About
How a one-man wrecking crew does things differently.
Jonas Strandell outside London Design Museum.
Sailors & Mermaids is a tiny content and marketing studio run by me, Jonas Strandell. I’m an award-winning marketer, designer, and writer based outside Stockholm, Sweden.
Growing up, I always wanted to be a “comic book person.” But that was a somewhat limited space to be in. Who knew!? My parents have always supported my decision to pursue a creative career. My mom used to draw for a living, and my dad’s title was Typographer, which is incredibly cool.
Later, I went to film school to become a screenwriter. Quite possibly an even more narrow career choice with about three jobs in Sweden.
Then along came the Internet.
I created my first website using Netscape and a 14.4k dial-up modem in the mid-90s, and I was hooked. I’ve been creating things online since. I have had this website since, gosh, 2011!
I’ve spent over 20 years building marketing teams at tech companies. My time in the trenches has allowed me to lead marketing teams at companies such as Cosafe, Besedo, Lavendla, Pingdom, Dooer, and SolarWinds. I’ve built global teams and created content and marketing efforts around world-leading software and products. Those efforts won awards and deserve the spotlight, not me.
I have been fortunate to work with companies such as Ben Sherman, Sega Games, MTV, and others.
My wife Josefine and I reside just outside Stockholm, but we dream of someday living on or near a vineyard in northern Italy. If you’re going to dream, it might as well be big enough to need irrigation systems, right?
Not like the other kids
Small studio with disproportionate output. After all, it’s not the size of the boat but the motion of the ocean.
We’re obsessive about the craft, mainly because we know how to take what you love about your product and make other people feel that@ too. But remember: if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you will never do anything.
Always add value
Working with Sailors & Mermaids will Always Add Value – AAV (ding!). The kind that drives growth, builds trust, and makes people actually give a damn.
Dive deep, ask the right questions, and be helpful. Because if we’re not, then what good are we?
Whether content, design, or brand positioning, the goal is always the same: make it clear, make it useful, make it work.
Have any questions? Check out our FAQ.
Jonas Strandell and wife Josefine on vespa. Pixel art is forever.
Colophon
The current version of this website was created in fits and starts, with considerable delays and indecision. Most ideas spawned during evenings and weekends, and the previous versions of the website are in the bin, where they belong.
All design and development was done in-house (literally). The website itself is built from the ground up in Framer with duct-tape, tweaks, and handmade code. Illustrations, patterns, animations, icons, and pixel art were created using a mix of pen & paper, Procreate, Figma, and Adobe Photoshop. I use MailerLite for the newsletter.
Oh, and I have sprinkled some subtle easter egg animations all over, and they are all done in Lottie Editor.
I have used responsive design techniques to ensure the site is nicely readable on many devices. While the site has not been widely tested, it should be fine on all modern browsers.
Typography
The wonderfully charming headlines are set in Moranga from Fontspring by Sofia Mohr. And the main body text is a beautiful typeface called Circular from Lineto.
Media kit
Short bio (50 words)
Jonas Strandell is an award-winning marketer and designer with more than 20 years of experience working with SaaS and digital-first companies. He has led teams at Pingdom, Dooer, Lavendla, and Besedo, helping startups and scale-ups grow using creative, data-driven marketing. Through his studio, Sailors & Mermaids, he helps others create kickass marketing.
Medium bio (100 words)
Jonas Strandell is a Swedish designer, writer, and accidental marketer who has spent over two decades creating award-winning marketing for SaaS companies. He helped grow Pingdom from 30,000 to 900,000 users, scaled Lavendla into the #2 funeral services brand in Sweden, and doubled leads at Besedo while reducing spend by 47%. Through his content and marketing studio, Sailors & Mermaids, Jonas helps startups and scaleups be even better. He’s known for his candid, iterative approach and is a self-described Olympic-level potty mouth – fueled by rage and coffee. He loves an English football team that has rarely shown him the same affection.
Long bio (200 words)
Jonas Strandell is an award-winning marketer, designer, and writer based just outside Stockholm, Sweden. Over the last 20 years, he has helped SaaS companies and digital-first brands turn great products into growth engines.
As CMO at Pingdom, he built and scaled a global marketing team, growing users from 30,000 to 900,000 and securing clients such as Apple, Instagram, Squarespace, and Spotify. At Dooer, he increased lead generation by 180% in just four months. As CMO and CPO at Lavendla, he led the company’s digital transformation, achieving 75% YoY revenue growth and making it Sweden’s #2 funeral services brand. Most recently, at Besedo, Jonas transformed marketing operations, nearly doubling inbound leads while reducing spend by 47%, bringing in clients like eBay, Voxmedia, and Rockstar Games.
Through his studio Sailors & Mermaids, Jonas works with startups and scaleups, offering strategy, coaching, and hands-on execution. A frequent speaker and writer, he’s passionate about making marketing accessible, iterative, and fun – and freely admits he’s an Olympic-level pottymouth fueled by rage and coffee. A hopeless romantic and optimist at heart, he has given his unwavering loyalty to a football club that has rarely shown him the same affection for 40 years.
Features, interviews, etc.
Evo nordics
The Clean Feed
Precis Digital
Guldstänk
Dagens Industri: Årets Gasell
K10k
Pixelpushers
