The Decanova Journal
Essays on taste in business, which turns out to be terribly practical. It earns trust, outlasts trends, and lives in the choices, small and large, that make a business worth remembering in the AI era.
A new piece every two weeks, considered and occasionally opinionated, for anyone who has noticed that the shortcuts all lead to the same dead end.
For centuries, the advantage was in the hands. Making things well was slow and rare, so the few who could do it won. Now anyone can make almost anything in an afternoon, and the advantage has moved from the hands to the eye. Why taste has become the rarest asset in business, and what it means for yours.
The first suit you ever wear is rarely made for you. It is borrowed, or bought in a hurry, sleeves a little too long, and taken in with pins the night before. It does the job. Nobody expects more.
Most businesses begin the same way. A website assembled over a weekend with the same tools everyone else uses. Branding made for a deadline. Systems held together by workarounds only you understand. Improvised, because improvising was the only way to begin. Then, quietly, the business grows. The clients get better. The work gets better. The prices should too. But you still walk into every room in the borrowed suit.
Letters
Think of these as the conversation we'd have over a long dinner.
We'd talk about the choices, small and large, that make a company worth remembering in a market of perfectly pleasant lookalikes.
The essays above are where those conversations end up. I write about these choices, every fortnight or so.
Sincerely,
Elena
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