to-robot ratio as the core unit economic lever

21:10 Selling into robotics: design partners, security, and data heterogeneity

23:15 Common data primitives (perception, time series, logs) + ROS-driven formats

24:30 Why LLMs aren’t enough: context-window limits & multimodal encoding

27:00 Alloy’s product: natural-language search, similarity, “scenarios,” real-time alerts

28:50 Instant mission summaries vs. days of manual analysis

29:30 Edge AI tailwinds: Jetson class hardware, cheaper sensors (LiDAR/IMUs)

30:30 VLAs explained: from perception → plan → act (and why smoothness matters)

32:10 The pace of change: weekly breakthroughs, staying on the frontier

33:40 Distribution & adoption: enterprise first; consumer follows reliability

35:40 Safety and necessity: underwater, heavy industry, logistics

37:15 Autonomy acceptance: the “first Waymo ride” unlock

43:00 Ideal customers: high throughput, real deployments, cloud telemetry

44:50 ICP discovery playbook: questions that qualify real readiness

45:50 Team design: missionary talent, humility > hubris, learn-fast culture

46:40 Macro lens: robotics as a deflationary lever & company formation boom

48:00 Jobs & leverage: from decoding info → higher-order coordination

50:05 The Alloy analogy: the coal-shoveler that keeps the engine running

You don't have to be the founder to build the future.

When Andrea Quinn made the leap from fashion merchandising to tech, she didn't start a company. She joined one. Today, she's VP of Go-To-Market Operations at Halter, New Zealand's newest unicorn, which just raised $155 million at a $1.55 billion valuation.

Not every path into building the future looks like a founder origin story. Some of the most crucial work happens when you join the right company at the right moment and help turn ambition into execution. Andrea's doing exactly that - scaling the GTM motion as Halter accelerates across Australia and the United States.In this episode, Blackbird Partner Sam Wong sits down with Andrea to explore how operators translate skills across industries and build the engines that power billion-dollar companies. From her Commercial Equation framework to practical AI applications in sales, Andrea breaks down what it actually takes to scale a startup from the inside.

This episode is for: founders building GTM, operators inheriting messy funnels, and anyone wondering if they need to start a company to build the future.

Because the answer is no. Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is join the rocket ship and help build the engine.

When storytelling meets startup energy, magic happens.

In this week’s episode, Xavier Collins, co-founder of Wonder, joins Mason to explore how technology is tearing down the old gates of Hollywood, and what happens when anyone, anywhere, can tell stories that move the world.

Backed by Blackbird and LocalGlobe, Wonder is building an AI-native creative studio reimagining how films are made, who gets to make them, and what “production” even means. Xavier shares how AI can help the 90% of scripts that never get made finally see the light of day - from resurrecting forgotten footage to helping bold new voices get their first break.

We dive into instinct versus analytics, courage versus consensus, and the scrappy startup mindset redefining creative industries. It’s a story about belief, innovation, and the people daring to create what others think impossible.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever had a story they’ve wanted to tell, a dream they’ve wanted to build, or an idea they’ve been told was too crazy to work.

Because when content becomes infinite, the only thing that matters is the quality of the story - and your story might just be next.

When Michelle Battersby launched Sunroom, she set out to change the game for women creators, building a platform where they could earn freely, safely, and on their own terms. Five years, three funding rounds and one pandemic later, she did just that. Thousands of creators made life-changing income, and Sunroom was acquired by Fanfix.

From the emotional weight of leadership to the surprising financial realities of building something from scratch, Michelle shares the unfiltered truths of the founder journey - the highs, the hard parts, and the freedom that comes with letting go. Maddy Guest, from Blackbird’s investment team and host of the finance podcast So Invested, joins Michelle to unpack what those lessons teach us about resilience, risk, and redefining success.

This is a story about ambition and endurance — and the lessons that only reveal themselves when you decide to climb.

When Lucy Liu co-founded Airwallex in 2015, she was flying around the world opening bank accounts in person and carrying bags of security tokens. Global businesses are digital. But finance was stuck in the past.

For three years, Airwallex burned money building invisible infrastructure no one believed in yet. Her co-founder drew a “really ugly unicorn” on a whiteboard predicting ten-times growth when they had zero revenue. Everyone laughed - but beneath the laughter was a serious undertone that they were onto something big. Something that would be game changing. So they kept building.

That bet on infrastructure became one of the fastest-growing fintechs in the world, now moving $200 billion annually and adding $100 million in recurring revenue every quarter.

In this episode, Lucy shares why building two products simultaneously defied conventional startup wisdom, how hiring for intellectual curiosity beats credentials, and what it means to scale from zero to 1,800 people without losing speed. She also reflects on the power of ambitious predictions, staying simple at massive scale, and why resilience matters more than perfection.

Procreate co-founder James Cuda has spent more than a decade obsessing over one thing: the brushstroke. From hacking the iPad 1 to run at 60fps, to turning a side project into the world’s leading creative app, James has built Procreate on a radical philosophy: simplicity, permanence, and creative freedom above all else.

In this episode of Wild Hearts, James joins Mason to share why the company never took VC money, how “flow state” shapes everything from product design to team culture, and what it really takes to scale without losing soul. They also dive deep into generative AI, ethical data, and why Procreate’s biggest unfair advantage may simply be staying small and Tasmanian.

James also reflects on the tension between addition and reduction, the power of jam sessions, and why listening to the “little voice” is the artist’s greatest superpower.

Time Stamps

00:00 – Intro

02:05 – Why brushstrokes were the starting point

05:10 – The art of subtraction: keeping flow while adding features

07:50 – Permanence as a product philosophy

09:36 – From “an amazing piece of shit” to a world-class creative tool

12:11 – How Procreate’s archetype grew from amateurs to architects

15:01 – Listening to users without losing the soul

17:31 – Scaling creativity and protecting flow inside the team

19:51 – Jam sessions, “holy shit” moments, and making ideas real

23:31 – James’ strong stance on generative AI and ethical data

34:51 – Authenticity over slogans: building trust with artists

37:21 – Bringing artists together, online and offline

39:06 – Staying independent: why Procreate never took VC

44:01 – Simplicity vs. optionality in future workflows

46:39 – The advice James gives every artist: listen to the little voice

48:26 – Outro

What if you could take the most mysterious force in physics—and make it useful?

In our final  episode of this season of Wild Hearts, we sit down with Pete Shadbolt, co-founder of PsiQuantum, a company racing to build the world’s first utility-scale quantum computer. But this isn’t a conversation about quantum theory. It’s about execution. Engineering. Scaling. Building something that moves humanity forward - not in decades, but now.

Pete shares why 300 or 3,000 qubits won’t cut it, and why a million is the magic number. We explore the technical marvels (and madness) involved in the team’s journey: superconducting detectors millimetres from red-hot heaters, lasers brighter than a trillion photons, and a cryostat that throws out the chandelier model altogether.

