I've spent the last six years doing something most MARKETING PROS only write frameworks about.

I built a restaurant. From nothing. A meat-free, low-waste, community-rooted pizzeria in Hackney that became one of London's most-cited sustainable dining destinations - ranked by Time Out, Condé Nast Traveller, the Evening Standard, and Olive Magazine, profitable within eight months, and hosting free monthly lunches for older East Londoners who had nowhere else to go on a Tuesday.

We were all about an ever-changing menu bursting with creative toppings and British cheese on top of our heritage grain, regeneratively-farmed dough, made from our blend of three different flours. We sold delicious, natural wine by the keg load - yes, a lot of it was poured from reusable kegs - and seasonal cocktails.

We put on large scale events including weddings and team days that featured foraging and feasts for the likes of Greenpeace.

I'm telling you this not to talk about pizza but because building Flat Earth Pizzas taught me things about brand, culture, and commerce that fifteen years of marketing strategy hadn't. When you're responsible for every decision - the name, the wall colour, the wine programme, the community partnerships, the Instagram grid, the rotas, the P&L - you develop a different relationship with strategy. It stops being a document and starts being the thing itself.