I’m Robert Newman.
A place to share what I’m working on, the books that have shaped my thinking, and space for a good conversation.
I believe facts, faith, and action are a powerful combination for personal progress. For me, self-development is central to that process.
My work has taken me from building a digital agency in London to establishing Newman’s International Associates, a consultancy and recruitment business. In November 2021, I founded JobTag, which came to market in November 2025.
Today, I’m focused on how technology can help people and opportunities find one another, and on sharing the practical lessons I’ve learned along the way.
02 / WHAT I’M BUILDING
Technology, talent, and the work
of connecting people with opportunity.
A hiring platform connecting candidates and employers through map discovery, video introductions, matching, chat, and interview scheduling.
Founder
Job-ad ratings and verifiable badges that make transparency visible. It assesses how clearly an advertisement explains the role, pay, requirements, and hiring process, helping employers improve their ads and candidates make informed decisions.
Creator
Newman’s International Associates connects organisations with specialist IT consultants and project management professionals.
Founder
ONE TO ONE · INTRO
Bring one meaningful question about your career or business. In a private 15-minute session, we’ll work towards a practical next step, drawing on lessons from building businesses and navigating change.
04 / FREE GROUP OFFICE HOURS
A PROPOSED FORMATA small group. An open conversation.
A little time to think things through, together.
Room for a real conversation
Small enough for everyone to be heard
Group office hours, open to all
Date, time, and timezone will be announced here.
These are free group sessions. For a private conversation, see expert advice.
05 / THE PERSONAL BOOKSHELF
Books that helped shape my journey.
Perhaps there’s something here for yours.
Explore books that have helped shape my thinking.
I created this website to bring together what I’m building, what I’m learning, and the conversations I’d like to have.
I’ll share practical lessons from my work, ideas from books, and questions I’m still thinking through. My hope is that something here helps you take your own next step.
Early in my career, finding a job regularly took me four to six months. I would search, apply, follow up, and spend time pursuing opportunities that led nowhere.
When I spoke with people in my network, I kept hearing similar experiences. What frustrated me was how normal everyone seemed to think this was.
If finding work could take that long even with professional training and experience, what barriers were other people facing? What about someone without formal qualifications, or someone looking for practical, hands-on work?
Those questions became part of the motivation behind JobTag.
But having an idea and bringing it to life turned out to be very different things.
After receiving quotes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars just to build JobTag’s minimum viable product (MVP) from established iOS developers, including some with well-known YouTube channels, I hired freelancers to help with development. Several disappointing experiences later, I decided to learn SwiftUI myself, starting from zero while continuing to provide consultancy and run my company.
That decision became a substantial part of the journey: learning enough to take a more direct role in building the product I wanted to exist.
I founded JobTag in November 2021 and brought it to market in November 2025. Between those dates sits a much longer story. One I’ll share here, including the setbacks, decisions, and things I had to learn along the way.
I was passionate about design long before I started building JobTag.
In high school, I was designing websites and building animated projects with Macromedia Flash. Later Adobe Flash. Now a moment of silence. :)
At university, I was designing and building complex shopping cart websites for freelance clients. Somewhere between moving things around a screen and getting an actual checkout to work, I learned how much design matters. Websites, products, packaging. It shapes how people understand and experience what you’ve made.
Then I bought my first iPhone, a 3GS, and became fascinated by apps.
Getting an entire experience onto that little screen was something else. Every button, every transition, every detail needed thought. For me, making that journey smooth and clear was a much bigger challenge than laying out a web page.
So when I started JobTag, I started with the UI and UX. I wanted to see how the app would look and how people would move through it.
And no, I didn’t start with wireframes.
Sorry, wireframe fans. Grey boxes do absolutely nothing for me. I’d spend more time wanting to colour them in than thinking about the app.
Give me colours, typography, proper buttons, and screens that look like something I’d actually want to use. That’s how my brain works. I need to see the design to think through the experience.
That was the first thing I built for JobTag: the design.
Then came the small matter of learning how to make it work.