But most of all, this is a story of ambition. Of leaving behind prestigious academic careers, raising a billion dollars, and assembling a team of physicists, welders, aerospace engineers, and cryo-specialists to take one shot at building something historic.

In this conversation, we cover:

🚀 Why PsiQuantum is chasing 1 million qubits—not 300, not 3,000🏗️ What it takes to move quantum computing from theory to hardware—with welders, chip designers, and aerospace engineers 

📉 Why academia can be a trap—and how PsiQuantum built an anti-academic company culture 

🌐 The real-world applications of quantum computing: from designing drugs to revolutionising materials science 

👩‍🔬 How team DNA, not just tech, shapes PsiQuantum’s ability to scale and execute 

⚙️ Why quantum computing isn’t a mass adoption tool - and why that’s perfectly okay

🔥 How engineering targets that once caused mutiny are now being hit daily

This episode concludes our fifth season of Wild Hearts. Over the past 40 weeks, it’s been our honour to chat to the founders and operators shaping the world we live in. If you’ve enjoyed the conversations, we would be grateful if you could like, subscribe, and share our program with other wild hearts. 

Wild Hearts will take a short break, and will return to all streaming platforms later this year. 

From everyone at the Wild Hearts team, thank you! 

What if planning dinner wasn’t a chore—but something you looked forward to? In this episode, Wild Hearts guest host, Silk Kadala - investor at Blackbird - chats with Anna Guerrero, founder of Clove, a beautifully designed cooking app that’s reimagining how we cook at home.

You might know Anna from her nine years scaling the creator marketplace at Canva—but it was a stint as a pasta chef in the Dolomites that ultimately set her on the path to launching Clove.

Whether you’re interested in the role of AI in reducing decision fatigue, why brands are betting big on recipe creators as the next wave of culinary entrepreneurs or just stood in front of the fridge thinking “what’s for dinner?”—this episode is for you.

🔍 In this conversation, we cover:

🍳 The invisible mental load of everyday cooking—and how Clove is removing it with Smart Planner

📲 Why Clove’s approach to AI is more whisper than shout—and why that matters for creativity

📚 Building for creators: how Clove is giving food bloggers, TikTok cooks and chefs a new way to publish and earn

🎯 From pitch decks to real traction: Anna’s high-stakes decision to pause Clove’s creator program and set a new quality bar

🚀 The leap from Canva exec to culinary school student—and what working in a Michelin-starred restaurant taught Anna about product

🧠 Low ego, high initiative: what Clove looks for in early team members and building a culture of adaptability

🧭 What it means to follow the dots—why you don’t need to have it all figured out to move forward

🍽️ The long-term ambition: turning Clove into the global go-to for “what’s for dinner?”—with a billion recipes cooked through the platform

From Canva to Clove, Anna Guerrero shows what it looks like to reinvent yourself, back a bold vision, and build something that truly changes how we live and cook.

What’s it like to be employee number one at two of the most iconic tech companies of the past two decades?

In this episode of Wild Hearts, guest host and investor at Blackbird, Maddy Guest sits down with Kate Vale; Google and Spotify’s first hire in Australia. 
From launching Google out of her lounge room to scaling Spotify into a household name, Kate shares behind-the-scenes stories of tech history in the making, the leadership lessons that stuck, and why her latest career act is all about investing in women.

In this conversation, we cover:

📞 The cold call from Google that changed her life and brought her to the global tech world—and tech in APAC
🚀 What it was like to launch Google Australia from her lounge room 
🌍 Why Spotify was a harder sell than Google—and how she got artists on board 
💡 The cultural rituals that helped Kate build high-performance teams across two giants 
🔥 The one mistake most startups make when scaling their teams globally 
📈 Why she co-founded a VC fund to back female tech founders during the pandemic 
🎯 What Kate looks for in a founder, and the red flags that kill the deal

This episode is a fascinating look behind the scenes at some of the earliest experiences of bringing global tech companies to Australia, and how these experiences have shaped Steph’s career and investing approach.

What happens when a side project becomes a platform used by over 75 million people—yet  the founder feels like they’re losing control of it?

In this special live episode of Wild Hearts , Linktree co-founder and CEO Alex Zaccaria joins Mason Yates on stage at Sunrise Australia to unpack the messy, inspiring story behind one of Australia’s most iconic tech exports. 

From unpacking Alex’s early creative instincts to the cultural tensions between Australia and the US, this is an unfiltered conversation on clarity, leadership, and staying close to the product that made it all possible.

In this conversation, we cover:

🚀 How Linktree grew from a music industry side project into a global internet infrastructure tool

🔁 Why Alex Zaccaria scrapped traditional org charts and rebuilt the team from a “zero-based budget” approach

🧠 The internal mindset shift from people-pleasing to product-led, founder-first decision making

🔗 Why simplicity is one of the hardest product challenges—and how Linktree maintains it at massive scale

🗺️ What it means to build a business across two cultures—Australia and the US—and how the team navigates tall poppy syndrome

💸 How Linktree's new “Sponsored Links” marketplace is flipping influencer marketing into measurable performance

🎤 The evolution of leadership clarity and why Alex now operates in “mandate mode”

📈 What it takes to stay true to your product intuition—even when everyone around you tells you otherwise

And of course, because this is a live episode, there’s some audience questions and banter along the way! Listen in for a conversation about reclaiming vision, rewriting culture, and building at global scale while staying grounded in creative instinct.

After 77 episodes and eight years at Blackbird, Mason Yates is signing off as host of Wild Hearts. This is his final episode - just eight minutes, no fanfare and true to how he hosted: generous with the floor, light on his own voice.

Mason started Wild Hearts in 2020. Lockdown. Sourdough. Tiger King. Across the six seasons since, Mason has sat down with founders building mind control for cows, sending toaster-sized satellites into orbit, and chasing a million-qubit quantum computer. Holding the mic through the 2021 supernova, the 2022 correction, the survivor years, and the deep tech wave defining this moment.

There's one question he's asked nearly every founder along the way: what gives you the most energy? In this episode he walks back through the answers that have stayed with him - Melanie Perkins, Tim Doyle, Tom Kelly, Flavia Tata Nardini - and shares three lessons from 77 episodes on the craft of interviewing.

And then he hands the show over to Kate Glazebrook.

If you've been listening since 2020, this one's a love letter to the archive you helped build. If you're new, it's the perfect doorway in.

Thank you, Mason. From all of us.

What makes a team thrive?

According to Harry Flett, it's not just strategy or shipping speed; it’s how you make people feel. In the latest Operator episode of Wild Hearts, Harry, VP of Product, takes us behind the scenes at Tracksuit, where high-output product culture meets silliness, storytelling, and some surprisingly heartfelt moments. We explore Harry’s frameworks for thinking clearly, building with velocity, and designing for both customers and teammates.

