Time to acquisition
6 months
2020 - 2023
Building VenueSafe from idea to acquisition in six months
VenueSafe was built during COVID to help venues and hospitality businesses operate safely. I co-founded the company, took it from idea to acquisition by me&u in six months, then stayed on to help scale the product to 15M+ users and support the US expansion from Austin, Texas.
Visit VenueSafePrimary problem
COVID contact tracing for venues
Outcome
Acquired by me&u
Scale after acquisition
15M+ users globally
The problem
VenueSafe was built during COVID when venues, hospitality businesses, and their customers needed a practical way to handle contact tracing and compliance.
The need was urgent, the operating environment was changing quickly, and the product had to be clear, fast, and reliable from day one.
What I built
As co-founder and CTO, I helped take VenueSafe from idea to working product under intense time pressure.
The focus was zero-to-one execution: ship the right product quickly, respond to real operator needs, and make the experience simple enough for broad adoption.
- Built the initial product during the highest-pressure stage of the pandemic.
- Helped take the business from idea to acquisition by me&u in six months.
- Shaped both the engineering execution and the product direction.
Acquisition and scale
After VenueSafe was acquired by me&u, I stayed on and continued working on the product as part of a much larger platform and team.
That post-acquisition phase mattered because it shifted the work from early product creation to scaling, operational reliability, and broader market expansion.
- Helped scale the acquired product footprint to 15M+ users globally.
- Moved to Austin, Texas to support me&u's US expansion.
What this case study shows
VenueSafe is the clearest example of the kind of work I like most: finding a real problem, moving quickly, and taking a product from zero to meaningful scale.
It also shows the through-line in my career: build fast, stay close to the user, and then keep going when the problem shifts from invention to scale.
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© 2026 Matthew Blode