About Thinking Sideways
I've spent 25 years working with founders who build physical things.
Companies that make products you can touch, ship, stock, and sell through channels you don't fully control.
I started in branding and strategy agencies. Then durable goods. Then 13 years inside a premium FMCG brand that grew threefold while maintaining profitability. Now software, working on how companies position complex B2B value propositions.
Different industries. Different products. Same pattern.
Brilliant founders become bottlenecks not because they want control, but because strategy lives in their heads rather than becoming something the organisation can use.
The team can't distinguish what matters from what doesn't. They can't make strategic decisions without escalation. The founder feels alone, misunderstood, and frustrated. Decisions pile up.
This isn't a people problem. It's a translation problem.
What founders recognised in me
In every company I've worked for, I earned the founder's absolute trust. Not because I had frameworks. Because they recognised something: I was there to make it work. Their problem became my problem. Their success became what kept me up at night.
That's what this site is about. Not theory. Not frameworks you'll never apply. What actually happened when strategy had to survive contact with reality, and what it took to translate founder vision into something a team could execute without constant escalation.
Who this is for
Founders and CEOs of €20-80M companies making physical products.
Manufacturing. FMCG. Industrial equipment. Durable goods. B2B or B2C. Doesn't matter.
What matters:
- Your team escalates decisions you think should be obvious
- You're tired of being the only one who knows where the company is going
- You've tried "democratising strategy," and it failed
- You care about execution, not theatre
If you recognise the exhaustion of being indispensable, you'll feel at home here.
What you'll find
I publish every week.
Sometimes about strategy execution. Sometimes about why brands die when they scale. Sometimes about operationalising values instead of writing them on posters.
No motivational fluff. No listicles. No "5 tips to transform your organisation."
Just what actually happened, what worked, what didn't, and why.
Currently
Based in Zurich. Available for conversations with founders navigating this specific problem.
If you care about execution more than theatre, subscribe below.