In this episode, we cover:

💬 The power of the say-do ratio and how reputation is built through consistent follow-through

🧠 Why burnout often stems from being “too helpful”—and how Harry’s learning to step back

🌳 The leaf-branch-trunk-root framework that’s helping Harry delegate and build ownership

⚖️ Why great product leadership requires balancing 10,000-foot thinking with shipping the next feature

✍️ How writing is Harry’s superpower—and why it’s essential for clarity in teams, strategy, and scaling

🏆 The hiring philosophy that helped Tracksuit hire the best people

This episode is a playbook for leaders—whether you're in product, people, or operations—who want to scale with clarity, delegate with intention, and build a culture that people genuinely want to be part of. It’s packed with insights on communication, prioritisation, and the kind of leadership that drives real momentum. 

The internet is drowning in ‘slop’- and George Howes has a fix.

The former creative lead at Eucalyptus believes the solution to this ‘creative problem’ starts with a feedback loopand ends with a new kind of intelligence.

After leading one of Australia’s fastest-growing startups through a wave of performance marketing breakthroughs, George walked away to build something better. That “something” became Magic Brief: a tool that captures creative intelligence, not just analytics.

In this episode of Wild Hearts, George takes us inside the machine. From his 15 principles of high-performing teams to how AI can (and should) unlock—not replace—creativity, this is a wide-ranging conversation going deep on marketing and product.

In this episode, we cover:

📈 The 15 traits of high-performing creative teams

🧠 Why feedback loops—not freedom—unlock the best work

🤖 How AI can enhance creative strategy without replacing it

🎨 Why taste still matters in a world of AI-generated content

George Howes gives a masterclass in the intersection of AI, creative strategy, and product velocity. If you're in marketing, this is one you’ll want to play twice.

What motivates a founder to shift from building a billion-dollar edtech unicorn to manufacturing missiles? And what happens when your career becomes a response to something deeply personal — the kind of world your kids might grow up in?

Vu Tran is a doctor, a co-founder of Go1, and now the co-founder of Black Sky Industries — Australia’s first scalable missile and solid rocket motor manufacturer. In this episode, Vu opens up about the moral tipping point that drove him into defence, the vulnerability he sees in Australia’s current military setup, and why he believes our future depends on becoming, in his words, “an echidna — small, underestimated, and far too prickly to bite.”

This is a conversation about personal mission, national security, and the power of bringing startup speed to one of the slowest-moving industries on the planet.

In this conversation, we cover:

🏥 The emotional toll and grounding power of Vu’s continued work as a doctor in Logan

🚀 How Black Sky Industries is tackling lethality and building solid rocket motors at scale

🛡️ What Vu means by “making Australia an echidna” — a defence philosophy grounded in self-reliance and deterrence

💣 Why no one wants to touch “the pointy stuff” — and why Vu’s choosing to anyway

🌍 How Australia’s current reliance on foreign defence suppliers makes us vulnerable — and what needs to change

💡 Lessons Vu took from scaling Go1 into a unicorn — and what he’s left behind at Black Sky

📈 Why defence tech is the next trillion-dollar market opportunity — and why Vu wants more founders to enter the space.

This episode is a raw and revealing look at how one founder is turning personal responsibility into national-scale impact — and why Australia needs more entrepreneurs willing to tackle the hardest problems.

What happens when you pack a carry-on, fly across the world, and try to scale a healthcare startup in one of the world’s toughest markets?

In the latest episode from our Operator series of Wild Hearts, we sit down with Jesse Creighton, Director (US), Heidi Health.

Jesse shares what it really looked like to launch the company’s American expansion — from hosting awkward dinners with two doctors at a 20-person table to building a high-performing sales team with its own unique culture in New York.

In this conversation, we cover:

🗽 What it was like being the first on the ground in New York to launch Heidi in the US

🎯 Why Heidi's initial customer outreach flopped — and what they learned from it

🧠 How freemium became a game-changing growth strategy in healthcare

🛠 Why product-market fit in the US required rethinking sales, support, and compliance

🌎 The role of generalists vs. specialists when building early-stage teams across markets

🎥 How customer obsession and Aussie culture helped shape Heidi’s US team

📈 The two biggest bets that paid off — and why most investors didn’t see them coming 

This episode is a masterclass in how to scale a startup across borders — blending instinct, experimentation, and a deep belief in product.

What does it take to achieve nuclear fusion in less time than it takes to build a traditional power plant prototype? In this episode of Wild Hearts, we’re joined by Ratu Mataira, CEO of OpenStar, a company that just hit the crucial "first plasma" milestone in a staggering 16 months. 

We unpack the misconceptions surrounding fusion, the unique design of OpenStar’s levitated dipole reactor, and why the pathway to commercial fusion might be shorter -and more valuable - than most people think.

⚡ How OpenStar achieved first plasma in just 16 months—years faster than competitors

💥 Why fusion isn’t “30 years away” anymore—and never really was

📉 How misconceptions about cost, scale and safety are holding the industry back

🔩 The engineering breakthrough that allows OpenStar to iterate faster

🧪 Why their first product won’t be a power plant—and what it might be instead

🏥 Medical isotopes, nuclear waste and imaging: the early use cases for fusion

🔧 “Always include a crank”: how failure tolerance fuels rapid learning

🚀 The startup mindset behind building a trillion-dollar fusion company

This episode goes beyond fusion hype; it’s a candid look at how OpenStar is breaking barriers in one of the world’s hardest engineering challenges.

How do you take a scientific hunch and turn it into a breakthrough that could change medicine forever?

In this episode of Wild Hearts, we sit down with Elise Jenkins, co-founder of Opto Biosystems, to discuss the journey of building a first-in-class brain implant that merges neurotechnology with oncology. 

🎧 Subscribe on Apple or Spotify to learn.

We explore the highs and lows of moving from academia to a high-stakes startup, the unexpected hurdles of working with neurosurgeons, and the race toward first-in-human trials.

In this conversation, we cover:

🧠 Bridging the gap between neuroscience and cancer research

🔬 How brain-Computer interfaces could transform oncology

📈 The road to the first-in-human clinical trials and what It means for the future

💡 The challenges of moving from academia to a high-impact startup

⚡ Why the next generation of neural implants need to be MRI-invisible 

🏥 What It takes to get regulatory approval for a revolutionary medical implant 

🌎 Opto’s long-term vision: using neural biomarkers beyond brain cancer

If you're fascinated by the intersection of science, engineering, and medicine, this conversation is for you.

🎧 Subscribe on Apple or Spotify to learn.

In this episode we cover:

✅Challenges of creating a hardware product

✅Helping people overcome shame and stigma

✅Building a brand beyond a visual identity

✅Investing in your own mental health

✅Reaching your audience where they are

With its range of sex toys and sex education resources, NORMAL has reimagined the sex shop into an online experience that is fun and informative, with the mission of empowering absolutely anybody to explore their sexuality free from stress and stigma.

