Christopher McDonald

📣 Mesa has raised a $5M seed round to transform code review with their multi-agent architecture! Mesa built the world's first multi-agent code review system where specialized subagents go through your code like a team of senior engineers. When Oliver Gilan & Ben Warren were building at SPC, they uncovered a problem: code review was the primary bottleneck for development velocity. Engineers were burning hundreds of hours on reviews they didn't enjoy, and still, critical bugs and security vulnerabilities were slipping through to production. Existing code review agents weren't solving it, they couldn't tailor reviews to specific codebases, didn't let teams control which models to use, and their pricing wasn't aligned with actual usage. On Mesa, you can define custom agents that focus on specific dimensions: database schemas, frontend code, security patterns, business logic. Frontend updates use faster, cheaper agents. You control the models. You only pay for tokens used, at cost. Mesa handles the subset of PRs that don't need human eyes while elevating review quality on everything else. The $5M seed round was led by Innovation Endeavors, with participation from SPC, Essence Venture Capital, and angels including Thomas Wolf, Soleio ​, and Boris Jabes. Congratulations Oliver Gilan & Ben Warren!

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This week at BlueprintLab 🚀 👥 Wrapped up 5 user interviews with fellow startups 🛠️ Finalised our beta launch plan and early pilot structure 📝 Made progress on our NSW MVP Ventures grant application ✨ We’re starting to notice that for early-stage teams, it’s less about having another project management tool and more about having someone (or something) to catch what falls through the cracks and keeps everyone accountable. ❓If your team is 2–50 people, I’d love to hear how you currently keep track of tasks — do you lean more on tools, or on memory? #Startups #BetaLaunch #ProductDevelopment #Collaboration #FutureOfWork

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Stop forcing your business into someone else's software. We work with Australian business leaders running 100-400 person companies who are tired of generic SaaS that doesn't fit their unique operations. You've probably tried it – expensive subscriptions that promise everything but deliver nothing specific to YOUR workflows. Here's the truth: off-the-shelf software is built for everyone, which means it's optimized for no one. What if you could have AI systems custom-built for YOUR exact business processes? Systems that: ✓ Actually work with your specific workflows (not against them) ✓ Keep your data under YOUR control – no vendor lock-in ✓ Cost a fraction of those bloated SaaS subscriptions ✓ Give you a genuine competitive edge over competitors stuck with generic tools Bespoke AI solutions aren't a luxury anymore – they're the difference between companies that scale efficiently and those that get bogged down in processes that don't fit. We've built the Performance-First Framework specifically for Australian businesses like yours. Custom-built systems that eliminate wasted human capital, streamline operations, and actually deliver ROI. Ready to build something that actually works for your business? Let's talk. #AustralianBusiness #AITransformation #DigitalTransformation #BusinessTech #SME #CustomSoftware #PerformanceManagement #AustralianTech

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🤯 Aussie SMEs are in a developer hiring crisis. When a “$120K” dev actually costs you $166K+ after super, tax, leave, equipment, and recruiter fees… scaling becomes impossible. The smartest businesses aren’t burning cash - they’re augmenting local teams with offshore developers: 🌏 Senior-level talent from Sri Lanka & SE Asia 💰 40–70% cost savings 🗣 English-speaking, time zone aligned ⚡ Vetted in 48 hours, ready to go Webco Talent makes it easy, transparent, and Australian-managed. 📲 See why your next developer shouldn’t drain your runway.

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Vercel's COO Jeanne DeWitt Grosser joins Georgie Healy to unpack what the next era of engineering actually looks like and why founders and operators need to rethink how they build right now, not later. They start with something close to home: Jeanne landing in Sydney for just 48 hours, squeezing in the Bondi to Coogee walk before flying out, and building a product PRD on Claude somewhere over the Pacific. But the conversation quickly moves into much bigger territory. From the real bottlenecks holding back AI agents in production to why 2026 is the year enterprises finally stop talking and start shipping, Jeanne explains how Vercel is building the infrastructure layer that makes all of it possible. They get into what the future of engineering actually looks like, why the best engineers of tomorrow will be defined by vision and taste rather than lines of code, and how a single well orchestrated founder with 20 AI agents could build a unicorn. Jeanne also shares what Stripe taught her about design partnerships, how Vercel is closing the loop between go-to-market and engineering, and why non-technical people are already winning with tools like V0. Plus: the GTM engineer role most companies have not hired yet, why AI ROI frameworks are broken, what she built on Claude on her flight over, and the one sales adage from her Stripe days that every founder needs to hear. 🎧 Link in comments

