Authenticity before growth.

What matters above all to me personally is authenticity. Commendo, and the way I am running and evolving it as a marketing agency, is built to preserve that feeling: to avoid following the crowd for its own sake, to think from first principles, and to try to pave new ground where the standard model feels tired or dishonest.

My view of marketing is that we should return to the business itself. What does it do? Who does it serve? Why should it matter? How does it sit in relation to similar businesses, and what are the meaningful differences between them from the customer's point of view?

Only after that work should we decide how the business should be positioned, how quickly it should grow, what should evolve, and what should scale. Growth is not just a number to chase. It is something that should happen at the appropriate rate, in the appropriate direction, and with the right level of trust beneath it.

I used to feel uncomfortable telling people I worked in marketing. There is a well-known Bill Hicks routine about marketers that captures the suspicion many people have of the industry. I understood that suspicion because I often felt it myself. I did not always feel that marketing, as commonly practised, was contributing to society in its best interests.

I think the root of that discomfort is the obsession with continuous growth at all costs, without enough thought for the community a company is embedded in, the customers it affects, or the quality of what is being recommended. That is not the kind of company I want to build.

The first transition for Commendo is therefore not a revenue target. It is excellence in practice and excellence in the service we deliver. I would rather take no money than sell out that principle. Money matters only insofar as it supports a good life and enables good work. Beyond that, it should not become the thing that quietly corrupts judgment.

My hope is that Commendo can grow in a way where people grow together. The company aims, as far as possible, toward fairness in reward, shared standards, and a culture where status does not become more important than contribution. The ambition is not to build hierarchy for its own sake, but to build a serious company around serious work.

Guessing boldly and testing honestly is the core philosophy. It is rooted in the Popperian idea that knowledge grows through conjecture and criticism. We make our best guesses, expose them to reality, criticise what fails, and improve what survives. That is how marketing becomes more honest, more useful, and more worthy of trust.