I'm David Elikwu
To be brutally honest, I'm just a relentlessly curious nerd with some fountain pens who hasn't stopped writing since he was five.
- I'm doing my best to make sense of the world around me.
- I started emailing things I was learning to a few friends, and it's grown into
a viral newsletter helping over 40,000 driven people in tech, marketing, venture capital and beyond to think deeper, work smarter, and make higher-quality decisions. - 'The Knowledge' is named after one of the hardest exams in the world - an infamously gruelling test for taxi drivers in London. London 'cabbies' study the Knowledge to memorise the 25,000 roads, alleys, nooks and crannies spread across a sprawling city. Likewise, this platform maps data points for navigating the world around us. I'm building a cognitive compass. A place you go to figure things out.
- In addition to my newsletter and podcast, I run a course helping people like you make high-quality decisions, and coach driven founders and operators!
My career journey
I have always enjoyed solving problems and telling stories, and have followed those threads wherever they've led me over the years.
I started my career somewhat early. At fourteen I was importing and selling consumer electronics from China. By my late teens I was working on campaigns for brands like Amazon, Krispy Kreme and Credit Suisse.
I interned at Google, moved to Shanghai, came back when I ran out of money and nabbed a grad job in consulting. I hadn't graduated, but I brought on four Tier-1 clients in 6 months before being offered my 'dream job' working on billion dollar deals in Corporate Law.
After half a decade, I realised I cared more about building things than billing hours, and shifted towards technology start-ups. First as Chief of Staff, then product strategy and operations, and eventually as Chief Strategy Officer at a luxury e-commerce startup. Since then I’ve helped venture-backed teams across Europe and Africa with growth, positioning and operating cadence.
I built a few businesses along the way, including a travel club for 2000+ millennial travellers, a social impact brand supporting global artisanship through African coffee and biodynamic wine, and co-founded a luxury fashion marketplace and agency focused on Africa.
Speaking is a natural extension of my writing. I’ve delivered keynotes and workshops for Google, Bloomberg, Unilever, Deloitte, eBay, and at Cambridge and Warwick universities, among others. My projects and commentary have been featured by TechCrunch, The Lawyer, City A.M., The Evening Standard, BBC and Yahoo Finance.
A few other threads run through the work: I’m an award-winning fiction writer; I’ve photographed and consulted around London, New York and Paris Fashion Weeks; and I’ve travelled to more than fifty countries—good training for understanding how people make decisions under different constraints.
If you’re new here, start with my book SOVEREIGN, then subscribe to my newsletter, The Knowledge. If you need help with strategy, product or operations, or you’d like me to speak to your team, drop a line: contact@theknowledge.io
That's the boring stuff out of the way! If you want brutally honest accounts of my early career experiences, go here and here.
But trust me - the content only gets better once you subscribe.
David Elikwu
David Elikwu
David Elikwu
Decision Hacker
Most people never learn systematic approaches to decision-making. Decision Hacker is a short, punchy course that gives you a complete system for making better decisions, with fewer regrets.
