Entrepreneur Building Business and Writing About the Process.

I help founders who are stuck.

Not stuck because they don't know enough. Stuck because they can't see what's actually working in their business.

I've spent years building companies, communities, and connections. But what I've learned is this: strategy without execution is just theory. And execution without perspective creates burnout.

What I do now:

Work with founders and leaders who are ready to:

- See their blind spots (the patterns they can't see themselves)
- Turn insights into action within 72 hours
- Bridge the gap between what they want and what's actually working

Think of me as your mirror—helping you see your path more clearly.

Three ways to work together:

- Clarity Session ($750) - 90-minute breakthrough on your biggest blocker
- Strategy Sprint ($4,500) - 30 days of strategy + implementation
- Transformation Partnership ($6,000/mo) - 6-month deep work on sustainable growth

Start here:

👉 Take the Founder's Blind Spot Finder (free, 5 min) → See what you're missing
👉 Ready to talk? DM me or book a Clarity Session
👉 Want weekly insights? Subscribe to Ground Control Newsletter (link in bio)

"The real ROI of human connection isn't measured in quarters. It's measured in years, in lives touched, in moments of breakthrough."

#leadership #transformation #clarity #growth #authenticity

Patrick Rife

Empowering SaaS businesses to thrive online by crafting growth-focused Webflow websites with exceptional user experiences. | Webflow Expert

I'm a Design Consultant specialising in the following: User Centric Design, Growth Driven Design, Webflow design and development, UI/UX Design, Web Development, Web Design, Wordpress Development, Graphic Design, Internet Marketing. 

I have 14+ years experience in digital design, and I'm very well versed in every aspect of design and development, from conceptualization to implementation and maintenance.

I have developed an obsession for trying to help businesses grow through technology and helping them become more successful through the right implementation of a successful marketing strategy.

Robert Smart

Webflow sucks.

I said what I said.

If you are looking for a quick fix, Webflow is a terrible choice.

In fact, you should absolutely avoid it if:

You love slow sites. 
You ignore mobile users. 
You enjoy constant security panic. 
You fear clicking the update button. 
You like generic, cookie-cutter templates. 
You want simple text edits to take days. 
You prefer "patching" over actually "building." 
You enjoy paying developers to fix broken plugins. 
You think crashing on Black Friday is actually exciting. 
You want your marketing team handcuffed by a fragile stack. 
You are happy watching your competitors rank higher on Google. 
You thrive on the anxiety of wondering if your homepage is online. 
You believe that spending your budget on maintenance is better than growth.

If that sounds like your workflow, stick to the legacy platforms.

But if you are tired of the "Patchwork Web"...

If you want a site that is built on clean code, not bloated scripts. 
If you want to publish content without breaking the design system. 
If you want enterprise-grade hosting without the enterprise-grade headache.

Then Webflow doesn't suck. It’s the only logical choice.

We don't build sites that suck. We build engines that sell. Let's chat.

#Webflow #WebDesign #NoCode #BusinessGrowth #59erDigital

This time of year, everyone talks about goals and New Year’s resolutions.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and if I’m honest—2025 was tough. A year of losses, setbacks, and challenges I didn’t expect. For a moment, I even questioned whether setting goals for this new year made sense.

I still believe deeply in goals and long-term vision. But right now, the most important goal isn’t a milestone or metric—it’s getting my mindset right.
Sometimes the real work isn’t pushing harder.

It’s climbing out of the hole, regaining clarity, and rebuilding your inner strength.

If you’re in a season where things didn’t go your way and quitting feels tempting, know this: it’s okay to pause. It’s okay to step back and breathe. Rest isn’t giving up—it’s preparation.

Once your mind is steady again, the goals will still be there.

And you’ll be stronger, clearer, and more resilient when you go after them.

One step at a time. We keep moving forward.

#newyeargoals #growth #newyear

I came across this comment from Reddit a day or so ago and it gave me immediate flashbacks.

If you run a marketing site on WordPress, you know this feeling. You start with a clean, fast theme. Then marketing needs an SEO plugin. Then sales needs a CRM connector. Then you need a caching plugin to fix the speed issues caused by the first two plugins.

