Bluethumb founders built Nitrosend after Claude failed their inbox
Most founders exit one company and take a break. Edward and George Hartley exited Bluethumb, Australia’s online art marketplace, and immediately started building again. The result is Nitrosend, an AI email management tool they launched at Adelaide’s Southstart conference.
The brothers spoke to iTWire about both transitions: the emotional weight of leaving Bluethumb behind, and the technical frustration that pushed them to build something new.
Why They Left Bluethumb
The Hartleys described exiting Bluethumb as a wrench. That word choice is telling. Bluethumb was not just a product to them. Walking away from something you built from scratch carries a different kind of cost than a standard business decision, and they were candid about that tension.
What Nitrosend Is
Nitrosend is an AI-powered email management tool. The brothers built it specifically because Claude could not handle what they needed from email automation. That is the origin story in one sentence: an existing AI tool failed a real workflow, so they shipped their own solution.
That kind of origin story carries credibility. The founders were not looking for an AI trend to attach a company to. They had a specific problem, tested an obvious solution, found it lacking, and built the thing they actually needed.
The Transferable Pattern
The Hartley brothers represent a pattern worth watching among second-time founders. The first company builds domain expertise and a high tolerance for operational pain. The second company often solves a problem the first company created. In this case, Bluethumb presumably generated significant email volume across buyers, sellers, and logistics. Managing that inbox at scale would expose exactly the kind of gaps that frustrate operators who rely on general-purpose AI tools.
Their decision to launch at Southstart, Adelaide’s startup conference, also signals a deliberate choice to build within the Australian founder ecosystem rather than defaulting to the Sydney or San Francisco circuit.
The Single Lesson
If a widely used AI tool cannot handle your core workflow, that gap is a product. The Hartleys tested Claude, documented the failure, and shipped Nitrosend. That sequence, test, fail, build, is the cleanest founder playbook there is.
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