Introducing Blackbird Monthly. Your shortcut to our community.
Welcome to Edition 01 of Blackbird Monthly for 2020. Each month, we’ll deliver to your inbox our latest updates, including topics we’ve found interesting, advice and interviews from our community; plus we’ll keep you up-to-date with career opportunities in our network.
First up, here’s what the Blackbird team got up to in January.
Welcome new Blackbirds. Over the New Year, we welcomed five amazing new Blackbirds to the team.
- Sophie Taylor joins as Chief of Staff (CoS). FYI, the CoS is on the rise.
- Dani Pinkus has joined our community team as People Lead.
- Justine Nangle is our new General Counsel.
- Clark Carter is our new Head of Productivity.
- Lucia Salim joins as a Financial Accountant.
Incidentally, we’ve discovered the beginnings of a trend in our hiring; Dan, Dani, Sophie, Sophia, Justina, Justine and Nick and Niki.
Our NZ story begins. Sam and Tip have officially touched down and set up an office in Ponsonby, Auckland, NZ. Michael, Tip and Sam have been meeting founders and operators from lighthouse companies in Auckland and Wellington on a Startmate NZ roadshow. Startmate NZ will be launching in July 2020 to help raise the ambitions of Kiwi founders and surround them with world class mentors. Stay tuned!
Startmate Fellowship. Applications for the next Startmate Fellowship are now open. The cohort will be open to women from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences, with the aim of creating new pathways into startups. Find out more and apply via the Startmate website.
Top Reads in January
2020 Startup Themes. Dan Gross shared 11 markets and themes for the year.
Customer Network is the next big thing. Networks have super powers when it comes to word of mouth, network effects and stickiness.
Inside Australia’s race for quantum computing. Quantum computing promises to change the way we live, and two Australian universities are taking very different paths in search of the elusive prize.
On OKRs. If you’re thinking of implementing an OKR system or you need a refresher on the framework, here a leader’s guide to implementing OKR.
Blackbird updated our parental leave policy. We amended our parental leave policy in January to include stillbirth and neonatal death with the ambition of inspiring other companies in our ecosystem to follow suit.
How will you measure your life? In memory of American academic Clayton Christensen, who passed away in late January, read the seminal set of guidelines that helped him find meaning in his own life.
Community Movers and Shakers
👏Ask Nicely opened their first European office in Amsterdam.
👏Baraja received a glowing writeup in TechCrunch on shining through a crowded industry.
👏Nura showcased its second and much anticipated Nuraloop at CES.
👏Canva launched Canva for Education with its pro features available to teachers and students for free.
👏Kin launched to rave user reviews.
👏 Dovetail ran its first 30-hour hackathon and shared the results.
Spotlight On: Isobel Clarkson Director Of Operations at Propeller Aero
Introducing Blackbird’s monthly sit down with talented leaders and rising stars in our community. Read our interview with Isobel here.
Find Your Seat On a Rocketship
Dani here, Blackbird’s new People Lead. Vinod Khosla once said, “a company becomes the people it hires, the task then is to attract people.” This sums up my role and mission at Blackbird; to act as a talent magnet for our portfolio companies.
Inspired by programs such as Code like a Girl and UNSW Competitive robotics team, over the next 12 months I will begin creating programs and pathways for talented people to find their dream job in our ecosystem.
I am here to help everyone from: students and graduates, talented engineers looking to contribute to mission-driven work, corporate operators, and anyone who is driven and ready to find their seat on a rocketship.
If that’s you, I want to know who you are!
1% Improvement, Marginal Gains in 2020
“Get thoughts out of your brain and where they belong as soon as you can. Be it a task list, journal entry, reminder, or email. This will free your brain up to do what it does best. I find the Drafts app really helpful for this, but can be as simple as writing it down in a notebook,” Blackbird Head of Productivity Clark Carter.
Productivity Related links:
See you next month!
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