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Top Web Development Companies in Australia: What Clients Actually Pay If you're shopping for a website in 2026, you need to know the real numbers. Not the "starting from $999" nonsense, the actual investment top Australian businesses are making. The Honest Pricing Breakdown: DIY Builders : $600–$1,000/year Wix, Squarespace, Shopify. Budget-friendly but limited design flexibility and SEO potential. Best for hobby sites, not serious businesses. Freelancers : $50–$150/hour Cheapest entry point. Downside? Higher revision costs, timeline slips, and zero accountability once they disappear. Small Business Websites : $5,000–$10,000 The sweet spot. Custom WordPress builds, 6-10 pages, lead capture forms, mobile responsive. This is what most professional Australian businesses are investing in. eCommerce Websites : $10,000–$25,000+ Payment gateways, inventory management, customer data integration. A quality online store costs serious money because it's mission-critical. Enterprise/Custom Solutions: $25,000–$100,000+ Large corporations needing advanced integrations (CRM, ERP, custom dashboards), multi-location management, complex workflows. The Hidden Costs Nobody Talks About: Monthly hosting: $10–$100 Ongoing maintenance: $100–$2,000/month Content creation: $150–$300 per page SEO setup: $1,500–$4,000 Professional copywriting: Additional budget needed Location Matters. Sydney designers charge 20-30% more than regional counterparts. A $10,000 project in Melbourne might be $8,000 in Brisbane. The Real Insight: Top agencies charge $80–$200/hour because they deliver speed, expertise, and accountability. The cheaper option often means revisions, delays, and post-launch support gaps. Your website isn't an expense, it's your sales infrastructure. What matters most: clarity on what's included, fixed pricing (not hourly), and post-launch support. Are you building or rebuilding? #WebDevelopment #WebDesign #AustralianBusiness #DigitalTransformation #SMB #eCommerce #TechInvestment #WebAgency #StartupGrowth #DigitalMarketing

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💸 "But Google Forms is free!" Sure. And so is duct tape. Both work... until they don't. Here's what "free" actually costs Australian sports clubs: **Time Cost:** • 6 hours/week manually exporting Google Forms data • 4 hours/week chasing missing payments • 8 hours/week reconciling spreadsheets across 5 different tools • 3 hours/week fixing broken formulas = 21 hours/week of volunteer time = $15,750/year in volunteer labor (at $15/hr) **Financial Cost:** • Lost registrations (friction = dropoff) • Late payment fees from delayed bank transfers • Overpayments nobody tracked • Duplicate entries causing refund admin **Relationship Cost:** • Parents frustrated by clunky processes • Volunteers burning out from repetitive work • Committee tension over "who updated what where" • Lost members who just... give up The real question isn't: "Can we afford purpose-built tools?" It's: "Can we afford NOT to use them?" What "free" tools miss: ❌ Integrated payment processing (stripe, PayID) ❌ Automated reminders and follow-ups ❌ Role-based permissions (treasurer ≠ coach) ❌ Real-time sync across devices ❌ Audit trails for compliance ❌ Mobile-first design ❌ Australian tax/privacy requirements ❌ Support when things break What purpose-built club management tools provide: ✅ Everything talking to everything (no manual data transfer) ✅ One source of truth (no conflicting spreadsheets) ✅ Automated workflows (set it and forget it) ✅ Member self-service (less admin burden) ✅ Compliance built-in (AGM reports in 2 clicks) "Free" works when you're a 12-person book club. When you're managing 200+ members, $50K+ in revenue, 40 volunteers, and legal compliance requirements... "Free" becomes the most expensive option. Your volunteer time is worth something. Your member experience is worth something. Your club's sustainability is worth something. Sometimes the cheapest tool is the one that costs money. What "free" tool is costing your club more than you realize? #SportsClubs #ClubManagement #CommunityOrganisations #Nonprofits #AustralianSport

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6-12 months ago, companies would want to know that you were open to AI use. Now, as a Senior, Staff or Principal Engineer, it's a fundamental requirement. Generally speaking, the startups and scaleups we work with (who naturally have the most capable engineering teams in Australia) won't consider Senior+ engineering talent that isn't using AI to achieve more. Most of them think about AI usage in 2 ways, with most also wanting to see evidence of both in anyone they hire at this level. The 1st is that it's now a non negotiable expectation for senior engineers to be using Claude, Cursor, or similar to move faster. It's not a preference anymore. They'll test for it during interviews, sometimes obviously, sometimes through technical challenges that are essentially impossible without AI help. But make no mistake, your ability to use AI *is* being tested. These companies have seen what their best engineers are doing compared to a couple of years ago, and the improvements in are truly too good to ignore. Some engineers may feel that AI slows them down... They would say that if you're slowed by AI, that's a skill issue, and a you problem - one they aren't interested in hiring. To be clear though, if you're using AI to write code in languages you don't know, or to architect systems you couldn't build yourself is *not* what they want to see. The best engineering environments view AI as an insanely fast working, incredibly stupid assistant. If you can't explain step by step how something needs to be built, you should never ask AI to build it. The 2nd is that they want you to think about how AI can improve the product and the customer experience. Truth is, the best engineers have always had a product mindset anyway - but again, it's becoming non-negotiable now. AI, and every new and improved model released, opens up new opportunities for companies to improve their product, or to increase the value they provide to their customers. As an engineer who's close to the code and the technology, the expectation is now on you to spot these opportunities. Again, if you can't do it, it's viewed as a you problem, and ultimately someone else will end up being hired. This is why when most engineers talk about a 'bad market' with 'no opportunities', you'll hear of other engineers getting inundated with huge demand and multiple offers. There are now engineers who can do these things, and engineers who can't. The former gets hired. The latter does not. Also, if you're still comfortable with hiring the latter - good luck I guess...

