At the core of Blackbird is our community. Everything we do at Blackbird is built around helping our founders succeed. The Blackbird Founder Success (Community) team sits at the centre of how we deliver on this mission, from the 1:1 relationships we nurture to creating new products that level up our founders, operators and beyond.

We have been building our Founder Success team at Blackbird over the last year. Now we are looking for a Portfolio Community Manager to become the beating heart of our portfolio programming and play a pivotal role in scaling our offerings for a growing portfolio.

This is a chance to get a front-row seat to how great companies build, scale, and operate and to build your career as a super-contributor to the ANZ startup community. There is magic everywhere in our portfolio, and few people will get a better first-hand view of this than you.

The Role

We are looking for someone to bring the full force of their creativity to help further our portfolio community offerings.

The role is portfolio facing, meaning you spend 100 percent of your time focused on running community operations for our hundreds of portfolio founders and operators, splitting that time 70% on the operator community (the teams who build the companies we back) and 30% on the founder community. You'll delight our portfolio founders from their first interaction with the Founder Success team and supercharge their teams through relationships, programming and products.

Your core role as a Portfolio Community Manager will include:

Founder Onboarding: Help run the operations of our founder onboarding process and programs, taking ownership of a 10/10 experience for all newly invested Blackbird Founders.

Build operators programs: Build, and execute on, a bottom-up engagement plan for and program experience to help connect and level up and build the careers of the Blackbird operators.

Super connector: You'll support the portfolio community in making 1:1 connections, finding the right person to answer our founders and operators questions, hosting small and large events, training sessions, and retreats.

Drive engagement: You'll analyse our portfolio engagement patterns to improve our programs and facilitate meaningful connections with hundreds and eventually thousands of community members.

Portfolio comms: You'll write the weekly portfolio newsletters to update our community on upcoming events and news. You'll also create and send program onboarding emails and own the comms on any programs or products you create.

Position Requirements

Your background is less important than the key skills and attributes, which include:

Hospitality mindset. We believe in the philosophy of "enlightened hospitality", and it lies at the heart of everything that we do at Blackbird. We serve our founders, not the other way around. We are about people, not companies.

Execution machine. You have a knack for details, never drop the ball, and you can't wait to take on the next task with the same level of energy. 

Creative and original thinker: You're not satisfied with doing what's been done before and are energised by taking a knotty problem and building an original solution from scratch.

Community builder. Previous experience scaling a community would be awesome, but not a must. You will, however, be a natural people connector, and someone creates community around you. 

High integrity, humility and ownership. No task is too small for us, and no ambition is too big. We all take out the garbage. You will be scrappy, move quickly and never hesitate to roll up your sleeves.

Working at Blackbird

We believe that building a diverse and inclusive team is critical to Blackbird’s success. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. We use Applied to ensure every applicant gets an equal chance of success.

We offer:

• Flexible working: Whether it’s working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.

• Generous parental leave: We know family comes first and we are proud to offer generous parental leave - 16 weeks for primary carer and 6 weeks for a secondary carer, subject to a 12 month minimum tenure. This includes a continuation of super payments while on unpaid parental leave and a supportive return-to-work policy.

• Learning & Development Budget: Our team is hungry to continuously learn and you’ll receive a budget to spend on whatever you’d like to learn - from coding courses to meditation.

• Unplugged weekends: We work hard without letting work get in the way of life. We’ve implemented no Slack or emails on weekends, so you can switch off and enjoy yourself.

• A share of Blackbird’s success: We think it is important to share successes with the whole team. All Blackbird employees receive carry in our funds and are owners in the management company.

Blackbird is a Pledge 1% member —  we pledge 1% of our time, equity and profits to help not-for-profit causes in our community. Through Pledge 1%, we established the Blackbird Foundation to supercharge the creative capabilities of young people.

In 2021, we were recognised in top 5 technology workplaces in the AFR Best Places to Work List, as well as winning Best Employee Experience.

About Blackbird

Blackbird is a venture capital firm whose mission is to supercharge Australia and New Zealand’s most ambitious founders. We do this by raising venture capital funds, investing into the best startup companies and helping them succeed. We have more than a billion dollars under management and a portfolio of over 68 companies including some of the most successful Australian startups such as Canva, Zoox, Safety Culture and CultureAmp.

We are inspired by investment firms such as Berkshire Hathaway and Bridgewater Associates. Like the companies we back, we want to build a business that lasts for decades and produces excellent returns for our investors. Most of all, we want to support our region’s most talented founders build category-defining technology companies.

We’ve written a lot about what we love at Blackbird, so check out our blog if you want some more information about us. In particular, you should read about our mission and values, our master plan, and what we look for in founders.