Start Here

If this is your first time on the site, welcome. I'm Sean. I run a men's newsletter business called Rotary Digital. This site is something separate — a place where I write about brands I personally use and like, in the spirit of the founder podcast I used to do. No money changes hands between me and the brands I cover. Just my honest take, my voice, once a month or so.

Here are the pieces to start with, and what you'll get from each.

The Third Place
How two co-founders — married, complementary, obsessive about design — built the sports and hospitality concept I actually want to be in. A portrait of a partnership disguised as a piece about a club in Fishtown.

This Isn't Really About Chocolate
What a chocolate founder taught me about doing this for a long time. The line about "delusional self-belief" has stuck with me since the interview. If you're a founder, this is the one.

How to Survive the Squeeze
How a small hardware brand competes when Amazon is selling knockoffs for $19 and Hermès is selling calfskin versions for $1,700. Adam at NYSTND walked me through the survival strategy. Every small D2C founder should read it.

The Apathy Problem
What I learned from being on a style makeover show. About the slow, invisible way most guys stop caring about small things, and what one media brand is doing to fix it. More personal than the others.

Why Does Bad Birdie Always Look Like It Gets It?
How a golf apparel brand built a distinctive point of view when the whole category is beige. Jason at Bad Birdie explained why owning the whole thing matters more than taking outside money.

I Bought a Share of a Racehorse and My Kids Think I'm Tommy Shelby
The first piece I published here. About buying a share of a real racehorse for the price of a nice dinner, and getting the founder on the phone to figure out what I'd actually just done.

If you want to catch new pieces when they publish, you can subscribe here. Roughly one piece a month.

— Sean