Ten years ago, Blackbook was a small Brisbane team with a firm belief that technology, paired with a genuine focus on the customer, could change how organisations work. Today we're more than 200 people across Australia, Southeast Asia and North America.
We could tell that story ourselves. But the people who know it best are the clients who were there for it: the ones who took a chance on a young startup, solved hard problems alongside us, and stuck around for the next project, and the one after that.
So for our tenth birthday, we asked them. Here's what they had to say.
Where it started
Automation was where it all began. At the time, many organisations were just starting to explore what it could do. They had processes that took too long and teams stuck on repetitive work, and they wanted to know whether this new technology could help.
So we started building. Some of our first clients took a chance on us early, and many are still with us today. Those first projects shaped how we've worked ever since: understand the problem first, then find the right technology to solve it.
Some of our earliest clients remember Blackbook AI before it really was Blackbook AI.
Michael Dines, formerly of Goodstart Early Learning, recalls the first meeting over a couple of drinks. "You guys were just starting out," he says. "You had some solutions and a firm belief that technology combined with a focus on delivering for the customer would work. I had a few business problems that I wasn't quite sure how we were going to solve. And together, jeez, we kicked some goals."
Greg Booker, formerly of RACQ, remembers a delegation telling him about "some really cool work with a Brisbane startup." That was his first chance to meet Thuy and Jason.
When Nish Mehare, then at AGL, flew up to Brisbane in May 2018 looking for a robotics partner, Jason picked him up from the airport himself. "Not even my dad has done that," Nish jokes. What struck him most was the team of four or five: "We had a marine biologist, artists, accountants, all coming together to be part of the robotics automation team."
His takeaway? Blackbook AI was "realistic but still ambitious," and willing to back that ambition with everything it had.
Growing together
The best measure of a partnership is what it makes possible over time.
Glenn Waterson, GM Retail Transformation at AGL, is candid about where things began. "When we first started doing automation, honestly, I had no idea what we were doing," he says. The Blackbook AI team helped AGL understand where it was heading and choose its first automation platform. Today, AGL processes around five million transactions a year through that tooling. "None of that would have been possible without the collaboration and the expertise," Glenn says.
WorkPac has been with us for the entire decade. Mark Peterson notes that Thuy was the first engineer on WorkPac's very first Blackbook AI project, "and we've had many successful ones since."
The relationships often outlast the job titles, too. Sameer Oghanna has partnered with us at Gallagher and now at Eagers Automotive. "Both times, you've really helped me cement a position in the company I've been with," he says. Nish puts it even more generously: "It would be foolish of me to say I've contributed to the success of Blackbook. Rather, Blackbook has contributed immensely to the success I've had in my career."
What hasn't changed
A lot has changed in ten years. But when our clients talk about Blackbook AI, they keep coming back to the same thing: the people.
"What stands out to me is what hasn't changed," says Nick Doss at Woolworths. "The same beliefs, same principles. From day one, you've always brought the human side to business. It's never just been about the dollars. There's always a person at the other end of every conversation."
Sometimes that shows up in the smallest moments. Mark Peterson remembers a frantic call from WorkPac's office manager: crates of three to four hundred computers had been left out in the car park. "By the time I got to the office, to my surprise, the data scientist from Blackbook was stripped down to his singlet, lugging the computers inside for us." For Mark, it's moments like that, the team going above and beyond and becoming part of the WorkPac team, that he remembers most fondly.
Alvita Dias from RACV sums up the decade as a story of courage, resilience and, above all, strong relationships.
Thank you, and here's to the next ten
To every client, partner and team member who has been part of the last decade: thank you. Our success is built on yours, and on the trust you placed in us long before we had a track record to show for it.
The next decade is already taking shape. AI is opening up opportunities our early clients could only imagine, and we're excited to keep building them alongside the people who got us here.
Here's to the next ten!