In this special live episode of Wild Hearts, founder of NORMAL Lucy Wark spoke with me on stage at Blackbird’s Sunrise Festival.

“More than 1 in 5 searches on the internet is about sex. There’s an incredibly large organic interest in this topic.”

“As a culture, we have a long history of religious and cultural ideas about sex being sinful, sex being something that should only exist inside marriage, or should only exist for the creation of children.”

“It’s not like selling toilet paper or mattresses. You’re trying to help people tackle quite deep psychological stigma.”

“Things like libido, desire, arousal, changes in the body, sexual dysfunction, relationship skills, and sex while ageing, sex in menopause, there is this enormous suite of challenges for which we are incredibly poorly prepared for by formal sex education.”

“A brand is not a logo and colours. To build authentic brands that mean something to people, is about a lot more than just building a visual identity.”

“I think having practices like therapy are incredibly helpful investments in yourself as a founder, and an operator, and just a good human being to be around, so that’s been probably the highest ROI thing I do.”

What happens when a 10-second TikTok video changes everything overnight? For Annabelle Hay, co-founder and CEO of CLUTCH, it meant selling out 5,000 units in hours, navigating a manufacturing disaster, and scrambling to scale. 

In this episode, Annabelle shares the rollercoaster journey of building a consumer brand from scratch, the unexpected lessons of going viral, and the challenges of breaking into retail.

In this conversation, we cover:

🔥 The TikTok video that went viral overnight and sold out 5,000 units

💥 The manufacturing disaster that led to exploding tubes and mass refunds

🚀 How Annabelle scaled CLUTCH from a side hustle to a retail success

🦈 The Shark Tank investor who tried to rip her off—and how she fought back

🎯 The unexpected challenges of retail, from supply chain issues to hidden costs

💡 The founder-led brand strategy that resonated with millions

📈 Lessons in growth, hiring, and relinquishing control in a fast-moving startup

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to scale a consumer product from zero to retail shelves, this conversation with Annabelle Hay is a masterclass in resilience, adaptability, and strategic growth.

What happens when artificial intelligence isn't just assisting—but reshaping—the world of investment?

In this episode of Wild Hearts, we chat with Armina Rosenberg, an investor combining traditional fundamental research with revolutionary AI-driven techniques. 

Armina dives into how her firm, Minotaur, leverages AI to break down barriers, uncover global opportunities, and make investment decisions at unprecedented speeds. It's not just about efficiency; it's about reshaping the way capital is allocated worldwide.

In this episode, we cover:

📈 How AI can remove language barriers in global investment research (03:30)

🔍 Armina’s innovative strategy for identifying mispriced companies (11:45)

🧠 How large language models (LLMs) transform fundamental analysis (14:10)

⚖️ Managing risk and building conviction with AI analytics (23:50)

🛠️ The competitive advantage of building proprietary AI software (29:30)

🚀 Future AI investment trends and capturing economic value (34:20)

This episode is a rare inside look at how AI is transforming the art of investing, and what it means for the future of software.

Imagine being able to understand your customers better than ever before—instantly. That’s the promise of AI-powered product management. 

In this episode, Matt Hinds, Co-founder and CEO of Sauce AI, explains how AI is transforming the way companies prioritise, iterate, and execute on their product roadmaps. We dive into the tools, strategies, and mindset shifts that are allowing top teams to unlock massive leverage in world of product development.

In this conversation, we cover:

🧠 The evolving role of product managers in an AI-powered world

🚀 How Sauce AI is transforming product insights and decision-making

📉 Why some companies are eliminating PM roles – and why others are doubling down

💡 How top product teams use AI to unlock customer insights 100x faster

🛠️ The must-have AI tools that product managers should be using right now

🔄 The future of product iteration: instant feedback loops and automated workflows

When Apple's iOS privacy changes hit, most people saw a headache. Rory Garton-Smith and Harry Dixon saw something else: millions of brands suddenly unable to reach customers, and no good solution in sight. So they built one.

Checkmate connects consumers with personalised offers at the exact moment of intent, replacing spray-and-pray marketing with something precise enough that household brands are now paying attention. Eight-figure ARR. 260 million users. Revenue up 6,000% in six months.

But the more interesting thing is what they've learned along the way. Because when you sit inside the shopping journeys of hundreds of millions of people, patterns emerge. Shopping windows. Platform preferences. How intent signals behave. What converts and what doesn't - and exactly why. That data is now the foundation of an AI marketing platform that goes well beyond savings.

In this conversation with Mason Yates, Rory and Harry talk about how they found the gap, how they solved the chicken-and-egg problem between brands and consumers, and where the intelligence they've built is taking them next.

Winning against billion-dollar incumbents isn't about money—it’s about strategy. In this episode, we talk to Steve Hind, the co-founder of Lorikeet, about how he and his team built an AI-powered customer support tool that’s not just competing but winning in one of the most crowded markets in tech.

Steve shares the moment that led to their pivotal product shift, the principles guiding their success, and why they believe 2025 is the year AI will truly transform enterprise support.

In this conversation, we cover:

💡 The breakthrough moment that led to Lorikeet’s pivot into AI-driven customer support

🚀 How Steve and his team outperformed well-funded competitors in Silicon Valley

📈 The underestimated value of customer engagement over customer love

🎯 Why AI in customer support isn’t just about summarising FAQs—and why that matters

🛠️ The power of engineers talking to customers and building based on real needs

💰 Why Steve believes the best startups should focus on making their existing customers wildly successful

⚡ How startup founders can avoid “doom loop” hiring behaviors and build teams that win

🔮 Why 2025 will be the year of enterprise AI—and how Lorikeet is positioning itself to lead

Steve Hind and his team at Lorikeet are proving that startups can outcompete legacy players—not by outspending them, but by outthinking them. This conversation is a deep dive into strategy, execution, and the mindset that leads to real impact.

How do you take a deeply human skill—asking great questions—and scale it with AI? Michelle Gilmore, co-founder and CEO of Juno, is tackling that challenge head-on.

In this episode, we talk about her path from industrial design to AI entrepreneurship, why the best research isn’t about collecting data but understanding people, and how Juno is changing the way businesses learn from their customers.

In this conversation, we cover:

🔍 The art of asking the right questions—and why small wording changes can completely alter responses

💡 Why Michelle believes AI has levelled the playing field—and what that means for the future of research

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The importance of co-founders—and how Michelle’s long-standing partnership with Josh gives Juno an advantage

🚀 The shift from consulting to product-based business models—and why Juno is moving away from selling time

🔬 Experimentation at the core of Juno’s growth—how the team tests hypotheses before scaling

💰 Pricing AI research: Can value-based pricing work for a product like Juno?

