Skip to contentMark Darling.
ABOUT

Twenty years building. Zero patience for hype.

I ran engineering at a unicorn. Now I run a company and point AI at everything, my health, my money, my work, my time. This is the honest version.

Here's what you need to know. I've spent twenty years building software that businesses run on. Not slide decks about software. The real thing. Shipped, in production, used by millions of people.

The one you'll have heard of is Gymshark. I ran mobile engineering there while it went from small to a unicorn. Now I run a digital agency and I build with AI every single day. I'm not telling you that to sell you anything. I'm telling you so you know I've done the work, not just read about it.

Here's what winds me up. AI is the biggest lever most of us will ever get, and most people are using it to tidy up their emails. That's it. The same tool can plan your training, watch your money, run half your business and hand you your evenings back. Almost nobody is doing that. That gap is the whole reason this site exists.

So I run the experiment on myself. My recovery data feeds an AI that tells me how to train. I've got systems keeping an eye on my money and guarding my time. I still get smashed at jiu-jitsu every week. And I'll be straight about all of it, the training, the recovery, getting older, what works and what's a waste of money.

No frameworks. No transform-your-life-in-30-days. No hype. Just what I've tried, and whether it was worth it. If that's your kind of thing, we'll get on.

If I haven't tried it, I won't write about it.

Mark Darling seated on a folding chair, black and white studio portrait
Mark Darling
STUDIO, 2026
THE FACTS
AGE
46
BASED
Derbyshire, UK
DAY JOB
Runs a digital agency
TRAINING
BJJ (white belt) · strength
BUILDS WITH
AI, daily
WRITES
What Actually Works, weekly
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