Please allow me to introduce myself...

2002.

Built my first website using HTML tables. Had never written code before. Couldn’t afford a designer. Wanted to sell fine art prints online. Working from home was the dream.

Back then, the internet still screamed through a dial-up connection. “Digital marketing” wasn’t even a term yet.

“Who's going to buy online?” –  a friend asked.

2004.

eBay changed their art section. The PowerSeller business disappeared almost overnight.

First real lesson: never build on rented land.

Then came a digital product burned onto CDs. Around 20 sales a day at £24.75 each for six months. Felt like I had made it.

Then the copycats arrived.

Gone within weeks.

Another lesson: success online is usually temporary.

Back to the drawing board.

2005–2009.

Most things failed.

Domain selling. Site flipping. Affiliate marketing. Constant experiments. Nothing worked. Drove taxis at night. Laptop open between fares, dream on.

Kept driving. Kept learning.

2010.

Something finally worked.

Classic cars from South and North America. Rising online demand across Europe. Found the demand and the supply. Built a bridge between the two.

“Who's going to buy these old cars online?” – another friend asked.

A hit.

2014.

Started buying containers directly. Travelled through China, India, and Vietnam.

Then came aviator chairs from India. Soaps from Syria, Vegan chocolates from Indonesia before vegan was mainstream.

Different products. Same underlying pattern.

Find the gap. Build the bridge.

Wanted more control. Didn’t like dependency.

Used marketplaces and platforms for traffic, but never wanted the business sitting entirely on top of them. Branded my sites, and products. No more copycats.

2019–2024.

Built and ran an agency.

Worked across ecommerce, lead generation, hospitality, retail, and digital acquisition environments. Kept building my own sites in my spare time. Still do.

By 2021, the walls were starting to close in. The agency worked, but I didn't work in it.

Too much management. Too much fragmentation. Too much noise. I am a builder, not a manager.

Sometimes that means products. Sometimes systems. Sometimes fixing broken connections between websites, tracking, CRMs, and ad platforms. Sometimes on a sprint for others.

Even after 2 decades, still learning. Stick to where you naturally operate best.

Now.

Moving back toward what always made the most sense to me.

Building. Testing. Understanding environments. Finding gaps. Connecting things that should have been connected in the first place.

Handing the system over. And getting the hell out of Dodge.

And the website I built in 2002? Still alive.

And so am I.

I don’t do long retainers.

I fix the plumbing between systems.

Then I step away.

If that sounds like the kind of work you need, let’s talk.