🌏 Expanding globally—why Latin America and Singapore are key emerging markets for Juno

🧠 The future of qualitative research—why Michelle believes surveys are outdated and how Juno is leading the next evolution

This episode isn’t just about AI; it’s about how Juno is redefining the way we gather insights, making research faster, more intuitive, and ultimately more human.

What does it take to turn an idea into a global business in just six months?

In this episode, we sit down with the founders of Springboards, Pip Bingemann and Amy Tucker, to uncover their whirlwind journey from a three-person team with an MVP to a thriving international business that’s transforming the creative agency space.

 Subscribe on Apple or Spotify to learn.

In this conversation, we cover:

The incredible growth of Springboards—from a 3-person team to a global operation (02:30)

How AI is inspiring, not replacing, human creativity in the agency world (15:45)

The pitching problem in agencies and how Springboards is solving it (22:10)

The expansion into international markets and how Amsterdam became a key hub (30:20)

The power of relationships in driving business success over 15 years (40:05)

Why “pitch theatre” is crucial for standing out in a crowded market (50:15)

The importance of balancing creativity and structure in agency work (1:02:40)

Overcoming fear and resistance to AI adoption within agencies (1:15:55)

Whether you’re a marketer, a creative, or a business leader, this conversation will change how you think about AI’s role in enhancing—not replacing—human creativity.

Discover how Stephanie Carullo from Box and Apple, transformed education through technology. In this episode, she shares the pivotal moments that redefined classrooms, the culture at Apple, and her vision for the future of AI in learning. 

🔑 Why Apple’s "life's best work" mantra fosters trust and accountability across teams

📱 The revolutionary impact of the iPad on education and its role in transforming classrooms worldwide

📖 The secret to embedding Apple’s culture of clarity, strategy, and communication in organisations

🌟 How critical thinking and problem-solving are the most important skills for future leaders

🤖 Why AI is poised to revolutionise education, featuring insights from Khan Academy's AI tutor

👩‍💼 Stephanie’s role as COO at Box: Coordinating customer-focused strategies for sustained growth

📈 How to balance rapid growth and operational efficiency in the competitive SaaS industry

🌍 Lessons from Apple and Box on fostering innovation and creating meaningful impact at scale

Whether you’re a tech enthusiast, an educator, or a leader, join us to learn how Stephanie fostered trust, tackled challenges, and leveraged technology to drive education and innovation to new heights.

What does it take to launch Australia into the global space race? For Adam Gilmour, CEO and founder of Gilmour Space Technologies, the answer is a bold vision, relentless innovation, and an unwavering commitment from a founder and their team.

In this episode of Wild Hearts, Adam shares the highs, lows, and lessons learned as he prepares for the first Australian-made rocket launch from Australian soil.

Throughout the episode, we cover:

🚀 Adam Gilmour’s bold vision to enable human colonisation of the solar system

🧠  The rollercoaster highs and lows of building rockets from scratch in Australia

📊 How simplicity drives innovation: lessons from aerospace engineering

🌍 The importance of milestones in the rocket business and how they shape progress

🔄 Bootstrapping a space company with a small team and big dreams

🎯 Why launching from Australia provides unique orbital opportunities

💡 Navigating regulatory hurdles and securing trust in a high-risk industry

🌌 Adam’s predictions for humanity’s expansion into the solar system and beyond

Adam Gilmour’s story isn’t just about rockets—it’s a testament to resilience, innovation, and the boundless potential of human ambition 🚀

Join us as we dive into the archives of Wild Hearts to re-live some of our favourite episodes!

Flavia is connecting everything on earth via sending toaster sized satellites into low earth orbit.

In the second episode of, host Mason Yates speaks to co-founder and CEO Flavia Tata Nardini and Blackbird Partner Niki Scevak about the rocket science company that is connecting everything on earth.

Key topics covered:

• How the next industrial revolution will be in space.
• The unique challenges facing space start-ups.
• The small data revolution.
• The importance of having a focused market.
• What Fleet did to shorten their customer feedback loop.
• Why a CEO has to be everywhere.

The best of Flavia Tata Nardini:

"Focus is the biggest lesson I’ve learned in the startup world.”

“A lot of people talk about big data, we hated the word, it was just bullshit. So we called it a small data revolution. Just get a little piece of data. The smart data.”

“The [space] industry has got ninety percent awareness of everything that’s deployed. They just make decisions in a way that is not right. We want to change this, we want to give [everyone] full visibility. The problem has always been that connectivity was not present or super expensive.”

“We decided to fire all our customers that were tiny and focus like crazy in working with big energy companies and others.”

“You need to be a believer, you need to believe [in your product] in the first five to six years like crazy.”

“You cannot let people build you a product [and think] they will build it for you the way you wanted it. You have to be there. You have to do it. You have to show them the path."

Niki Scevak on Flavia Tata Nardini and Fleet:

“The ability to do something you could not do before to this huge industry, and to make it a hundred X cheaper was incredibly exciting."

“As much as it was about space, it was about the opportunity to build a telecommunications network for a tiny amount of money.”

“When you compare space startups to software startups, the disadvantages are around feedback loops."

“How Flavia in particular has wrangled people from around the world … I think it’s just incredible coordination and project management to get things to happen with not a lot of money and certainly with not a lot of structure."

“You have to divorce the outcome of something from the weighted probability of doing it.”

“You need to keep shooting. Luck is a process, you have to expose yourself to be lucky.

Join us as we dive into the archives of Wild Hearts to re-live some of our favourite episodes!

Halter is a fenceless farming startup. They're creating mind control technology for cows. An engineer by trade and dairy farmer by birth, Halter CEO is familiar with the relentless demands of farming.

“The day in the life of a farmer is you’re up at 4:30am every morning, even on Christmas morning, nothing waits for you.”

That’s about to change. Halter has developed an IoT wearable collar that can direct and move cows from any location on Earth.

In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Craig on the future of farming and creating a culture of radical honesty, and from investor and Rocket Lab founder on the biggest mistakes NZ entrepreneurs make, and what convinced him to invest in Halter.

Join us, as we dive into the Wild Hearts archives to re-live previous episodes from some of our favourite guests!

Tim Doyle, co-founder of seed-stage company Eucalyptus, has spent $35M across political campaigns, mattresses and now healthcare. Before Eucalyptus, Tim was the Head of Marketing at Koala.

In this conversation, Tim talks about how he allocates capital, how Eucalyptus captures attention, where to extract value where others can’t see and how to acquire customers.

Later on in this episode, you’ll hear from Nick Crocker, General Partner at Blackbird Ventures. He was one of the very first believers in Eucalyptus and he’ll provide an investors lens on what others can learn from Eucalyptus.