Suddenly, your sleek 1-second site is a 6-second Frankenstein monster.

Earlier in my career I fought a ton of these battles.

"Maintenance" didn't mean improving the site. It meant holding my breath every time I clicked "Update All," hoping a conflict wouldn't crash the homepage on a Friday afternoon. It meant constantly worrying about SQL injection vulnerabilities from outdated plugins.

That isn't developing. That’s firefighting.

This is why I pivoted to Webflow.

Webflow isn't just "easier for developers." It’s better for business. It’s an integrated platform, not a patchwork of third-party code.

→ No Plugin Bloat: The core tools you need are built-in and optimised.
→ No Security Nightmares: AWS hosting and enterprise-grade security are standard.
→ No "Update Anxiety": We spend our time building new features that convert, not fixing things that broke overnight.

If that Reddit quote sounds like your current reality, it’s time to stop paying the WordPress tax.

Are you scared to update your plugins? DM me the word "MIGRATE" and let’s chat about moving you to a platform that doesn't keep you awake at night.

#Webflow #WordPress #SiteSpeed #WebDevelopment #59erDigital

To all SaaS founders:

There will be months where the graph is flat and the churn feels personal.

Then you close that one cold lead who doesn't just buy, but actually loves the product.

Your imposter syndrome quiets down, replaced by the electric feeling of true product-market fit.

And suddenly, the path to scale doesn't look like a pitch-deck fantasy anymore, it looks like math.

It is very important that you keep building for the user, not just for the revenue milestone.

You are closer than you think.

A few years ago, a friend of mine made a quiet but brave decision.

She didn’t quit everything overnight.
She didn’t have a massive following.
She just noticed something important: people were responding to her food and her story.

She’s a chef here in South Africa, and when she decided it was time to build something of her own, I offered to help however I could.

We started with conversations, not tactics.
What kind of life she wanted.
What success would look like for her.
Who she actually wanted to serve.

From there, the work followed naturally.
Strategy. Branding. A photoshoot. Small but intentional steps.

The brand wasn’t complicated, but it was honest. It reflected who she was at the time: a chef finding her voice, deeply rooted in her culture, clear about what she stood for.

Over the years, I’ve watched that clarity turn into momentum.

A cookbook.
Workshops teaching people how to cook healthier meals.
TV appearances on Espresso.
Articles written about her work and her journey.

Seeing her growth has been one of those reminders that sticks with you.

Progress doesn’t come from doing everything at once.
It comes from staying focused on what matters to you, even when the results take time.

There were no shortcuts here. Just consistency, patience, trusting in God and a willingness to keep going when it would have been easier to stop.

Success rarely arrives all at once. It’s built slowly, often quietly.

I’m grateful for experiences like this because they remind me of that truth.

It’s always easier to quit.
It’s much harder to keep going when things feel uncertain.

But that’s usually where the real work happens.

Keep going.

#tamubyjane #growth #business #branding #chef

South African tech companies are terrified of being understood.

I took a deep dive into the local tech landscape yesterday. I looked at giants in Fintech, Cloud, and Software.

The design? Often world-class. The code? Usually solid. The copy? It’s a disaster.

We see this trend constantly: Companies spend massive budgets on development, only to fill the hero section with words like synergistic, empowerment, and transformation.

They think "sounding professional" means sounding complex. But in reality, complexity is friction. And friction kills sales.

If a user has to read your H1 twice to figure out what you sell, you have already lost them.

I pulled 5 real-world examples to show exactly what I mean. We’ve rewritten their headlines—not to be mean, but to show how much stronger the message becomes when you just speak Human.

Here is the breakdown. 👇

#Webflow #UXDesign #Copywriting #SaaS #SouthAfrica #59erDigital

You spent R500k on a website

No-Code" is a lie. (And that's a good thing).

I love Webflow and have been working on it for the last few years now. It’s the best visual development tool on the market especially for designers. But the minute you try to build something "Enterprise Grade," the visual tools hit a ceiling.

That’s usually where projects stall. And that is exactly where the fun begins for us even though it might be daunting for us at times.

