About
I've sat on every side of the table.
Agency founder, consultant to global brands, and now a founder spending my own money. It's changed how I give advice.
The short version.
I've spent more than a decade in search and websites, much of it in the room with brands you'd recognise.
In 2020 I started Blank Slate as a side project. The idea was simple: small businesses deserved the standard of SEO big brands got, without the big-brand invoice.
It grew into a full-time agency, then into bigger brands with bigger budgets.
Why I stopped being an agency.
I tried to scale it. I hired developers, SEOs and freelancers, and spent more time closing the gap between the work and the standard I demand.
AI closed most of that gap for me. Work I used to hire for, I could build a system to do. And I noticed the one part nobody could automate, the judgement, was the only part I'd ever really loved.
I'd also watched too many projects drag on for months while the real problem sat there unsolved. The industry sells hours. Most clients just need the right answer.
So in 2026, I wound the agency down.
What I do now.
Most of my time goes into the e-commerce businesses I own and run.
The rest goes to three brands at a time who want a senior, unconflicted view on search, AI and their website.
And to the Journal, where I write about whatever I'm thinking about or building, whenever I've got something worth saying.
What I believe.
Marketing is a service to your customers, not a demand on their attention.
AI makes execution cheap. That makes taste and judgement worth more, not less.
Most marketing problems are clarity problems in disguise.
Doing less, properly, beats doing more, badly.
If your product isn't worth talking about, no amount of marketing will fix it.
Advice is only as good as the incentives behind it.
Why Blank Slate?
It started as a promise to clients: fresh eyes on your business, not a template. That's still the job. It's just me doing it now.