Key topics covered:

• The problem with Direct to Consumer companies
• The importance of GTM focus in an Australian context.
• Ways you can allocate capital as a non technical founder.
• How to unlock talent in your organisation.
• Why you should spend 10% of your monthly marketing spend on testing.
• The biggest fundamental shift in customer acquisition, advertising and branding in the last decade.

The best of Tim Doyle:

“In Australia, there aren’t a huge number of Venture back-able consumer product opportunities, there’s just not that many billion dollar product opportunities, but there's a lot of 50 to 100 million dollar ones that more or less exist on the same infrastructure.”

“What’s the actual thing you’re going to earn the right to exist on to begin with and how are you going to talk about that? If you can’t do that, you’ll never even get in. Do something dumb and focused and deliver on it really well, build your business around that and earn the right to do other stuff.”

“Price the externalities of a staff member to understand their true value.”

“The shorter the distance between your junior dev. and the customer the better the decisions that junior developer will make.”

“The gap between designer and customer is as short as possible.”

“Branding is iterative.”

“In a world where feedback is so real, fast and clear, sitting around and psychoanalysing your customers and thinking about what the best piece of creative for them is, is a complete waste of time. You may as well just increase the speed at which you test and then back the winners extremely hard and trust the iterative system that you’ve built to continue to learn and get better at acquiring customers over time.”

“A media model is constantly hungry.”

“You’re always value investing. Every decision you make is, ‘Can I extract more value out of this than I have to pay for it?’ It's super true in media buying. TV /Advertising companies don’t understand the price of their own inventory because they negotiate over lunch. If you have a better system for deriving value than they have, then you can extract the value they can’t see.”

Nick Crocker on Tim Doyle

“Tim was the best marketer and marketing thinker that I’d met in the time I had been investing.

“Eucalyptus is an anomaly in that they did everything they said they would and that's rare.”

“The thing that I always felt with Tim, and that I know that Niki felt the first time he met Tim, was that he was an original thinker. And there is very little original thought in the world, period".

“When you learn something new, really new and unique from someone, it's just a magical moment in this job.”

Building a deep-tech company like Fleet Space Technologies isn't just about the technology; it's about the people, the focus, and the vision to change the world.

In this episode of Wild Hearts, Flavia Tata Nardini takes us behind the scenes of Fleet's growth, sharing how critical decisions, customer feedback, and personal resilience have shaped her leadership. 

Join us for a conversation that reveals the human side of leadership in one of the most cutting-edge industries today.

Throughout the episode, we cover:

🚀 The role of founder resilience and how it shapes leadership growth

🧠 Why founders have a "different brain" and how it solves unsolvable problems

📊 How running a company "by the numbers" transformed Flavia's leadership style

🌍 The intersection of critical minerals exploration and the energy transition

🔄 The power of focus: How Fleet narrowed its scope to drive market fit

🎯 The challenges and rewards of firing customers to refine business strategy

💡 Lessons learned from capital raises and how discipline drives hypergrowth

🌌 Reflections on space innovation and the role of Fleet in reshaping Earth's future

This episode is a candid look into the mindset and strategy of a founder tackling complex global challenges while navigating the personal and professional highs and lows of leadership.

What happens when a founder bets everything on simplicity—and wins?

🎧 Subscribe on Apple or Spotify to learn.

That’s the story of Dr. Thomas Kelly and his ambitious telehealth platform, Heidi—a product that faced failure before transforming into a global success.

In this episode of Wild Hearts, we delve into the remarkable journey of a founder who dared to strip everything back to focus on what mattered most. We cover:

🩺 The turning point: How Tom realised Heidi wasn’t delivering joy to clinicians and chose to pivot.

🛠️ Killing complexity: Why Heidi 2.0’s singular feature—transcribing consultations—became the key to success.

📈 Simplicity scales: The viral growth of Heidi 2.0 and how a $10M ARR business was born from focus.

💡 Lessons in failure: How Tom’s honest letter to investors unlocked clarity and trust.

🌟 The power of “useful”: Why simplicity and user focus beat grand visions every time.

From embracing failure to redefining success, this episode is essential listening for founders, creators, and anyone who’s ever faced a crossroads.

Min-Kyu Jung was a corporate lawyer who taught himself to code because he saw a problem that needed solving. Three years later, Ivo is winning enterprise deals against vendors with much bigger names, with clients like Uber, Netflix, Shopify, and Reddit choosing them in head-to-head bake-offs.

How does an unknown startup from New Zealand win those deals? Min-Kyu stopped coding for three months to talk to 400 people. He went all-in on in-house legal teams while competitors hedged. He built features over weekends to save deals, then spent years on details others ignored.

In this conversation with Mason Yates, Min-Kyu shares why being unknown became an advantage, what it takes to win trust with lawyers, and why going deep on one thing beats being everywhere at once.

What happens when one man’s parenting experiences become the blueprint for a global storytelling phenomenon? That’s exactly what Joe Brumm achieved with Bluey, the universally loved animated series. 

In this episode, we explore the journey of a father-turned-creative visionary who bet everything on capturing the magic of family life.

From creating a team culture that prioritises love and ownership to scaling joy across continents, Joe’s story is an extraordinary blend of heart and hustle.

In this conversation, we cover:

🐾 How Joe Brumm turned everyday parenting moments into a global phenomenon

🎨 The unique team culture at Bluey and how it fosters creative pride

📈 Scaling a family-first story into a global business without losing authenticity

🌏 Why Bluey resonates universally: the power of storytelling rooted in truth

💡 The importance of trusting your instincts in creative leadership

🎥 Behind the scenes of Bluey’s weekly animator screenings and their impact on quality 

🚀 How Bluey leverages global partnerships while staying true to its Australian roots

📖 Joe Brumm’s lessons in transforming personal experiences into world-class content

From the magic of storytelling to the power of team pride, this episode is a must-listen for anyone curious about building authentic and lasting creative work.

Amber Joseph is rewriting the rules of learning.

After scaling a solo business to $700,000/year without cofounders or funding, she pivoted to tackle online education’s biggest flaws.

Now the founder of NextWork, Amber is building a platform that teaches real-world skills, validated by real companies. 

In our latest episode of Wild Hearts, we sit down with Amber and dive deep into:

🚀 How Amber Joseph scaled a solo services business to $700,000/year with no cofounders or funding.

🤔 Amber’s pivot from a solo business to a startup solving online education’s biggest challenges.

🌍 The “learning loop” framework that redefines knowledge acquisition, application, and validation.

🎯 Why launching imperfect products accelerates progress and drives better user outcomes.

💡 How Amber built a 40,000-strong fan community in three months, and why fans turned into co-creators.

🤝 Amber’s approach to embedding her team within the customer community for faster iteration and trust-building.

🔑 How seamless onboarding and cultural insights are critical to NextWork’s growth.

This episode isn’t just about Amber Joseph’s achievements—it’s a masterclass in turning failure into fuel and building communities that power transformational learning.

