Why I'm starting this blog

I've had a website for years. It was a services page — the kind that lists what you do, who you do it for, and ends with a contact form. It did its job. But it was never really me.

So I'm changing it. This is a blog now. Here's why.

I spend most of my working life in ecommerce — consulting for clients, running my own online stores in the watch and horology space, thinking about conversion rates and search rankings and why people abandon baskets. I find it genuinely interesting, even after all this time. But it's not the whole picture.

Outside of work I'm training for The Lap — a 75km ultramarathon around Windermere in September. I'm a volunteer with Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue. I overland in a Land Rover Defender that I maintain myself, badly and enthusiastically. I collect watches. I spend weekends in the hills, usually with a six year old who has strong opinions about which tracks are boring.

None of that had anywhere to live online. And I've been meaning to change that for a while.

I'm not starting this blog with a grand plan. There's no content strategy, no posting schedule, no niche I'm trying to own. It's just a place to write about the things I'm doing and thinking about — whether that's an ecommerce problem I've been chewing on, a trail I'd recommend, a Defender job that went sideways, or what it's actually like to train for an ultra while running a business, keeping up with a six year old, and convincing my wife that another weekend away in the Defender is a great idea.

If any of that sounds interesting, stick around. If not, no hard feelings — the contact form is still there.