Before launching mash of brands®, I spent 25 years as a marketer, publicist, and entrepreneur. While at university in Edinburgh, I launched my first successful business, supplying bands to venues*. After receiving a degree in marketing, I studied at Le Cordon Bleu. My first job upon leaving Cordon Bleu was as the personal chef to the Dutch Ambassador. Later, I became a publicist, working at the Brunswick Group in London and the Portsmouth Group in Dubai before becoming Head of Media and Communications in an in-house role.

Despite these achievements, by my late 20s, I felt lost and lacking purpose. However, what I did know was that I no longer wanted to sell out and spend my life climbing the corporate ladder. One day I said fuck it, walked out of my safe job, and began to pursue the dumb idea of importing the world’s finest teas.

After sourcing thirteen loose-leaf teas from small farms in China and Taiwan, I launched my first tea brand. Despite critical acclaim, sales were slow. With limited funds, I spent a year rapidly testing and validating various concept brands. My second tea brand was an 'overnight success', inspiring a global product category and spawning hundreds of copycat brands.

Within a few years, I’d grown a small tea business on eBay into multiple globally successful brands, eventually selling to a private equity investor. This experience became the foundation for what I now call ‘concept brand creation’ - rapidly building and testing so-called dumb ideas to figure out what genuinely works, without wasting months on bullshit (a methodology we’ve now supercharged with AI).

After selling my company, I took some time off. Eventually, bored and once again lacking purpose, I started experimenting with AI and providing startup advice on Reddit. This grew into mash of brands®. What began as a series of dumb ideas turned into experiments is now a full-blown AI-accelerated startup studio. In January 2025, mash of brands® sold its first concept, demonstrating that while ideas may be cheap, validated concepts with proven traction carry genuine market value. See, some of my dumb ideas aren't so dumb after all, Mum.

Jamie Ewan Henderson
Founder of mash of brands® | The Ai Accelerated Startup Studio™

*Run from a £20 a month mailbox, this remains one of my best dumb ideas ever.