How do you transform a rejection  into a stepping-stone for success? For Liam Millward, founder of Instant, that rejection sparked an obsession with speed and revenue that would drive his young company to incredible heights. In this conversation, we explore Liam’s journey of rapid growth, strategic pivots, and the lessons learned on the path to building a $100M+ business.

In this episode, we learn:

🚀 The pivotal rejection and how it motivated Liam to persevere.

💼 The early funding struggle and how a $250K angel investment changed Instant’s trajectory.

💡 How revenue obsession became a core philosophy, shifting focus from product perfection to customer impact.

👥 Why Instant operates without managers, and how a flat sales culture drives performance.

🎯 The role of speed in Instant’s DNA—how quick pivots and rapid decision-making fuelled growth.

🔑 The value of a relentless customer focus that has transformed Instant from a “checkbox feature” into an $5M+ ARR product.

Instant’s journey shows that with the right attitude and strategy, even setbacks can be transformed into stepping-stones for success at great heights.

What happens when you bring innovation to the heart of traditional farming? 

In this episode, we sit down with Craig Piggott, CEO and Founder of Halter, to discuss the journey of transforming the farming industry with smart technology. Craig shares insights on managing supply chain and critical path changes, boosting productivity, the company's plans to expand globally, and how he and his team are reimagining the possibilities for agriculture.

What can you expect in this episode? 

📱 The in-app experience that turns Halter into a farmer's essential tool.

💡  Craigs biggest lessons as he ‘grows into a CEO’.

🔥 The intensity of Halter's daily leadership meetings and the role of ‘gratitude’.

🌍 Halter’s approach to expanding internationally, beginning with the US market.

🏆 The challenges and insights of building a high-performance culture.

💡 Lessons on operational excellence and refining the supply chain.

🔥 The art of fundraising and the method Craig used in his successful rounds.

This episode explores not only the innovative technology Halter brings to agriculture but also the resilience and drive behind building an impactful company in an evolving industry.

How do you go from launching reusable rockets to pioneering cultured meat manufacturing?

In this episode, Ines Lizaur, a former SpaceX engineer and now Head of Manufacturing at Vow, joins us on Wild Hearts to share her journey and insights on tackling big challenges in high-stakes environments.

From her early days at SpaceX where she grappled with relentless deadlines and operational reliability, to her transition to Vow, we explore how Ines has applied her experience from the fast-paced aerospace industry to cultivate sustainable solutions in food production.

🚀 What did SpaceX teach her about decisiveness under pressure and learning from failure?

🌌 What principles make SpaceX special, and what qualities define Elon Musk’s leadership?

🛠 How did cross-functional teamwork and scrappy problem-solving shape her leadership at Vow?

📈 What lessons can be drawn from simplifying processes and pushing boundaries in an emerging field?

🎯 How does she balance ambition with the grounded realities of scale and reliability in cultured meat?

This conversation is a fascinating look into how one of the great operators in the Aussie ecosystem is reshaping what it means to take calculated risks, simplify processes, and lead teams toward new frontiers in tech and sustainability.

With over 2000 engineers, an ever-expanding product suite, and billions of users, how does Canvacontinue launching world-class products at breakneck speed?

In the latest episode in our Operators Series, we dive into the mind of Robert Kawalsky, Head of Product at Canva, to uncover the strategies behind one of the most successful product teams in the world. Robert reveals how a relentless focus on long-term goals, their product-first philosophy, and cross-functional teamwork fuels Canva’s success in empowering creativity on a global scale.

🔍 Tune in to hear Robert’s take on:

🎨 How simplicity and user-centricity keep Canva’s products intuitive and powerful.

🏆 Maintaining product velocity as Canva scales from 7 engineers to over 2,000.

🤖 How Canva integrates generative AI to empower users with cutting-edge tools.

📈 The Customer Zero program and why feedback loops are critical to their success.

🎯 The importance of goal alignment and how it fuels continuous iteration and innovation.

This episode is packed with insights from one of the leading product thinkers of our time, offering a masterclass in building and scaling world-class products.

What does it take for a startup to go from a house of brands to a healthcare powerhouse? And what changes about your leadership to get it there?

This is the third time Tim Doyle, the founder of Eucalyptus, has joined us on Wild Hearts. Last episode, Tim shared his ambition to shock the business into a new level of growth. In this episode, we reflect on what’s changed at Eucalyptus over the past few years, his lessons as a CEO of a rapidly-changing company, and making good on Euc’s mission to serve 1 million patients by 2027.

In this conversation, we cover: 

🤔 How Eucalyptus built resilience through tough decisions around redundancies (30:00)

🚀 Tim's strategy for making impact in a highly competitive industry (23:00)

🌏 Why Australian startups can thrive globally (50:00)

🧑‍⚕️ Tim’s reflections on trusting clinical professionals and giving up control (39:00)

This episode is not just about the challenges faced by Eucalyptus; it's a deep dive into the vision of a company that's transforming healthcare and doing so in one of the most competitive markets in the world. 

✨ What does it take for a startup to go from 14,000 users to 19 million in less than a year?

How about being acquired by Canva within two years of launching?

In the case of Leonardo AI, the answer lies in innovation, speed, and strategic growth, as explored in this episode of Wild Hearts featuring Leonardo AI co-founder and CEO JJ Fiasson.

Leonardo has transformed the world of generative AI, helping creators develop hyper-realistic art for gaming, video production, and marketing. In the words of JJ, the company ‘democratises creativity’ and makes artistic expression accessible to all.

🔍 Across two conversations and many months, we will dive deep into the stories behind Leonardo AI’s unprecedented growth and acquisition, and hear first-hand what it took to reach such heights at breakneck speed.

🤔 How Leonardo AI build the third-largest discord in the world.

🚀 JJ’s philosophy on how to achieve a dizzying product velocity.

🔥 The story behind building the first Australian-built foundational model, Phoenix.

🎨 How the Canva acquisition came about.

🎭 How JJ views AI in the context of human creativity.

This episode is not just about the technical marvels of Leonardo AI; it's a deep dive into the vision of a company that's redefining the boundaries of imagination.

What does it take to grow from one of the first hires to leading the team at one of NZ’s fastest-growing tech startups?

Welcome back to our Wild Heart Operator series!

This series is dedicated to surfacing the lessons from verified world class operators, the Australians and New Zealanders at the forefront of building generational companies. From product to manufacturing, engineering to marketing, each of these conversations is a masterclass in how someone at the top of their game gets it done. 

The answer is a mix of leadership, strategy, and the ability to adapt and thrive in a fast-paced environment.

In this episode of Wild Hearts, we’re excited to welcome Mikayla Hopkins, Head of Marketing at Tracksuit, a company empowering marketers with always-on tools that measure brand health and give them a seat at the boardroom table. Tracksuit is currently scaling globally, and Mikayla has been at the forefront of its marketing success.

