Anyone Can Cook
About

Journalist’s training, marketer’s job, maker’s habits.

I trained as a broadcast journalist — Salford, with placements at BBC Sport, Manchester United, and Salford FC. Journalism teaches one discipline above all: find the story, cut everything that isn’t it, deliver on deadline. I’ve never stopped using it; I just changed what the stories were about.

Marketing found me sideways — a first role taken while living in the American South, then a B2B fintech startup where I was the entire marketing department until I hired the second half of it. Somewhere in there I noticed the work I couldn’t put down: sitting with a complex product until the important idea surfaced, then saying it so plainly that customers recognised themselves in it. That work has a name — product marketing — and it’s what I do now at SmartSurvey, where I lead positioning and launches.

The making came last. AI removed most of my excuses, so now I build as well as tell — demos, prototypes, and this site. My first job, for the record, was at the Disney Store. Some influences you don’t outgrow; you just learn to use them with restraint.

Principles I keep close

  • Plussing. Walt Disney’s word — ship it, live with it, then ask what one small thing would make it better. Repeat forever.
  • Simplicity is complexity resolved. Plain isn’t the absence of thought. It’s the evidence of it.
  • Let results make the noise. The work argues; I don’t have to.
  • Prepare so well fear disappears. Confidence is downstream of the reps nobody sees.

What “Anyone Can Cook” means

It’s Anton Ego’s closing verdict in Ratatouille, and I take it literally. The tools that build products, tell stories, and ship software now belong to anyone with the taste and the will to use them well. This site is what happens when a marketer takes that seriously. The essay tells the whole story.

What I’m looking for

Product marketing problems worth taking seriously — positioning that hasn’t been decided, launches that need a story, products that deserve better than a feature list. If that’s you, email me or find me on LinkedIn and X.