I think we’re all just a bag of jelly beans, millions of gooey little nothings poured into that jar above our necks; and “you get what you get”. But nature doesn’t define us, because nurture shakes the jar. The sequence realigns, the count remains the same, but now we’re a little more blue than yellow, thanks to the iPad during breakfast, or the abusive father who never cared about the photo you drew him. When a thought in your head seems so obvious to you that it drives you crazy when others can’t see the same; just remember everyone’s their own bag of beans.

I think about this a lot when I think about OWM. I see where the world is going. Maybe it’s the curated podcasts of Harry Stebbings and All-In, or my X feed that is constantly reinforcing that attention is currency and that if no one knows your company exists, it dies.

That we as humans will search out community and want more in-person, that Netflix will soon allow you to create your own content while they curate the shows that percolate through culture. How a humans-only social media platform will become the next big thing because we want to talk to one another, and the Metas and TikToks won’t stop virtual influencers from taking over our feeds because they create too much content, too much engagement, and make them too much money.

But OWM, it’s not about attention. It’s about a new American Dream. It’s no longer about owning a home, it’s about being an owner. It’s about the next generation who won’t have cash to invest, or experience to advise. They’ll have influence. An understanding of how to cut through the algorithm; to get all of us who scroll on our phones to stop and listen. The right hook, the right beats to stay to the value prop. Earned trust that’s currency enough to feed their familia and to invest in the ideas they believe in. That’s influence for equity.

And I believe AI will create millions of entrepreneurs who will build incredible products and solve tremendous problems; but they’ll all compete for attention. And what that little bag of beans inside my head keeps telling me is that if the people who influence the customers you want, were invested in your company’s success, you’d be more successful.

Maybe I’m wrong, but enough of my beans and how they’ve been shaken for the last 40 years tells me everyday that this is where the puck is going. So that’s why I’m all-in. My unique combo of nature and nurture screams of the obvious future and maybe you see it, or maybe you don't; but that's ok. I'm just a little more green than you, even though I wish I was a bit more yellow.

→ Every Founder Must Know: McLaren just launched a golf brand. Justin Rose, Ian Poulter, and Michelle Wie West are on the cap table at debut. Not endorsers. Investors.

→ The Operator: Mari Llewellyn posted a transformation photo in 2019. Today she is Co-founder and President of a $1 billion brand. She sold the majority and kept the seat.

→ The Signal: Steph Curry just relaunched a sports drink. He is not on the can. He is on the cap table.

On Wednesday, McLaren launched a golf brand.

Two debut iron lines, the Series 1 Tour blade and the Series 3 players-distance iron. $375 a club. Select fitting retailers across North America, Europe, and South Korea starting April 30. Forged construction. F1 engineering DNA. Premium positioning.

The product is real. The cap table is the story.

McLaren Golf's first three Tour ambassadors are not just signed talent. They are equity holders.

Justin Rose (world No. 5, two PGA Tour wins since August, top-three finishes in each of the last two Masters). Ian Poulter (Ryder Cup legend, more than a dozen worldwide wins). Michelle Wie West (US Women's Open champion).

All three on the cap table at launch.

McLaren keeps using the phrase "player-led development strategy." The right word is co-founder.

That's not three signed ambassadors. That's three co-founders with bag tags.

Rose has been involved for nearly two years. He tested prototypes, helped guide club development, and acted as an advisor to the board long before the brand had a logo on a putter cover.

He played the Series 1 irons at Doral on Wednesday in their first competitive round. Wie West will play them at the Mizuho Americas Open and the U.S. Women's Open. Poulter is gaming them on the Champions Tour.

Three different tours. Three different deployments. One launch month.

The deeper read is what makes McLaren's move sharper than anyone else's.

McLaren did not parachute racing engineers into golf. They embedded inside the existing infrastructure. The lead strategic partner on McLaren Golf is 8AM Golf, the Howard Milstein-controlled holding company that owns fourteen separate golf businesses, including GOLF magazine, GOLF.com, Miura, True Spec Golf, Fairway Jockey, and Club Conex.

The "select custom-fitting retailer" channel in the launch release is a polite phrase for the 8AM-owned retail vertical. 🤯

McLaren Golf's CEO is Neil Howie, who spent more than 25 years as President of Callaway Golf Europe. The design hub is in Carlsbad, the same town that houses TaylorMade and Callaway.

McLaren recruited the deepest possible incumbent operator out of the deepest possible incumbent and put him in his competitors' home town.

This is not an F1 brand dabbling in golf. This is incumbent-grade infrastructure shipped under a player-led cap table.

The recruiting flywheel is already turning. Rose confirmed this week he and Poulter have been texting other Tour pros about it.

Other equipment OEMs cannot match the offer. The flat-fee endorsement is a closed loop. The cap-table position is open-ended.

Every Tour pro who tests Rose's irons over the next year is a candidate to be the next equity-holding ambassador.

