A.I.
What Ableton taught us about AI and the future of coding
In 2001, Ableton turned bedroom producers into festival headliners. Now vibe coding is doing the same for software. The parallels run deeper than you'd think.
Creative Business
Lessons from starting things that worked, flopped, and taught more than any MBA. The messy reality of building creative ventures - decisions, mindsets, and the bits nobody warns you about.
I've started things that worked, things that flopped, and things that taught me more than any MBA could. These pieces are about the messy reality of building creative ventures - the decisions, the mindsets, and the bits nobody warns you about.
Start Here
The essential reads on creative business
Best of...
Making it in America: What international founders & creatives actually need to know
The cultural paradoxes, identity costs, and hidden rules nobody explains
Best of...
The Creative Technologist comeback
How a misunderstood role from the digital agency era is becoming essential for the AI age
Best of...
The McCartney Method: Mastering the Magic of Audience Connection
Paul McCartney’s secret to staying timeless: meticulous details, unforgettable fan moments, and a generosity that creates magic every show.
Best of...
7 ways to improve a conference speaking proposal
I’ve just finished evaluating proposals for SXSW 2025. Here are 7 things that separate the standouts from the rest.
Best of...
5 Founder Types
Which one are you?
How-To Guides
Practical playbooks for building your business
Creative Business
How to run a retrospective that actually works
Six months after a project you can barely remember what you learned. Here's a one-hour framework that fixes that - using conversation, transcription, and AI to capture the insights that usually vanish.
How-To Guides
What I've learned from evaluating 1000+ SXSW proposals
Every year, I find myself deep in proposal evaluation mode. Fortune 100 CEOs, ambitious VPs, indie strategists, even actors and
Future Of Work
An antidote to AI tinnitus
Sam Altman says agency and adaptability will be extremely valuable. But what does cultivating them actually look like?
Creative Business
Lemon automation: How Chick-fil-A processes 20% of America's lemons... and what it means for your career
The unexpected career insights hidden in a chicken restaurant's remarkable lemon-squeezing operation
Best of...
The McCartney Method: Mastering the Magic of Audience Connection
Paul McCartney’s secret to staying timeless: meticulous details, unforgettable fan moments, and a generosity that creates magic every show.
Creative Business
Two ways to define 'Good Enough'
Ever found yourself endlessly tweaking a project, chasing that elusive perfection? Yeah, me too. But here's a thought.
Battle Scars
Hard-won lessons from entrepreneurial endeavours
Building something creative?
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All Posts
Everything on creative business and entrepreneurship
Creative Business
The Merchant's Stall
Merchant.dev's shop looks like a Studio Ghibli market stall. Nothing's stopping anyone from building something that feels like a place.
Creative Business
The Jetpack That Doesn't Work
Citymapper lets you choose a jetpack, hoverboard, or catapult to get across town. None of them work. And that might be exactly the point.
Creative Business
The Garage
Most startup origin stories start where the founder wants them to. Ask what came before the garage. What's not in the story?
Creative Business
Boredom created Bond
Ian Fleming wrote his Bond novels at a villa with no hot water and no glass in the windows. I think I've found my equivalent.
Future Of Work
Futsal
Brazil's reputation for producing incredible footballers isn't just climate or culture. It's a smaller pitch and a ball that doesn't bounce.
Creative Business
There is no Goose
There's a lot of Clay Davis energy in AI right now. People selling the golden goose. But real results come from the unglamorous work nobody wants to talk about.
Creative Business
How to run a retrospective that actually works
Six months after a project you can barely remember what you learned. Here's a one-hour framework that fixes that - using conversation, transcription, and AI to capture the insights that usually vanish.
Creative Business
Christian Bale kept training for a role he didn't have
Christian Bale got fired from American Psycho, and responded by... continuing to prepare for it.
Director Mary Harron wanted him,
Creative Business
Tempo, not Intensity
What fabric's resident DJ can teach the rest of us about experience design
A.I.
What Ableton taught us about AI and the future of coding
In 2001, Ableton turned bedroom producers into festival headliners. Now vibe coding is doing the same for software. The parallels run deeper than you'd think.
Creative Business
Movie bets: Judge by the peak
The producer behind "The Social Network" ignores the flops and the recent work. He asks one question: what's the best thing you've ever seen them do?
Culture & Insights
When Malcolm Gladwell found Dr. Dre's Empty Chair
How to create the environment where people feel the appropriate emotions for any experience
How-To Guides
What I've learned from evaluating 1000+ SXSW proposals
Every year, I find myself deep in proposal evaluation mode. Fortune 100 CEOs, ambitious VPs, indie strategists, even actors and
Creative Business
The truck stop where Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Hendrix met
The Blue Boar at Watford Gap was just a motorway service station. But it accidentally became the nerve center of British rock. Sometimes the best creative breakthroughs happen by accident.
Creative Business
The $2.5M Decision That Changed Everything
A screenwriter turned down Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise for unknown actors. He had no way of knowing if he was right. But he trusted his vision anyway.
Best of...
Making it in America: What international founders & creatives actually need to know
The cultural paradoxes, identity costs, and hidden rules nobody explains
Best of...
The Creative Technologist comeback
How a misunderstood role from the digital agency era is becoming essential for the AI age
Creative Business
What happens when you collapse the talent stack?
Adobe's Chief Strategy Officer says the magic happens when designers code and engineers hack growth. But here's what he doesn't say: the specialist roles are about to dissolve.