The journal
Field notes on Google Ads, measurement and AI-assisted marketing systems — written from real accounts, not theory.
Brand, Positioning & Category Design
Programmatic SEO as a proof surface, not a page factory: five moat tests, four operator disciplines (Traction + Paternoster + Nambisan + Lean Analytics), current Google Search Central guidance and peer-reviewed anchors (Nambisan 2017; Shepherd & Gruber 2020; Sarasvathy 2001).
Category design as a borrow-first default. Three tests that justify creating a category, Value Proposition Canvas diagnostic, Google Search Central discoverability implications, and peer-reviewed anchors (Taeuscher & Rothe 2024, Stam 2015, Sarasvathy 2001).
Brand, Positioning & Category Design
Startup positioning treated as a frame-choice decision, not a copy tweak. Five Dunford components + Moore’s chasm + Osterwalder VPD diagnostic + four peer-reviewed anchors (Taeuscher & Rothe 2024; Teece 2010; Zott/Amit/Massa 2011; Sarasvathy 2001).
Brand, Positioning & Category Design
Four founder-run moves — Mom Test interviews, continuous discovery, founder positioning and founding-team dynamics — a technical founder can execute before hiring the first marketer. Grounded in Fitzpatrick, Torres, Dunford, Wasserman and peer-reviewed research (Beckman/Burton/O’Reilly 2007; Eisenhardt & Schoonhoven 1990; Cope 2011).
Four upstream decisions — positioning, category, proof and narrative — a startup must make before the logo brief. Grounded in Dunford, Moore, Osterwalder canvases and peer-reviewed research (Teece 2010; Zott, Amit & Massa 2011).
A four-stage startup marketing strategy (customer discovery → validated learning → traction → fundable growth) anchored in Shepherd & Gruber 2020, Sarasvathy 2001, Bocken & Snihur 2020 and operator books, with Google Consent Mode and GA4 → BigQuery as the measurement stack.
A four-part practical brand-storytelling framework (Story, Meaning, Ritual, Transmedia) with three anonymised teardowns and a one-page template — anchored in Google’s helpful-content guidance and peer-reviewed research by Zimand-Sheiner (2024) and Fluhrer (2025).
Marketplace SEO (Etsy, Amazon)
A TOFU decision guide for SMB owners weighing Facebook (Meta) advertising in 2026 — measurement question first, fit question second, three-SMB-profile triage, grounded in Meta’s own docs and peer-reviewed measurement research.
An editorial ROI ranking of twelve lead generation strategies for an SMB in 2026 — anchored in Search Console, consent mode and GA4→BigQuery, framed as measurement discipline rather than a vendor benchmark.
A three-surface playbook for SMB e-commerce content in 2026 — product page, category page, editorial — grounded in Google’s Product structured data, helpful-content principles, Merchant Center 2026 update and AI Overview measurement research.