Tiny Little Businesses | Personal Website

André teaches internet marketing, but in a way that completely subverts everything we collectively hate about internet marketing. He works from first principles to create *happy* customers, and goes deep into systems thinking, serialized storytelling, world-building, and all sorts of delightful, nerdy stuff.

I divide my life as a marketer into two eras—Before André and After André.

When I first got into online marketing and business in 2014, I was pulled into all the usual directions, learning about high-pressure copywriting and funnels and all that. For a few years, I forced myself to conform to all those best practices, even though I could feel, deep down, they were cancerous to my soul. But I kept using them, because I didn't know any better, and I didn't trust myself.

But when I first encountered André in late 2017, and started going through his course on email marketing, it was like "holy shit, I'm not crazy!" His work confirmed my intuitions that something was deeply wrong with traditional marketing. And he opened the door to healthier, more nurturing ways of being a marketer.

Here was someone who was also deeply inquisitive, thoughtful, and empathetic—just like me—and who had turned those traits into a marketing superpower. The rest of the marketing industry had me convinced that operating that way was a liability, and that I was too sensitive, not ruthless enough. But because of André's work, I finally felt like I had permission to be myself, and market to others the way I'd want to be marketed to myself.

I've since gone on to develop my own radical philosophy of marketing. But I owe it all to André. Nothing I'm doing these days would be happening without the many seeds he planted in my mind and heart over the last five years.

Rob Hardy, who created this website, along with Ungated Media, where he helps internet homies come alive and build their own delightful oasis. You can also find him being goofy on twitter.