Dear whoever hires me next,
This is an unusual letter. Most job applications come with a carefully curated CV, a cover letter that mirrors your job description back to you using slightly different words, and perhaps a portfolio of past work that shows the highlights and hides the mess. I'm going to try something different. I'm going to tell you exactly what you're getting, exactly what you aren't, and why you should care.
You're reading this on a website I built. That matters more than you might think.
What you're getting
You're getting a strategist who builds. I spent fifteen years as a Strategy Director in advertising. I have sat in pitch rooms, crafted brand positioning documents, led teams, shaped creative work, and presented to boardrooms. I know how to think strategically. I know how to identify insights, construct narratives, understand audiences, and translate business objectives into creative direction. That skill set isn't going away. It is the foundation.
But here's what changed: I also build now. Not in theory, not in decks, not in briefs that someone else executes. I build actual products. Fourteen of them, live on the internet, used by real people. I taught myself to do this in a matter of months using AI tools, with zero coding background. That isn't just a new skill. It's evidence of a new way of working - one where the gap between strategy and execution has collapsed, and the person who can do both is exponentially more valuable than the person who can only do one.
You're getting someone who understands taste. This word gets misused in business. People say "taste" when they mean "I like nice things." That isn't what I mean. Taste is the ability to make consistent, defensible decisions about quality across different domains. It's knowing why one design is better than another, why one piece of copy works and another doesn't, why one product feels considered and another feels generic. It's the accumulated judgment that comes from years of paying attention to the details - in advertising, in design, in culture, in food, in everything.
My products look good because I care about how things look. They feel good because I care about how things feel. They work because I care about whether they're useful. That care - that taste - is embedded in everything I would bring to your organisation. Not as an abstract value but as a practical, daily standard applied to every decision.
You're getting a cultural antenna. I'm the person who always knows what is happening. Not because I try to keep up, but because I can't help it. I read voraciously, across disciplines. I notice patterns that connect advertising to fashion to technology to food to design. I see how a trend in one industry will affect another before it happens. This isn't a hobby. It's a professional skill. In a world where brands need to be culturally relevant, having someone who instinctively understands culture - who lives in it, not just studies it - is invaluable.
What you aren't getting
I want to be honest about the gaps too, because honesty is more useful than polished self-promotion.
You aren't getting a developer. I built fourteen products without writing code. That's impressive and also limiting. I used AI tools to bridge the gap between idea and execution, and I did it well enough that the products are live, functional, and well-designed. But I'm not an engineer. I don't think in databases and APIs and deployment pipelines. I think in products and experiences and audiences. If you need someone to architect a complex technical system, that isn't me. If you need someone to imagine what should be built and then make it real enough to test, validate, and iterate - that is exactly me.
You aren't getting someone who fits neatly into a job title. Strategy Director doesn't capture what I do. Product Manager doesn't either. Creative Director is closer but still not right. I sit at the intersection of strategy, product, creative, and culture. That's either incredibly valuable or incredibly hard to hire for, depending on your organisation. If you have a box, I probably won't fit in it. If you have a problem that needs someone who can think strategically, build practically, design tastefully, and communicate clearly - I'm the person you're looking for.
You aren't getting someone who follows a routine. I work in bursts. When I'm in, I'm all in - eight hours, ten hours, completely absorbed, producing more in a day than most people produce in a week. When I'm out, I'm out - thinking, absorbing, recharging. This isn't laziness. It's how my best work happens. If you need someone who clocks in at nine and clocks out at five, producing a steady, predictable stream of output, I'll disappoint you. If you need someone who produces exceptional work in concentrated bursts of creativity and focus, I'll exceed every expectation you have.
Why this portfolio is the interview
Everything I need to say about my abilities is live on the internet. The products are the evidence. Not a case study about a product. Not a deck about a product. The products themselves.
Modern Retro shows creative vision - the ability to take a concept and execute it with craft and consistency. CultureTerminal shows editorial judgment - the ability to filter signal from noise in a complex cultural landscape. First Out shows product thinking - the ability to identify a simple problem and solve it simply. The London Pub Guide shows taste applied to curation. Oishii London shows depth of knowledge in a specialist area. Trove shows strategic thinking about data and personal taste. Each one demonstrates a different facet of what I bring.
Together, they demonstrate something that no CV can: range. The ability to move fluently between domains, applying the same standards of taste and strategic thinking to wildly different problems. A pub guide and a taste engine have nothing in common on the surface. But the same mind made both, and the same set of values - curation, taste, attention to detail, building things that are genuinely useful - runs through each one.
What I'm looking for
I want to work somewhere that gets culture. Not a company that talks about culture in a deck, but one that lives it. A place where the difference between good and great matters. Where taste is respected. Where someone who builds things is valued as much as someone who manages things.
I want to work on things that people use. Not decks, not strategies, not recommendations that sit in shared drives. Actual things. Products, platforms, experiences that exist in the world and make people's lives better, easier, more interesting, or more beautiful. I've spent enough of my career making things that disappear after the meeting. I want to make things that persist.
I want to work with people who care. About the work, about the craft, about getting the details right. People who understand that the difference between a 90% product and a 95% product isn't 5% - it's the difference between forgettable and remarkable. People who argue about font choices because they know it matters.
And I want to be somewhere that understands that my best qualification isn't on my LinkedIn. It's in the fourteen URLs I can send you, each one a living, breathing piece of evidence that I don't just talk about building things. I build them.
The invitation
If you've read this far, you already know something important about me: I write, I think, I build, and I care. If that combination sounds useful, I would love to talk. Not a formal interview where we both perform. A real conversation about what you're building, what matters to you, and whether I can help.
The portfolio is open. The products are live. The evidence is there. I'm not asking you to take a chance on potential. I'm asking you to look at what already exists and imagine what comes next.
With genuine enthusiasm,
Mike Litman
London, 2026
