Wild Hearts

Blackbird Ventures
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  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated weekly

Wild Hearts is the podcast that reveals the real-time lessons from the founders and operators changing the world.

  1. Mason Yates What gives you the most energy?

    5 days ago

    Mason Yates What gives you the most energy?

    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.

    8 min
  2. Rory Garton-Smith & Harry Dixon: They saw the gap. Nobody else did.

    19 May

    Rory Garton-Smith & Harry Dixon: They saw the gap. Nobody else did.

    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.

    55 min
  3. Min-Kyu Jung: No offense, kid

    12 May

    Min-Kyu Jung: No offense, kid

    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.

    1hr 10min
  4. Hardy Michel & Shak Lala: Go slow to go fast

    16/12/2025

    Hardy Michel & Shak Lala: Go slow to go fast

    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.

    1hr 1min
  5. Jeka Viktorova: Six weeks from dying, then the world came knocking

    09/12/2025

    Jeka Viktorova: Six weeks from dying, then the world came knocking

    This is the most technical episode we've ever done. Listen anyway. Yes, there are acronyms. Yes, you'll learn what a chiplet is. Worth it. But here's what you'll actually get: one of the best founder conversations we've recorded. Not because of the tech—but because of the humanity inside the tech. Last year, Syenta had six weeks of cash left. No term sheets. The technology her team was building? The world's biggest semiconductor manufacturers said it was impossible. Two weeks later, she had four offers on the table. Now she's backed by the US government, Singapore, and Arizona. What changed? Not the tech. The story. "When you're trying to do something inauthentic—that is not your DNA as a founder—you're not gonna raise money," Jeka says. "Lately I haven't been selling at all. I've been just talking to people about what we do." This episode is about falling in love with a problem so completely you move across the world to solve it. It's about building a team that burns the boats. It's about sharing your vulnerable vision before you feel ready. It's about being proud to be a tall poppy when Australian culture tells you to shrink. The semiconductor stuff? It's actually fascinating once Jeka explains it. (AI chips sit idle 40% of the time because the wiring can't keep up. Her tech fixes that. Potential impact: 1% of global emissions saved.) But even if you skip every technical detail, you'll walk away with lessons about fundraising in brutal markets, building culture through failure-sharing rituals, and going straight to the top instead of pushing from the bottom. We've included a glossary in the episode description if you want it. You probably won't need it.

    55 min
  6. Adam Gilmour: We took the risk first. Then the government came.

    02/12/2025

    Adam Gilmour: We took the risk first. Then the government came.

    Most founders wait for perfect conditions. Not Adam Gilmour. He started Gilmour Space before Australia even had a space agency. On July 30, that bet paid off. Australia's first launch permit. Fourteen seconds of flight. Right in the middle of the pack globally - SpaceX took four attempts to reach orbit. Those 14 seconds proved everything that mattered: cleared ranges, ground systems working, hold-down claws releasing 45 tons of thrust flawlessly. Stage zero validated. And a month earlier? A 100kg satellite reached orbit, found in under 8 hours instead of the expected 2 weeks, still working 130+ days later. "For a satellite company, that would've been massive," Adam says. "But we're a rocket company, so no one gives a shit." Adam knew the regulations would change. He knew government support would come. "We took the risk first. Then government comes. I knew they would come." He started building anyway: 240 people in Queensland doing rockets, satellites, and hypersonics that foreign investors "cannot believe." This episode takes you inside launch day: the orchestra of mission control, time vanishing in the final countdown, the moment Eris leapt off the pad. Adam talks about why he's building satellite buses to fix broken market economics, the path to dual-listing on the ASX and US exchanges, and going around the moon in 10 years. If you're building deep tech from Australia and wondering whether to wait for perfect conditions, Adam's already answered that question. "Stay tuned. Smoke and fire."

    41 min
  7. Alex Wyatt: When seven years of platform work becomes seven-week product cycles

    25/11/2025

    Alex Wyatt: When seven years of platform work becomes seven-week product cycles

    Most robotics companies die trying to build their first product. Alex Wyatt spent seven years building the platform so the second product took seven weeks. When August Robotics launched their exhibition robot in November 2019, it blew up - standing ovation, early revenue, real momentum. Then COVID hit. Exhibitions banned globally for 23 months. Zero revenue. Total cliff. But under that first robot was something almost no robotics company ever builds: a platform: autonomous navigation accurate to 3mm, custom localisation, fleet coordination, modular architecture. The long, painful, expensive work that many startups can't survive. Then it paid off. → Seven weeks from concept to prototype for their drilling robot → Google as their first demo and customer → 50,000 holes drilled across US data centres → DeWalt partnership unlocking entire tool ecosystems → More robots spinning out in months, not years Alex is also opening an AI and data centre in Melbourne, choosing to build the next layer of August's platform from Australia, not just Silicon Valley or Shenzhen. This episode breaks down the real hardware platform playbook: robot collaboration that collapses workflows, de-risking with hyperscaler customers, and why the "third way" of robotics creates network effects in physical space. Alex also talks about surviving 23 months of zero revenue, going from Blackbird LP to portfolio founder, and why he waited a decade for the timing to actually be right. If you're building hardware from Australia, fundraising deep tech, or wondering when long-horizon bets actually flip into growth - this is the one.

    1hr 4min
  8. Nikki Brown: When you stop being a cog, you become the machine

    18/11/2025

    Nikki Brown: When you stop being a cog, you become the machine

    Nikki Brown is a Cambridge graduate who quit a dream job at Google after mere months. "I wasn't happy being a cog in a machine," she says. So she built her own. Today, Nikki is co-founder and CEO of Cartesian, an AI-native platform backed by Blackbird that turns SaaS ecosystems into retention and growth engines. Cartesian's AI agents analyse user needs in real-time, detect buying intent, and connect users with the right ecosystem partners at exactly the moment they need them. No cold emails. No spray and pray. The result: users get personalised solutions, platforms deliver value, partners grow. Nikki is building AI that works like she does: accumulating context and using it to connect meaningfully at the right moment. Finance gave her systems thinking. Tragedy gave her clarity. 120 conversations gave her deep customer insight. In this episode, Nikki joins Mason to share why team beats idea every time, why relationships, not data, are the real moat, and why the foundations of sales never change: "People buy from people." This one's for anyone questioning whether their "non-traditional" background disqualifies them - or wondering if their lived experience might just be the context that matters most.

    1hr 1min
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About

Wild Hearts is the podcast that reveals the real-time lessons from the founders and operators changing the world.

Information

  • Creator
    Blackbird Ventures
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    88
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Blackbird Ventures
  • Show Website
    Wild Hearts

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