Mike Litman

The thread

In the last 5 months, I have shipped 28 AI-native products. Voice agents that call real restaurants. Data pipelines scoring 1,200+ brands on cultural relevance. An AI briefing that publishes itself as a podcast every morning at 7am. A booking system for restaurants that answers the phone when the kitchen is too busy to. Every one started with a product question, not a brief. Every one is live. None involved writing code.

Before that, 15 years as a Strategy Director at the independent agencies in London worth working at: Monks, Poke, Dare, AnalogFolk, R/GA, Contagious. At Monks I built a global emerging technology capability from nothing and drove it to $3.2m in revenue, spanning generative AI partnerships, web3 commerce and platform integrations for Nike, Google, Gucci and Adidas.

The thread connecting all of it is the same skill: identifying the opportunity, building the case, prototyping fast, and taking it to market. The difference now is I can build the product myself. Which changes everything about how quickly you can move from idea to signal.

The other thread is taste. I published a book on digital strategy (BCS, 2024). I built automated systems that score cultural relevance across 1,200 brands weekly. I run a daily culture briefing read by people who pay attention to what comes next. The instinct for what matters, what resonates and what the market hasn't priced in yet is what makes the products I build commercially interesting, not just technically functional.

Principles

1. 01
   Taste is the last unfair advantage
   When everyone can build with AI, what you choose to build becomes the differentiator.
2. 02
   Prototype to learn, not to present
   The fastest way to validate a product idea is to build it and put it in front of people.
3. 03
   Revenue is the only validation that counts
   Excitement in a workshop is cheap. Someone paying for the product is the signal.
4. 04
   Show, don't present
   A working product beats a 60-slide deck every time.
5. 05
   Speed beats perfection
   Ship it, learn, iterate. The version that exists beats the version that's perfect.

What's next

I want to build new products inside an organisation where the stakes are real and the scale is global. Product innovation, AI-driven commercial tools, new product development from zero to in-market. The kind of role where you are accountable to revenue, not just a roadmap.

I have done this at agency scale, building a $3.2m capability from nothing at Monks. I have done it independently, shipping 28 products in 5 months with real revenue infrastructure underneath them. The next chapter is somewhere the data is proprietary, the users are in the millions, and the commercial impact is direct.

What I bring is unusual: the strategic seniority to identify where a market is heading, the product instinct to know what to build, and the ability to actually build it. Not a strategist who presents decks. Not a developer who needs a brief. Someone who can do the whole thing, fast.

Right now

Off the clock

• Nottingham Forest: lifelong, deep, part of who I am. Every Saturday, 3pm. Non-negotiable.
• London's variety in art, culture, shopping and entertainment is my favourite thing about this city. I love sushi, magazine and design shops, hype and streetwear shops, art galleries and finding new places and spaces.
• Hot chocolate, not coffee. Caffeine doesn't agree with me.
• One son. London-based. Night owl who builds between 9pm and midnight.
• Currently obsessed with: what voice AI does to the restaurant industry, the cultural forecast I publish every Sunday, and whether Forest can hold on to a top-half finish.

What people say