What I do
First Principles Media is a one-person creative and marketing studio based in London and Saigon.
I make and manage the whole thing end to end — writing, content, campaigns, visuals, and the websites and tools underneath them. Clients tend to work with me across the whole job, rather than stitching it together from five freelancers or paying an overpriced agency for mediocre results.
I've worked for more than a decade with one of the world's leading business strategy practices, running its content and brand and building its online tools. It's taught me to start from what a business actually is before making anything. Beyond that, I've written and edited for publications and independent platforms.
Marketing and creative have changed dramatically in just the last couple of years, and I've learned to become fluent in AI and the latest content creation tools. AI is incredibly powerful, which is exactly why I use it carefully. It can get you to a draft fast, but the real work is knowing what to keep, what to cut, and how to ensure human judgement and integrity come first. That's where I bring my real skills and experience. Audiences are learning to recognise slop and reject it instantly. I use AI to extend what I can do, not to outsource taste.
And I've got skin in the game. I recently opened a Vietnamese restaurant in Saigon, where I spend most of my time these days. It's already earned a few hundred five-star reviews and it's just getting started. There'll be more F&B ventures to come. So I'm not marketing from the outside — I'm doing it on my own business first.
