Web Summit starts today in Lisbon. I’m not there this year. Natalia is, and that’s a good reason to write down something I’ve been meaning to explain for a while: why I don’t do this work alone, and who I do it with.

This one is for anyone who works independently, or is thinking about it, and wonders how one person can take on problems that clearly need a team.

One person can’t know everything anymore

Marketing and AI move faster than any one person can follow. Every week there’s a new tool, a new channel rule, a new way of doing something I thought I already knew. I can read about it, but I really learn it when someone in my network has just used it on a real project and tells me what actually happened.

That’s the first thing a strong network of partners gives me: it keeps me in touch with what’s happening, from people who are doing the work, not writing about it.

The second thing is less comfortable, and more valuable. Working with professionals from other industries and specialisms challenges me. They ask questions I wouldn’t ask. They see a problem from an angle I don’t have. And some problems I simply can’t solve alone, or shouldn’t try to. A lot of what clients need takes a team effort to get done properly.

Some problems you can’t solve alone, and the honest thing is to say so and bring in the right people.

I’ve written before about why deep domain expertise is the only real leverage left now that generic AI output is everywhere. A network is how you get that depth without pretending to have all of it yourself.

It started at Westwing

The collaboration with Natalia goes back to Westwing Home & Living. I led the international marketing team there as head of online marketing, and Natalia was our head of paid social. We worked closely together for years, across countries and a lot of fast decisions.

What I’m happiest about is that we kept that relationship alive after we both moved on. Today Natalia runs Jagoona, a partner network of vetted specialists in performance marketing, AI automation, SEO, content and analytics. That network fuels a lot of the international client work I’m involved in: marketing solutions, AI tooling and lead generation, for companies large and small.

It’s a very different way of working than the agency model many of us grew up with. Instead of one team trying to cover everything, the right specialists join when a project needs them. It’s the same reason Bart and I started building something new every week together: you learn more, and faster, when you’re not doing it alone.

What this means for the people I work with

For a client, it means one person who takes the question on, and the right people at the table when it needs more than me: a photographer, a developer, an Amazon specialist, a paid social lead. Usually within the same week.

For me, it means I get to keep learning. That’s honestly one of the reasons I love working as a fractional executive: no two weeks are the same, and the people around me keep raising the bar.

Meet Natalia in Lisbon this week

Web Summit runs from 9 to 12 November at the MEO Arena and FIL in Lisbon. If you’re going and want to meet Natalia, at the event or around it, just let me know. Send me a message on WhatsApp or by email and I’ll make the introduction, so you two can find each other in Lisbon.

And if you’re not going: the offer stands anyway. Good introductions are one of the best things a network is for.

Sources & further reading

If you’d like to follow along, I share what I’m working on here on Threads.

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