Where taste
meets the terminal

Curious brain. Builder hands. Ships fast.
the newsletter for people who notice things

Essays, decks, tools, and culture signals from a strategist who ships. One person, 25+ products, zero compromise on craft.

25+
Products Shipped
169
Essays Written
5
Decks to Download
15+
Years in the Game
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TASTE
The System

Build Log #1: First Out, From Blank Terminal to 383 Stations

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Building
Building Without Code
Here is the uncomfortable stat. What used to require a team of 5 and 6 months, one person built in weeks. 20+ live products. Zero
6 min read min read Building
Culture Signal
Culture Signal #3
3 min read min read Culture Signal
FREE
Building
Case Study: The Pattern
Every morning at 7am, a website publishes itself. It scans 140+ culture publications, feeds the top stories into Claude AI, synthesises them into a structured
5 min read min read Building
FREE
Building
Case Study: Taste OS
Everyone recognises taste. Walk into an Aesop store and you feel it. Pick up a Muji notebook and you feel it. Open Stripe's
5 min read min read Building
FREE
Building
Case Study: First Out
You are standing on a tube platform. The train arrives. You get on. Four minutes later, you arrive at your station. The doors open and
6 min read min read Building
FREE
Building
Case Study: Nihongo
I was planning a trip to Japan. The usual preparation: flights, hotels, a spreadsheet of restaurants that will probably never survive contact with reality. But
5 min read min read Building
Culture Signal
Culture Signal #2
3 min read min read Culture Signal
FREE
Culture
The New Flex
The old flex was what you bought. A bag, a car, a watch. Status through possession. You worked hard, you earned money, and you proved
5 min read min read Culture
Culture
Media Tsundoku
6 min read min read Culture
Taste
You Are What You Save
6 min read min read Taste
FREE
Building
Case Study: CultureTerminal
I used to start every morning the same way: open six tabs. Business of Fashion. Dezeen. Highsnobiety. Fast Company. Hypebeast. Kottke. Scan headlines. Close tabs.
3 min read min read Building
FREE
Building
Case Study: Trove
I save everything. Links, articles, threads, random things that catch my eye. I've done it for years - Pocket, bookmarks, Notes app, messaging
4 min read min read Building

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Essays

Long-form thinking on taste, curation, culture, and what happens when strategists start building. 169 posts and counting.

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Downloadable presentations on culture, taste, and building. Designed to be shared, stolen, and argued over.

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Culture Signal

A weekly briefing: the brands, ideas, and moments that matter. Curated from 66+ feeds via CultureTerminal.

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Access to the products I ship: Taste OS, The Relevance Index, CultureTerminal. Plus behind-the-build breakdowns.

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Selected essays (taste, culture, building) ✓ ✓
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  • Selected essays each month
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£4.58/month · Save 24%
  • Full essay archive (169+ posts)
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The Full Picture

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Your personal culture consultant
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Mike Litman

I'M MIKE LITMAN

Brand and content strategy director turned builder. I spent 15 years at agencies like R/GA, MediaMonks, and Contagious working with Nike, Google, Gucci, and BMW. Then I started building things myself.

In the past year I've shipped 25+ AI-native products: culture aggregators, directory sites, scoring frameworks, taste engines. Not because anyone asked me to, but because I believe the people with taste should also be the people with tools.

Range was the instinct. Curiosity was the fuel.

Litman's Lens is where all of that thinking lives. The essays, the decks, the tools, and the weekly signals that I'd want in my own inbox.

BIMA 100 Tech Pioneer Published Author (BCS, 2024) 25+ AI Products Ex-MediaMonks / R/GA $3.2M Web3 Revenue