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New fraud & card attack prevention software feature drop for WooCommerce merchants by OPMC Australia: 💪Card Attack Cleanups💪 I’m really pleased about this new feature we’ve just released in v7.1.6 of our software. And this is our 26th software release for 2025! One of the biggest pain points of having a card attack is then having to deal with cleaning up all the fake orders your site has had! It is therefore inevitable that we’d release a new feature to take the hassle out of that cleanup when customers upgrade to protection with our software, and we’re pretty happy about it! Even if you’ve had thousands of fake orders the past 2 days, it will now take seconds to remove them from your store. And this is just a basic version of the feature. We hope to add an advanced option in the near future too ☺️ This feature was a sudden realisation one day, as we had put on the backburner a more advanced version of this feature and then realised there was a much simpler way to get this kind of tech into the hands of our customers. And so here we are! And the software’s currently 40% off. It seems like a good deal given that includes a year of support and dozens of product releases annually? https://lnkd.in/gm7xbwK4

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🎯 Software Lifecycle Support: Brownfield App Rescue Today, we're diving into a real success story at HelloDev Pty Ltd. We recently partnered with a tradie-focused client facing challenges with an outdated asset management app. The system, tangled in proprietary code from a former developer, was unsupported and falling out of sync with industry standards. With our expert team, we conducted a comprehensive overhaul, ensuring seamless migration to a modern, user-friendly interface. The result? Improved asset tracking, reduced operational bottlenecks, and enhanced user satisfaction. 💬 Client Story: Meet Dan. (Tool Protect) Frustrated with an outdated app that was hindering productivity, he turned to HelloDev for a transformative solution. We streamlined their onboarding process, untangled legacy code, and introduced intuitive features for seamless data recording and retrieval. 👉 Contact hello@hellodev.com.au 📬 Or use the webform at hellodev.com.au for a free consult #SoftwareRescue #LegacySystems #HelloDevSupport #TechTransformation #ThursdayThoughts

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Had a bad time hiring offshore developers? The problem probably wasn't the talent. Most companies go one of three routes: Freelance platforms - you're drowning in applications, half ghost you after the first week, and you've got no idea if their portfolio is even real. BPOs - they assign you whoever's available, mark up every hour, and the person doing the work changes every few months. Outsourcing firms - you hand off a project, lose all control, and pray it comes back working. When it doesn't, good luck getting anyone on the phone. None of these models are built for you to actually build a team. They're built to bill you. Here's what actually works: Hire the developer directly. They work for you, on your team, in your workflows. One-off placement fee. No ongoing markups. You're in control. https://lnkd.in/eR6yDajF

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We thought no-code would be enough. It wasn’t. At launch, we utilised a no-code platform to expedite the release of our product. It worked until it didn’t. The UI was clunky Performance dropped as users grew Custom features were nearly impossible And support tickets started piling up We were spending more time putting out fires than building. So, we finally invested in custom web development. ✅ Clean, fast user dashboard ✅ Direct integrations with Slack, Notion, and Google ✅ Backend built for scale ✅ Load times cut drastically The impact? 67% increase in sign-ups 50% fewer support issues More time spent building the product, not fixing it Custom development wasn’t just a tech upgrade; it was the turning point for our growth. If your MVP is holding you back, it might be time to build something that can scale. #Startup #SaaS #ProductGrowth #CustomDevelopment #NoCode #TechJourney

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Finding a technical co-founder shouldn't take months 🎯 Just released: a 3-minute demo showing how to connect with pre-vetted, startup-ready developers in the ANZ region using SkillsRobin. No account, or payment needed. The difference? Every developer is: ✅ Based in ANZ ✅ Interested in being contacted by early stage founders ✅ Pre-vetted - comes with a reference from a trusted professional in the ANZ tech ecosystem "SkillsRobin connected us with exceptional talent to add to our engineering team. Especially loved that they were pre-vetted, which helped our hiring process and gave us the assurance in selecting the right candidates." - Sreyna Rath, Co-founder, at Jaimee 👀 See how it works:

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