22/04/2026
I think it is 'ABOUT' time - a story of why RetailBricks. I have been on an entrepreneurial journey since I made pies in kitchen.
It is sad to read these posts. Even more so when it is senior people reporting on their journey.
There is a solution though.
You may have experienced this already, and if not, the odds are you will.
You may have been fortunate enough to find a job you love. You enjoy the work with a bunch of fine people. And then one day you are called in to be told your time is up. Retrenched. Surplus to requirements.
Some are 'lucky' - they find something else, but invariably it is a step down. Smaller company, fewer responsibilities. You put on a brave face and announce to LinkedIn how proud you are of your old team and how much you look forward to the next chapter.
If you are not so lucky, you embark on a journey of finding another job. After a few months, maybe even a year, you open your 'own consultancy', because even a fake business without clients looks better than a big gap on the resume.
After that, your consultancy limps on. You go to Centrelink. Maybe early retirement. Somehow, we stumble onwards.
BUT.
You see, job hunting is literally marketing in its purest form. YOU are the product. You have to find a 'customer' whose 'pain point'can be solved only by YOU. You have to position yourself to be found. You have package yourself to look attractive. The price has to be just right. All of these 'activities' add up to job hunting being a full-time job. Everybody who has done it, knows that.
But here's the rub: you must recognise it is a Marketing job. You're selling something.
And if happen to find a job, the 'selling' must continue. You must 'play the game' - which mostly comprises selling bu****it to each other with the tacit understanding is that it is never acknowledged.
It cannot be changed; it really just is what it is.
But what you can change, is to start questioning what exactly it is you are selling.
If you're honest, YOU are maybe not the best 'product' to sell. And you are operating in a tough market, with many constraints: where you live, the brutal competition, the number of 'matching' jobs available, and of course, there's always a cheaper (younger) option.
If that is the case, you know the following two things:
>>Whatever you do, you are 'selling' anyway
>>What you are selling is a tough gig.
Does it not make sense to rather sell something else? It could be a gadget on Amazon, a piece of software or a course that you developed. Curate an event. Cook up something in your kitchen. There are a LOT of things to sell.
Things that have more demand than your narrow set of 'job' skills in a small geographic area anyway.
If you have to sell anyway, why not sell something that scales? Something that gives you independence? And best of all, gives you a sense of self-worth?
And for what it is worth, AI is not the problem - it is the opportunity.
I am not suggesting it is easy. But it is no harder than job hunting. It is just as frustrating, scary and pressured. But it is not as soul-destroying - and that counts for a lot.
And it is a LOT of fun. So far, the RetailBricks suite of products (complete and partial include)
* Retraxa - Benchmarking platform
* Epistemika - LMS based on Socratic teaching principles
* VoiceQuoter - Creates invoices in Gmail & Xero from a voice note
* Accountability Buddy - Daily coaching
* AgentVault - Chrome Extension to store skills, keys & tokens
* Swatchly - Chrome extension to extract, pick & save colours online and apply or export to a project in one click
* Googly - A desktop App that allows you chat to all your Google Apps
* AdMeta - Skills to generate Facebook Ads mapped to psychological hooks for all funnel stages.
If YOU are on this journey - please chat to me - not here to sell you anything, but it is really a case of 'been there, done that' and I am happy to share.
