Advisory
Creative products, from the first idea to the thing that ships.
Right now that mostly means generative AI, and that is where the last three years went. The specialism is the product, not the technology inside it, and the same work reaches the company around it: the team, the culture, the systems underneath, and the sale at the end of it. I am still building things while I advise on them, which is the only reason the advice is worth anything.
Every engagement I take on has a decision inside it, and the decision has a consequence somebody will still be living with in two years. That is what I want to talk about. Not days, not deliverables.
I advise founders, CEOs and boards building creative tools and working with generative AI — from autonomous drone startups to Fortune 500 companies.
WHAT I KNOW
Generative AI
Image, video, sound and voice. What the tools do, what they cannot do yet, and what changes when the next model lands.
Creative tools
Editing, compositing, visual effects and stills. Twenty-five years of building them, and of watching people use them.
The market
Who the players are, where the money is, what is coming, and which of it will matter.
The users
What creators are actually doing, what they need, and what they will not put up with.
Companies and teams
Hiring, culture, and what actually makes a team able to ship. Twenty years of it, from first hire to a company somebody wanted to buy.
Systems and workflows
Architecture, tooling and the unglamorous plumbing — and what it takes to move what a company already runs into what is now possible.
WHAT I HAVE RUN
Twenty years as founder and CEO. First hire, to acquisition, to operating inside a global platform.
The products themselves are on Work
Teams that ship
Engineering, product, creative and commercial. One roof, one roadmap.
Products at scale
Six million people used HitFilm. The plugin technology shipped to tens of millions more, inside every major video-editing and post-production host on the market.
A culture people stayed for
Small teams, whole problems, and real support when it got hard. Autonomy on its own is just being left alone.
Teaching as part of the product
An education team, funded and staffed like a product team. The tutorials were not marketing.
Through the acquisition, and after it
An eight-figure exit, in the tens of millions, and five years inside the company that bought us. Both sides of it. Most advisers have only seen one.
What I am hired for
The shapes below are the ones that recur. In practice the work gets shaped around the decision, in a conversation, before anyone writes a scope.
01
Product, from inception to delivery
What is this actually, and what has to be true for it to ship?
Discovery, product definition, prototyping, technical architecture, roadmap and delivery — the whole line, or whichever part of it has stopped moving. I have done each of these on products of my own, which is why I can tell you which parts of a plan are real and which are hope.
02
Product, feature, or demonstration
Is this a product, a feature or a very good demonstration — and do we know enough to spend on it?
A close reading of the product, the people who would use it, the AI work already done and the competitive set. It ends in a short written view, an order of priority you can act on this quarter, and a recommendation you are free to disagree with. Not a deck. I work to set a thing up to succeed — and where that is not possible, to say so early enough for it to be worth knowing.
03
Where AI belongs
Where does AI belong in this product, and what still holds when the model underneath it changes?
Ongoing counsel to a founder, CEO, board or product leader. Roadmap, portfolio, partnerships, positioning, and the choices that become expensive to reverse the moment engineering starts. I am in the conversation continuously rather than presenting to it.
04
The creative workflow
What is the creator actually trying to do, and where does technology, including AI, help rather than intrude?
A few days with product, creative and engineering people in the same room. We map the real workflow, including the parts nobody writes down, test the assumptions against it, and shape something a creator can direct rather than operate. I will talk to your users and your prospective customers as part of it, which is usually where the useful surprises are.
05
Product and technology leadership, and the systems underneath
Who holds the technical judgement, and what happens to the systems we already run?
Selective embedded leadership for ventures that need senior product and technology judgement before they can hire it. Not only AI work: systems, workflows, and moving what you already run into a shape that can take advantage of what is now possible. I take very few of these, because done properly they are not a light commitment.
06
Invest, acquire or partner
Do we invest, acquire or partner, and what is the distance between the demo and the product?
Independent assessment of capability, workflow fit, product maturity, switching risk and differentiation, for investors and corporate-development teams. Due diligence by somebody who has built the thing being bought.
07
Expert calls
What is actually happening in this market?
Single consultations for funds, strategy teams and expert networks: generative AI in image, video, sound and voice; creative tools; video editing and visual effects; who the players are and what is coming next. An hour with somebody who has shipped this rather than covered it.
08
The sale, and the year after it
How do we come out of this well?
What to weigh while a sale is happening, how to make the situation after an acquisition a good one, and what to expect when the deal closes and the real work starts. Non-executive contribution, periodic briefings, and private support for founders through growth, acquisition and the strange year that follows one.
How it starts
A conversation, then a short written proposal shaped around the decision rather than around a menu. If the fit is not there, I will say so in that first conversation.
I have worked under confidentiality for most of my career: what you tell me stays with you, and what previous clients told me stays with them.
I also speak, and only about work I have done and things I believe. The topics are on Speaking, and I would rather show something working than talk about it.
What I’m not right for
It saves us both a meeting if I say this plainly.
- Foundation-model research. I can tell you what a model will and will not do in a real workflow, and interrogate an implementation as deeply as you need — but the science of training one is somebody else’s subject.
- AI law, policy and compliance. Ask a specialist. I can usually tell you which questions to put to them.
- Anything that requires me to discuss confidential business belonging to Artlist, FXhome, a collaborator or a previous client.
- Decisions that have already been made. If what is wanted is agreement, you do not need me for it.
START A CONVERSATION
If one of those is the decision in front of you, write to me.
Tell me what you are weighing up and who is in the room when it is made. Three or four sentences is plenty. If I am not the right person for it, I will tell you who is.
A small number of engagements at a time.