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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

✨ 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

❤️‍🔥Episode 6, Season 4 “Ship less, but better”, with Lucy Denton, Head of Design at Dovetail ✅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,...

Searching the way we think with Jesse Clark, co-founder of Marqo ✅Lessons from working at Stitch Fix and Amazon ✅What it means to be truly “developer first” ✅The decision to make Marqo open source ✅Who will be the winners and losers of the AI revolution   Marqo is building a revolutionary framework that provides search functionality to developers, allowing their applications to search anything - text, images, video, audio - with human-like understanding. Marqo makes it possible to do things...

EdApp is changing workplace education and training with accessible and engaging mobile learning which leverages microlearning and gamification. By using a freemium model, and through their partnerships with NGOs such as the United Nations, EdApp is empowering and educating millions of learners around the world. ✅ Deciding to join SafetyCulture rather than raise venture capital ✅ Importance of thinking global from day one ✅ Hiring the hungry, not the proven ✅ Advantages of freemium...

Welcome back to another episode of Wild Hearts. One Blackbird described this week's episode as ‘My favourite episode yet. Laura is incredibly charismatic, I was riveted from start to finish!’ Outtakes:  ✅ How cyber threats are shifting with the rise of AI ✅ The value of authenticity when community-building  ✅ A step by step guide to protecting your cyber borders ✅ The power of storytelling for teaching and learning Within the episode, we explore the shifting landscape of cybersecurity, where...

Lessons on Scaling Eucalyptus as Head of Growth and frameworks for leadership with CCO, Joe Harris. A layer-by-layer framework for building your growth function  Misalignment in team design and how that manifests into frustration  The four main areas of greatness you need as a leader How to tackle the gnarliest beast of any business: Attribution Today’s episode is special. It marks a new era for Wild Hearts, where we will shine a light on world-class operators. The goal is to reveal...

The step-by-step guide to building a marketplace with Levi Fawcett, Co-Founder of Partly.  How making mistakes can lead to finding the right problem Realising that New Zealand can compete with the Silicon Valley's The importance of learning the process vs. framework distinction  Building conviction through learning-oriented mental models Partly's mission is to reimagine how the world interacts with vehicle parts in smarter ways that build a more connected and lasting world. To achieve...

Changing the conversation on sexual wellness with Lucy Wark, founder of Normal (live Sunrise edition) ✅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...

The tipping point of believability with Mary Minas and Freya Berwick, co-founders of Sense Of Self ✅How to build an audience before launching ✅Overcoming the adversity that arrives with launching a bathhouse during COVID ✅Leaning on your values as a decision making tool ✅Challenges in finding investors aligned to Mary and Freya’s vision Sense Of Self came out of Mary and Freya’s dream to create an Australian space that would draw on global practices to meet modern wellness needs in an...

Transforming the world’s experience of work with Samantha Gadd, co-founder of Excellent ✅How expectations of employees have evolved ✅Being “customer obsessed” vs “employee obsessed” ✅Giving employees an opportunity to shape their work lives ✅Strategies to avoid burnout ✅Challenging early days of creating a community of EX designers ✅Employee branding: the promise you make to your people Excellent’s mission is to transform people’s experience of work, to enable a world where missions are...

Building a 100 year company with Ross Chaldecott, co-founder of Kinde Lessons from Atlassian, Campaign Monitor & Shopify How to approach building a 100 year company Raising a $10.6 million seed round Why the best designers are the best problem solvers.  Kinde’s ambition is a reflection of its co-founder, Ross Chaldecott. Ross believes every founder has the potential to unlock the future of human achievement - and that everyone should have the tools and the opportunity to...

Unleashing your Zilla with Hartley Pike, co-founder of Sitemate ✅ Lessons from the Startmate Accelerator: “The incline on the learning curve was immense” ✅ “Daylighting”: solving issues in the company through radical transparency ✅ “Drafting”: following in the wake of a more established company ✅ Reframing Sitemate’s weaknesses as their biggest strengths ✅ Sitemate’s vision for the future of engineers in the built world Sitemate builds software for the built world. Its vision is to enable...

Unlocking the capacity of human minds with Duncan Anderson, co-founder of Edrolo ✅Why unlocking the capacity of students could fundamentally change humanity ✅The cycle of learning: thinking, building, observing & synthesising ✅How Edrolo are building “content technology” ✅Becoming “artist-scientists” and creating repeatable beauty ✅How to help kids discover a “love of learning”  Edrolo’s mission is to improve education and the future lives of learners.  Find Edrolo's website here:...