I'VE ALWAYS
BEEN AN
ARTIST.

Master's in product design. Coding, designing and marketing physical and digital products. Internet radios, apps, and toys for autistic children... little did i know I was autistic too.

Opened a gym in Glasgow. Titan Fitness. I had no idea what I was doing, so I made content about it instead... and it kinda worked as no one was doing it in Scotland 10 years ago.

Spent all night filming and editing my first healthy fakeaway recipe video with my mate James. It got less than 100 views. That never stopped me, because I absolutely loved making it. Going viral was the bonus, years later. The real win was watching my gym clients start cooking the recipes.

Six or seven coaches, a busy gym, sold-out classes. I was thinking about opening a second one. Then a few of the coaches left to open their own, right as I thought I was getting some freedom back.

Shut the gym and started online coaching over Covid. It started small and quickly matched the gym's revenue, without the overheads.

I did plan on reopening. I even had members pre-sold on monthly for when the doors opened again. But I knew this might be my chance to work from anywhere. So I sold the equipment to one of the trainers in the gym at the time. She's still running it today, pretty successfully as far as I'm aware.

Six figures in my online coaching business with only 4,000 followers.

I could see the potential of the online world. At the start of the year I went to leave a business mentorship. My mentor at the time told me I couldn't do it anyway, and that I was playing the victim. So instead of moaning, I used one of the most powerful drivers I've got. Spite.

Posted this screenshot in the group at the end of the year and left. Apparently that's a very common ADHD trait. Still don't know if it's a good or bad thing yet...

I was working with Sean Casey 1-1 at the time, the king of viral. Instagram went from 4,000 to over 100,000. TikTok went from virtually nothing to 70,000. Over 200,000 across my platforms.

Naturally, I launched the recipe books and sold thousands of them. Then thousands of challenge slots and app subscriptions.

It brought in too many leads for my coaching, so I needed a lower-priced offer. That's where I started building systems. A free lead magnet, into a quiz, into a podcast about their exact problem, into a call. Then either the challenge or 1:1 coaching.

Thousands of recipe books and 100s challenge slots sold in just a few days. From 87 1:1 clients at my peak, to hundreds of challenge and hybrid clients on top. All organic, with retargeting ads only to people who'd already come in from my content.

I was completely overwhelmed. Check-ins took me three and a half weeks to get through. That's why I needed systems. I needed a break, and it was only a matter of time.

Scaled it back from 8 to just me.

I got on a few calls with James Smith while I was scaling everything back, and realised he didn't have many systems himself at the time. He does now. The biggest thing I took from those calls was to limit calls and have your own time.

This was weeks before I moved to Spain full time, and I was still a bit all over the place. I'd spent over 100 grand on courses and mentors and was worse off than years before time and in some cases profit, than when I had 4,000 followers.

I knew I'd lost the love for coaching... i just didn't feel right being a mentor. I wanted to make things again. Even so, it took me a while to commit to dropping coaching completely. I thought the app would be the answer, and I hid behind it for a bit. It wasn't. I just had to bite the bullet.

In my life I've had two mentors who were more successful than me before they started mentoring. Two. That's why I never wanted to become one. It felt false, and I'd have known it.

Building a house in Spain with my wife and soon to be three kids.

I wanted this ticked off before I did anything in the business space. Mainly so I'd never be the person who made their money selling people the dream. Build the life first. Then talk about it.

I started building systems for local businesses. Gyms, restaurants, trades, even a politician at one point. Marketing, automation, reviews and follow-up, until I knew what my offer was.

For me it's always results before scale. None of it was advertised, and I've still worked across several industries. I know that when I started advertising, everything needed to be rock solid. Otherwise I end up hating it again.

For about a year I was building systems for businesses and helping them with their content. None of it was advertised. I wanted proof it worked before I said a word... it did.

Then Nova came up. It took me back to my product design roots, and instead of hiring a team I started a business with my sparring partner, of all people. Chris. NovaCartridge, tattoo needles ordered by artists all across Europe.

That's when I found out one of the biggest problems artists have is the one I'd spent years fixing for myself. Systems for their content that follow up while they're busy. So we started building NovaFlow.

Back to my product design roots from my masters. A physical product. I recently became cofounder of NovaCartridge, and I'm bringing in an asset to help creatives like myself monetise it. Like I have.