We’ll dive deep into Mikayla’s journey from individual contributor to team leader, sharing insights into:

• Tracksuit’s unique marketing philosophy
• What makes a high-performing marketing team
• The key metrics Mikayla tracks as Head of Marketing
• The principles and tools the team relies on daily
• How Mikayla reinvented herself to grow alongside the company

If you're curious about scaling teams and brands, this is your episode.

Listen and subscribe on Apple & Spotify for more.

What does it take to go from running a family-owned service station to being the global chair of Tesla? 

The answer is curiosity, courage, connections and the ability to collect as many ‘Pokemon Cards’ (skills) as possible.

In this episode of Wild Hearts, we are honoured to be joined by Robyn Denholm - Global Chair of Tesla, Chair of the Tech Council of Australia, and Operating Partner here at Blackbird.

We’ll dive deep into the lesser-told stories from Robyn’s career to uncover the lessons and insights from her hall-of-fame rise to become a technology titan of industry.

• Why does Denholm credit curiosity for driving her career?
• What was it like navigating the Dot-Com Bubble?
• How did Denholm turn not getting the CFO role at Sun into a growth opportunity? 
• Why does Denholm believe balancing innovation with operational discipline is a key to company success? 

This episode is dedicated to Australian exceptionalism. 

How did two first time founders get so wise?

Paying customers in four countries within weeks of launch. Firms signing pilot agreements before a product existed. Advisers calling Marloo life-changing. Not useful, not efficient, life-changing.

The secret? Going slow to go fast.

Hardy and Shak met at Sharesies where they helped build one of New Zealand's most loved brands, before starting something of their own. But instead of jumping straight to building, they spent six months in the ideas maze finding the right problem - exploring roofing, trade finance, retiring businesses. They built a 20-point framework, then threw it away. "Frameworks don't find markets."

When they landed on financial advice, they embedded inside firms for days - watching, listening, earning trust - until they were certain this was an industry where they could build in for years to come. But even then, they didn't start coding. They kept refining until they could describe Marloo in three simple steps. Crystal clear. If they couldn't communicate it simply, they weren't ready to build it.

Most founders build first and figure out how to explain it later. Hardy and Shak did it backwards. And that's why, when they finally launched, the product sold itself.

Because they'd gone so deep on the problem, they could design for global from day one. Not because they got lucky, but because they'd built that way on purpose.

Hardy runs the company from London. Shak builds from New Zealand. They disagree often and think that's the point. Tension resolved, then they move. No relitigating. Just trust.

Marloo is just getting started. Remember the name.

This is our last episode of 2025. We'll be back in the new year. Happy holidays.

Forget what you think you know about building a new e-commerce experience because Carted sees the world differently. It’s a world where the merchant is no longer the only focus for commerce innovation.

In this episode, we talk to Holly Cardew, Carted’s Founder, about how they are changing the future of shopping by standardising and organising the world’s products into a shoppable knowledge graph.  

In Carted’s new ecosystem, shoppers are at the centre, and non-traditional commerce platforms will become the new vehicles for the world’s best contextual shopping experiences. As with all big, hard things - the journey is not linear. We touch on the beginnings of their product graph API with permissionless integrations and standardising a billion products, how that led to building a new multi-merchant contextual commerce experience for publishers - and then to where they are today with their consumer-facing API implementation, Swurl. 

All of these forked paths have led the team to exactly where they need to be.

Reshaping education and employment, with Tom Brunskill, Co-Founder of Forage

Forage is on a mission to transform career education and employment. By offering job simulations from leading companies, they enable students to gain real-world skills and experience, enabling them to make more informed decisions about the career they pursue. This innovative approach challenges traditional recruitment methods, focusing on education first to create a more inclusive and diverse talent pool.

✅ How Tom’s unique upbringing primed him to tackle the problem

✅ Transitioning from being an “unhappy lawyer” to founder

✅ Finding the formula for selling to enterprise clients

✅ The challenges of building a category-defining company

✅ The “holy grail” of personalised education

Want to learn more?

"Instead of hiring first and training second, you should actually be using software that educates the candidate pipeline first and then using that pool of talent and the signals that are surfaced in that experience to hire exceptional candidates"​

“We’re category defining, we’re painting a different future for what recruitment can look like, and that’s challenging. These companies have recruited in a very specific way for a very long time, and it can be challenging to will that future into existence.”

"I hope that education does become more responsive to workplace needs... It's about how do you broaden the surface area of luck for young people to end up in roles that do stimulate them"​

Unlocking a new way of living with Toby Thomas-Smith, Co-Founder of Kiki

Kiki is on a mission to revolutionise the way we live and connect. By leveraging the power of existing social ties, their unique peer-to-peer subletting platform enables users greater flexibility to travel, helping unlock new lifestyles, friendships and savings.

✅Growing a “cult-like” community around the ethos of subletting

✅Lessons from early mistakes launching in New Zealand

✅Launching in New York: Kiki’s global vision

“If we can pull this off, we're gonna change how a billion people live, and unchain a billion people from their rent.”

“Stop trying to boil the whole ocean. Find one rock pool. Boil the hell out of that rock pool… Build an ocean of rock pools… That’s why we ended up pivoting from the whole of Sydney, just to Bondi.”

[In the app] “Every single thing you see is intentional. For example… the first thing we push is the name of the person whose place it is. Person. This is not fucking Bondi bubble pad. This is Jenny's home, you know, Jenny's actual home… it's about people, it's about the connection.”

“We've literally had people run up to me in the street, cry in my arms, because they got to see their grandma for the last time before she passed away. Because they were able to go back and see her because they didn’t have to pay rent while they were gone.”

“New York is literally in crisis, it couldn't be worse to be honest. You know, people are paying 2. 5 times more rent on average than people in Sydney.”

✅Lessons from working at Atlassian

✅Detention & Sparring: “sacred rituals” of Dovetail’s design team

✅Balancing product simplicity with new features

✅Design thinking & the “double diamond” framework

Dovetail is on a mission to help the world improve the quality of everything. Dovetail’s customer insights hub allows teams to quickly analyse research data and share insights collaboratively, helping thousands of teams build better products by helping them understand their customers. 

“Everything is a design problem! It’s just a way to solve problems.”

“We have a few rituals that are sacred to the design team. One we call Design Detention, and the other is Design Sparring… They’re two pretty standard rituals that a lot of design teams have, usually they’re called collaboration & critique.”

“We have a ratio of about 1 designer to 6 engineers, and that feels like a good ratio for us. At Atlassian I think it was 1 designer to 8 engineers… so it just depends on the company culture and how fast the engineers move.”

“Once you have a product and you have users, you get so many feature requests, and it’s really easy to just build everything that everyone asks you to build. But you have to be quite thoughtful about what problem that is solving, how does that fit into your existing feature set?”