By Doug Silkstone — 13 Mar 2025

Why I Stripped My Website of All Past Work and Brands

I did something illogical and dumb this week: I deleted every client logo, portfolio piece, case study, and testimonial from my website.

In their place? Gundams. Gundams and absolutely zero attempt to look like every other agency website out there. There's zero content. Zero case studies. Zero anything. Just links to my presence online, and a blank slate to start again from scratch.

This wasn't a whim or a random experiment. It was me finally bringing my online presence into alignment with my personal manifesto—"The Corner Cutters Manifesto"—a philosophy I've been developing that rejects convention in favor of authentic value creation and strategic optimization.

The Aftershock

When you're looking for an agency today, you typically encounter cool, sleek, minimal site designs. They're all remarkably similar—cookie-cutter templates that blend together in a sea of sameness.

That's not me anymore. It never was.

My site now serves as the launchpad to fully embrace my authentic self. I'm letting my inner child shine through while still competing in professional spaces. It's about showcasing the person behind Seismic instead of creating another faceless agency that looks identical to thousands of others.

As my manifesto states: "Authenticity Above All. In an age of filters and facades, being genuine is revolutionary." That's exactly what I'm putting into practice.

Having worked with the agencies I once thought I wanted to imitate, I've seen how the sausage is made—and it's not always appetizing. I've witnessed talented individuals being overworked and underpaid, making decisions without the full experience and wisdom needed. I'd be worried about the deliverables coming from such environments. Instead of trying to secure a position within that system, I realized I owe it to myself and others to create an alternative approach because I know I can deliver better results.

Why Burn Down Your Own Professional Showroom?

Removing all my past work was cathartic. Like many professionals, I've built my career in chapters:

Started in performance marketing with a startup (later acquired by Groupon), automating millions per year in search ad spend
Served as Digital Marketing Manager for a Series A company called Reach Robotics, which created four-legged spider augmented reality robots sold through Apple
Moved into MarTech and analytics as a freelancer, building JavaScript automations and internal tools
Learned React and dived deep into frontend development
Created growth strategies for early-stage startups and took on Head of Growth roles
Won performance marketing awards for major B2C brands (TOPMAN, NOW TV)
Created research metrics for Google Ads to reduce agency costs
Got picked up for automation work by the team behind Weed Maps
Specialized in agency automation, helping bridge the gap between semi-technical teams and advanced technology solutions

During this time, I also made the decision to move to Kyiv, Ukraine, where I lived for a year. This experience was truly transformative—having our apartment hit by a drone during Russian bombings put everything into sharp perspective. Life is indeed too short, as cliché as it sounds, but also F**k You, World. I realized quickly that if I wanted to do something meaningful, I needed to do it wholeheartedly and with maximum focus, carving my own path rather than waiting for others to create opportunities for me.

Listing accomplishments on my website started to feel like wearing someone else's clothes. They didn't reflect who I am now or where I'm going. So I replaced it all.

The Community That Changed My Perspective

Over the past year, I've been actively engaging with a community of digital professionals who think differently. Shout out to Clay Cafe and their Slack group for some incredible insights from very brilliantpeople who've opened my eyes to new possibilities.

These conversations about outbound marketing, B2B strategies, and the intersection of business and technology have reinforced something I've always felt: the most valuable professional relationships come from authentic connections, not polished portfolios.

The Permanent Role Paradox

Few people know what it's like to work with me in a permanent role because I rarely stay in them. My talents and interests are too diverse—my tentacles need to spread. I'd make a strong candidate for running a function or business due to my deep investment in everything, but my greatest challenge has been time limitation.

I spend hours coding and building, which has caused me to neglect my distribution channels and marketing. That's why I'm now trying to catch up with networking and content creation.

Finding a Holistic Business Vision

After years of exploration, I've finally developed a comprehensive view of business that encompasses customer acquisition, retention, operational requirements, revenue impacts, and technical implementations.

Most people claim they're doing automation, but they're implementing it in rudimentary ways. They're not thinking about connecting databases to create feeds that generate multiple touch points, improve impression footprints, and maximize visibility.

Building For the Future, Not Showcasing the Past

I wanted to draw a line under my past work and start with a clean slate. My vision now is to design what successful companies will look like in the future.

If we take everything we know now about technology—particularly LLMs, AI, and automation—what would a successful business look like if built from scratch today? What about five years from now? And how do we bridge that gap?

I want people to see me as a resource and expert in reimagining what businesses, companies, and organizations will look like in the future—and more importantly, how to get there. It's not enough to talk about it; I need to deliver that code every single day, remaining very hands-on with implementation.

There's a profound difference between saying what the answer is and knowing what the answer is. Anyone can parrot trendy solutions, but understanding comes from experience and execution.

As my manifesto emphasizes: "Speed Over Perfection. In the time it takes for most to perfect a plan, we've already executed, learned, and optimized." This principle guides my approach to development and problem-solving—shipping real solutions rather than endlessly planning theoretical ones.