Tiger gets paid by TaylorMade. Phil got paid by Callaway. Rory gets paid by TaylorMade.

The flat-fee endorsement has been the operating model of golf equipment for fifty years. McLaren just shipped a different one.

That is exactly what OWM was built to help founders see, name, and structure for. We help brands find the creators and athletes who already have conviction in their category, then put them on the cap table before someone else does.

THE BUILD is the OWM × COLLAB sprint launching May 6th and culminating in a one-day event in London on May 20th. Five founders. Five of London's most influential creators. 14 days to ship a real product to a real audience, with the creator already on the cap table.

A week into applications, we have 50+ in.

The pool includes multiple exited founders and a roster of creators with a combined audience of 30 million plus. The right people are showing up.

Lovable will power the tech stack. Canva will power the brand. Pitch night streams globally to a panel of VCs. The winning team walks away with a £25K+ launch stack and other prizes from our partners

Applications close Saturday, May 3.

If you’ve been wanting to build something and launch it to an eager audience that already exists, this is the room you’ll want to be in.

In 2019, Mari Llewellyn shared her personal weight-loss and fitness transformation online. A community formed around the post.

Seven years later, that community is the operating system of a $1 billion multi-category consumer brand.

The News:

Forbes profiled Bloom Nutrition this week.

Mari Llewellyn is Co-founder and President. Her husband Greg LaVecchia is Co-founder and CEO. Together they built the brand from a $5 PDF workout guide to greens powder to a supplements line that is now the #1 nutrition brand at Target.

Then they launched Bloom Sparkling Energy in July 2024. They sold 35 million cans in under twelve months. Bloom is now the #5 energy brand at Walmart and Target and the #2 on Amazon.

Bloom Pop, the prebiotic soda, hit 4,000+ Walmart stores and locked into the #3 slot in modern soda inside its first six months.

The beverage arm alone is hitting $500 million in annual revenue and is on track to surpass the supplement arm this year.

None of those numbers explain the structure. The structure is the cap table.

Llewellyn and LaVecchia bootstrapped on her audience alone. In January 2024, they took $90 million from Nutrabolt (the C4 Energy parent) for roughly 20 percent, with co-investment from CAVU Consumer Partners founder Clayton Christopher and Amberstone Ventures.

Eighteen months later, in September 2025, Nutrabolt put in another $160 million for majority control.

Llewellyn and LaVecchia sold the majority. They kept the seat.

The Operator Take:

Most influencer-led brands fail one of two tests. They sell the founder out, or they refuse outside capital and stall in retail.

Llewellyn did neither. She held the operating seat through every round.

She did the playbook once at Bloom. She is doing it again now at the Pursuit Network, the independent media company she co-founded with Michaela Phillips after exiting Dear Media. Pursuit Network's stated focus is "creator ownership and brand integration."

Llewellyn is no longer a creator who founded a brand. She is operating the holding company that does the same thing for other creators.

If your creator strategy is still "pay them for a post," you are not even competing for the deal Llewellyn would have signed in 2019. She would not take that deal anymore.

She is on the other side of the table.

On April 22, PLEZi Hydration relaunched.

A sports drink with twice the electrolytes and seven times the potassium of the leading incumbents. No added sugar. Four flavors including a new Berry Boom. The structure is the story.

The News:

Stephen and Ayesha Curry are not paid spokespeople for PLEZi Hydration. They are co-founders alongside PLEZi Nutrition, the Public Benefit Company co-founded by Michelle Obama.

Per the official release, the Currys "play an active role in shaping the product's formulation, packaging, and marketing."

The relaunch refreshed packaging inspired by the swish of a basketball net and expanded distribution into Walmart, Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Ralph's, and Fred Meyer.

The category they are taking on is the $26 billion global sports drink market, dominated for decades by Gatorade and Powerade.

The Operator Take:

Gatorade has owned the basketball aisle for forty years on flat-fee endorsement contracts with the biggest names in the league.

Curry was one of those names for most of his career. He is now in business against them.

He is not the only one this week. Six days after Curry's relaunch, Conor McGregor walked on stage at the Beverage Forum in California and unveiled MAC Energy, a functional drink he founded outright (200mg natural caffeine, 250mg Cognizin, 2g BHB ketones, retailing July 12).

He has run this play before. His Proper No. Twelve whiskey sold a majority stake to Proximo Spirits in 2021.

That is the through-line. Kelce did a smaller version with Sleep Number stock. Serena did the bigger version at Ro. Curry and McGregor are the biggest version yet, in the same week.

The biggest names in sports are choosing the cap table over the campaign budget.

➡️ Follow me on LinkedIn for the unfiltered takes I can't fit in this newsletter.

➡️ Forward this to another founder who's struggling with creator partnerships. Ownership spreads one conversation at a time.

➡️ Need 1:1 guidance? Block time with me any Friday here. No pitches, just real talk.