Real power in Webflow comes when you treat it as a Frontend Interface, not just a website builder.

·      Need a custom heavy calculator? Write the JavaScript.
·      Need complex filtering? Hook up the API.
·      Need the CMS to do backflips? Write the logic.

If you are a business owner, don't let a developer tell you "Webflow can't do that." Usually, they can't do that. Webflow handles the code just fine.

Don't limit your business logic to what the "visual interface" allows.

#Webflow #JavaScript #Frontend #NoCode #Tech

Technology shouldn't be a religion. It’s a toolkit.


I have deep respect for developers who have spent 15+ years mastering WordPress. They are true craftsmen, and in the right hands, that platform is powerful.

I understand why they defend it passionately. I would do the same.

But the landscape of digital marketing has changed.

Over the last few years, we’ve helped many companies migrate away from legacy stacks. Not because the "code was bad," but because the business needs shifted.

The modern marketing team is under immense pressure.

→ They need to launch landing pages in hours, not weeks.
→ They need to run A/B tests without submitting a support ticket.
→ They need to iterate on copy and layout instantly.

The bottleneck isn't the developer's skill. The bottleneck is the workflow.

This is why we specialise in Webflow.

It gives the power back to the marketing team. It removes the "Can you please change this header?" email chain and replaces it with "Published."

Let me be clear: Webflow is not the right tool for every single project. If you are building a massive custom web application or a complex directory, stick with custom code or a database-heavy CMS.

But for growth-focused companies that need a marketing engine? The agility Webflow offers is a competitive advantage.

We’ve been building on this platform since the early days because we believe in empowering teams, not gatekeeping them.

If your marketing team feels stuck in the slow lane, let's have an honest conversation about your stack. No hard sell, just a look at what fits your goals.

#WebDevelopment #MarTech #Webflow #BusinessAgility #59erDigital

Ever had a freelancer disappear when you needed them most?


That’s exactly the call I got a few months ago.

A client reached out in a panic. She had hired a freelancer, signed the contract, and even paid for the work upfront. Then? Silence.

She ghosted her. No code, no login, no refund.

The worst part wasn't the lost money. It was the timing. Her industry’s "busy season" was kicking off, and she had no way to capture the flood of new leads coming her way.

We didn't have time to mourn the lost deposit. We had to move.

We stepped in with a recovery plan:

→ Rapid Build: We used Webflow to deploy a high-performance site before her deadline.
→ Systematised: We didn't just build it; we built a system she could control.
→ Training: We trained her so she never feel "held hostage" by a developer again.

The hard lesson here? There is a hidden cost to hiring based on the lowest price. Some freelancers are incredible. But others take on too much, get overwhelmed, and vanish when the pressure hits.

When you hire a partner, you aren't paying for just code. You are paying for the guarantee that we will pick up the phone when you need us most.

Don't wait for a crisis to upgrade your dev partner. DM me "WEBFLOW" and let's build a site you can actually rely on.

#Webflow #BusinessGrowth #AgencyLife #WebDesign #Reliability

Every year, creators panic about “the algorithm changing.”

But 2026 is different.
It’s not the algorithm that changed, it’s the entire internet.

Search doesn’t work the same.
Funnels don’t work the same.
Even lead generation doesn’t work the same.

And that’s why so many smart creators feel stuck right now, doing “everything right” but getting worse results.

I broke down what’s actually changing, why old strategies are quietly failing, and the few shifts that really matter going forward.

You can watch the full video on my YT channel @iamrobertsmart

#funnels #search #youtube #leadgeneration #growth

People aren’t “Googling” the way they used to.

They’re asking ChatGPT.
They’re searching inside TikTok.
They’re opening YouTube Shorts.
They’re reading Reddit threads.

Search didn’t disappear - it fractured.

That’s why ranking for a keyword doesn’t feel as powerful anymore, even when you do everything “right.”

The real question creators need to ask now isn’t:
“How do I rank for this?”

It’s:
“How do I show up wherever someone is asking this question?”

That shift changes how you write, how you structure content, and how discovery actually happens.

Worth watching the full video on my YT channel @iamrobertsmart

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Robert Smart

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The Battle

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