I'm focused on determining where humans excel and what tasks they shouldn't need to perform. While humans should always remain "in the loop," there's significant potential for automation that many aren't fully leveraging yet.

I'm also looking to build a team of people similar to me—professionals who are interested in being champions of their field but from a futuristic standpoint. No gimmicks, no cheese, just solid expertise and innovation.

Whether we build solutions in-house or offer them as services to others, I believe there will always be a mix of collaboration between the two approaches. What's important is that we're dogfooding what we build—not selling a dream but actually implementing these solutions ourselves. This keeps everything grounded in reality and ensures I'm personally practicing what I preach, experiencing the harsh realities of launching an app under pressure or navigating the education curve of a specific automation.

I stand behind everything I'm doing, showcasing, and shipping on my GitHub or YouTube—practical applications that currently involve a lot of AI, automation, and LLM-powered solutions. When something new comes along, I'll incorporate that as a tool as well, but I'm always thinking about the fundamentals: how do we grow our businesses, how do we prosper, how do we generate wealth? The solutions we build will be things we use ourselves every day because they genuinely add value, and that's what I'm looking for.

Standing Out in a Noisy Space

We've seen waves of digital specialties come and go—old school affiliate marketers turned to PPC, which evolved into digital marketing, then growth hackers, growth engineers, and now GTM (Go-To-Market) engineering is a thing for better or worse. Now many are pivoting to sell courses or promote the next shiny object, whether it was Web3 or now AI and automation.

I'm aiming for longevity with my approach because I know something fresh will inevitably come along, and everyone else will move on to that. I've had to come to terms with the fact that I need to compete in this space, but I've also realized that my technical acumen, wisdom, and knowledge shouldn't be boiled down to a $20 subscription. We all need to remember that as experts—our value extends far beyond templated solutions.

As my manifesto states: "Data is the Oracle. In a world full of opinions, data is our North Star." While LLMs represent something truly disruptive with tangible value, they're just one tool in my arsenal guided by data-driven decisions. I'm already thinking about what comes next, because LLMs alone don't generate income and GDP—humans do.

Let me be clear—I'm not advocating that my clients should remove social proof from their websites. Case studies, testimonials, and logos are proven conversion elements that I'll continue to recommend in most business contexts. Social proof wins. Case studies win.

But my personal website is playing in a different space.

This is me doing work that I can genuinely get behind. Yes, I need a pipeline, and yes, at some point you have to act like a business—but I'm not driving cold traffic to my site and trying to convince strangers to work with me. That's what my content across other platforms accomplishes.

I don't need flashy elements anymore. I'm not trying to impress anyone. The people who matter to me already see the value in what I do, and they're the ones I want to work with. My personal website is for those who already know me through my content elsewhere—it's a destination, not a discovery platform. And it's definitely not going to be like the others.

Personal Values & The Corner Cutters Manifesto

Everything I do professionally is guided by "The Corner Cutters Manifesto," a philosophy I've developed over years of working things out. Far from encouraging cutting corners in terms of quality, it's about finding ingenious ways to maximize impact while eliminating unnecessary effort—"to accomplish more with less."

Some of the core tenets that guide my work include:

Dopeness as a Superweapon: "The world is filled with mediocrity. We don't just create things; we forge impossibly dope products, experiences, and services." I believe in creating work so exceptional it serves as a competitive advantage.
Hack the System: "Conventional wisdom is just that—conventional. We challenge norms, we question rules, and when it serves us, we rewrite them." This explains why I've rejected the standard agency website template.
Authenticity Above All: "In an age of filters and facades, being genuine is revolutionary. Our realness is our badge of honor." My new website is the embodiment of this principle.
Maximal Results, Minimal Effort: "We don't just cut corners; we redesign the shape. We eliminate the unnecessary so the necessary may speak." This drives my approach to automation and technology.
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate: "Today's innovation is tomorrow's antique. We're always in Beta, forever on the edge of the next big pivot." I'm constantly evolving my approaches rather than settling.

This manifesto isn't just words on a page—it's the operational code that drives every business decision I make. Stripping my website of conventional elements was simply aligning my online presence with these deeply held values.

Embracing the Next Chapter

I'm turning 37 in a week, and I'm ready for this next chapter. People who come to my website aren't being sold on my past—they know me from my content on LinkedIn or YouTube. I don't feel the need to impress anyone with logos, awards, or credentials. I'm just here doing what I'm doing now, letting the work speak for itself.

In a world where everyone follows the same patterns, I'm comfortable being different. I feel like an early adopter ahead of the curve, and it's time to capitalize on that position.

As my manifesto declares: "We are the Corner Cutters. We don't just break molds; we never used one to begin with. We create shortcuts not to cheat life but to live more of it."

That's why I've stripped everything back on my new website. There isn't much there yet, but I'll be adding articles, features, and YouTube videos. I recently hit 2,000 subscribers and plan to invest more in that platform.

I feel good about where I am professionally and focused on doing my life's best work.

I want to partner with people who champion the same concerns because there's wealth to be created and wins to be had—and I want to be there for them.