The story behind Dear John and the question that still drives it.

35+

Years of experience

About Dear John

The Dutch army knife

I’m Marjan, and you’d hear within a sentence on the phone that I’m Dutch. So think of me as the Swiss army knife for your business, only the Dutch version.

You know how a Swiss army knife works: one thing in your pocket, and whatever comes up, there’s a bit that folds out for it. I work the same way for your business. You don’t have to figure out first whether you need a web person, an SEO person, an AI person or a strategist. You bring me whatever isn’t working, I go in and have a look at what’s going wrong, and I’ve probably got the tools and the know-how to fix it.

I used to give all my clients a little Swiss army knife key ring (the Scout in me), and I didn’t realise then that it was probably the best way to describe what I do.

I studied Computer Sciences back in The Netherlands when the century still started with 19, and built my first website in 1995, when the internet still screeched at you while dialing in and you felt lucky if an image loaded within three minutes.

Since then I’ve added design, coding, strategy, conversion, copywriting, automations, integrations and AI to the knife, each one because something wasn’t working and I wanted to know why. Why isn’t this working the way it should? How can this be better, faster, more efficient, heck..even cheaper?

Those questions still drive Dear John.

I’ve got a tool for that

People come to me for all sorts of things. It might be a website that isn’t bringing in clients or a strategy that isn’t quite working, tools that don’t talk to each other, or something they’re still doing by hand because nobody ever set it up properly. Others want to use AI in a way that actually saves time, or can’t find their business in Google or in AI (GEO). Some of my tools for that are software, but my brain is one too, and it gets the most use.

Most of them have already been to someone who fixed one thing and broke everything else, so I start with a bird’s eye view of how it all hangs together and then fix the bits so they marry up. You won’t get a standard package from me either, since one size has never fitted me. I’m far too tall.

Not many people know this, but I also have a translation diploma, Dutch to English, and it’s still what I do all day, only now it’s your tech and your strategy I turn into something you can use. The tech side I learned back when you had to understand what you were building, before you could prompt your way through it, and that matters now more than it ever did.

How Dear John started

Kris Lockett and Lis Sowerbutts started Dear John, well, many moons ago. Kris with a typography obsession and a design eye that predates flashing banner ads. Lis with a gift for making technical things make sense to actual humans and a conviction that technology should serve business, not the other way round.

In 2025 they handed the keys to me, Marjan. I kept the conviction and added a few more tools.

Why the name Dear John?

Weird name for a business technology company. Fair point.

A Dear John letter is a breakup letter. You’ve had enough. You’re done letting something run your life.

That’s still the idea, just applied to your business technology. The tools that were supposed to help you, but somehow ended up owning your Monday mornings. The website that needed constant attention. The processes you kept doing by hand because nobody ever fixed them properly.

Dear John is what you write to all of that.

The name comes from an old NZ song (not the Taylor Swift one) that used to play on TV back when you couldn’t skip the commercials. The sentiment stuck.

Sometimes you just need to say: enough. Here’s what’s not working. Let’s sort it out.