PAPER NO. 10
Let Other People
Carry It.
If you remove the middlemen, something still has to carry the idea.
ONE Blades is building distribution around the people who already own, use and believe in the product. Not selected influencers. Not another sales layer. Skaters themselves.
WHO CREATES THE VALUE
Skaters were already
carrying the brands.
I have been creating skating content for more than a decade.
During that time I watched the same thing happen again and again.
A skater buys something they love.
They skate on it.
They film it.
They post it.
They tag the company.
Other skaters ask questions, and they answer them.
They recommend the product because they genuinely like using it.
In other words, they create value for the company.
Sometimes the brand reposts them.
Sometimes they gain a few followers.
Often that is the entire exchange.
The company gets distribution.
The skater gets attention.
I kept thinking there had to be a better way.
If skaters help create
the distribution,
they should share in
the value it creates.
Years ago I experienced a version of this myself.
I joined an affiliate program where people could use my code, save money on what they bought, and I would earn from the purchase.
I liked the mechanism.
The customer benefited.
The person introducing them benefited.
The company gained a customer.
But I kept coming back to another question.
Why should access to that opportunity depend on how influential somebody already is?
Open the opportunity.
Keep the rules the same.
Traditional skating sponsorship usually works from the top down.
A company chooses the skaters it believes have enough status, results or influence.
Those skaters may receive products.
They may also be paid to represent the brand.
That is one model.
I wanted to build something different.
With ONE Blades, the opportunity is not based on follower count.
It is not based on where you live.
It is not based on whether you are famous.
It is not based on whether somebody at the company has decided you are important enough.
If you meet the creator requirements, the economics are the same.
The customer saves 10%.
Buying through a creator link gives the customer a direct benefit.
The creator earns 10%.
The person who helped bring the customer in shares in the value they helped create.
The rule does not change with status.
The same structure applies regardless of audience size, location or influence.
A skater with a huge audience can use it.
So can somebody who only talks to people at their local rink.
A coach can use it.
A performer can use it.
A parent talking to another parent can use it.
And somebody who has no interest in any of this can ignore the entire program and simply skate.
The opportunity is there.
Participation is a choice.
Equal opportunity does not mean
everyone has to participate.
It means everyone gets
the choice.
Ownership comes
before promotion.
There is one rule underneath everything.
You need to own EDGE before joining the creator program.
That matters.
It separates somebody sharing something they actually use from somebody simply putting a link on the internet.
Paper 9 explained one of the problems with traditional skating distribution.
People can end up selling equipment they have never skated on.
They repeat the claims they were given.
They may have no direct experience of whether those claims are true.
I do not want to rebuild that problem under a different name.
If somebody is going to help carry EDGE, they should know what EDGE feels like under their own feet.
This does not mean every owner has to agree with me about everything.
It means their opinion comes from experience.
That is the standard I care about.
The geometry does not depend on marketing.
Three wheels create two balance zones.
Four wheels create three balance zones.
An ice blade creates three balance zones.
The rocker axles then allow the skater to adjust the frame setup.
If somebody is talking to another skater about how EDGE behaves, I want that conversation grounded in actual use.
Experience first.
Recommendation second.
Economics third.
The smallest example
explains the whole system.
Some of the clearest proof has not come from large social media accounts.
It has come from simple conversations.
An EDGE owner is skating locally.
Another skater asks about the setup.
They talk.
The owner explains what they are using and how it works for them.
The other skater decides they want EDGE too.
They buy through the owner's creator link.
The new customer saves.
The existing owner earns.
ONE Blades gains another skater.
And that new EDGE owner can now choose to become part of the same system.
This is what makes follower count a weak way to think about distribution.
Someone might have a hundred thousand followers and never create a meaningful purchase.
Someone else might have almost no online audience and personally help five people in their rink choose the right setup.
Both can create value.
I do not need to decide in advance which one deserves access.
The system can simply let the result happen.
Influence is not
follower count.
Sometimes it is one skater
talking to another.
A creator is not
another middleman.
At first glance, it could look like we removed one distribution layer and added another.
We did not.
The traditional middleman sits between the company and the customer.
The product passes through them.
They add their margin.
They control part of the customer relationship.
The creator program works in the opposite direction.
The creator never becomes the seller.
They do not hold inventory.
They do not set the price.
They do not stand between ONE Blades and the person buying.
The customer still buys directly from ONE Blades.
The creator simply gets recognized for helping that relationship begin.
And once that first purchase happens, the creator relationship stays attached to that customer.
The person who created the relationship should not lose it because another link appeared later.
That matters even more as the company grows.
If somebody helps introduce a skater to ONE Blades, and that skater stays with the company for years, the original contribution still mattered.
The system should remember it.
Do not pay people
for standing in the middle.
Reward the people
who create the connection.
What happens when
thousands of skaters
can participate.
The interesting part is not what this looks like today.
It is what it could look like after years of compounding.
Imagine hundreds or thousands of creators skating, coaching, performing and making content in different countries.
They are already doing those things.
The program gives them another way for those activities to create economic value.
That does not mean everyone will earn a living from it.
That is not the promise.
It means the opportunity exists.
A skater in a country with very few traditional skating opportunities can participate.
A coach can participate.
A performer can participate.
A young creator learning how online business works can participate.
And by participating, they can learn something bigger than how to share a link.
They can learn how distribution works.
How content creates demand.
How trust creates transactions.
How a business can share economics with the people helping it grow.
That connects to everything else I am building.
The ONE Academy is open because knowledge is more useful when more people can access it.
The skating guides are available because useful information should travel.
This Build Series exists because I do not see much value in hiding how the company is being built.
Someone might read these papers, understand something that took me years to learn, and use it to build something of their own.
Good.
That is part of the point.
The same principle sits underneath the creator program.
Open access creates more possibility than deciding in advance who deserves the opportunity.
The goal is not to create
a small group of chosen creators.
The goal is to create
more opportunity for skaters.
Distribution by belief,
not by markup.
Paper 9 removed the traditional chain.
This paper explains what replaces it.
Not another chain.
A network.
People discover EDGE through skaters who already use it.
They still buy directly from ONE Blades.
They still get direct support.
Their feedback still comes straight back.
The direct relationship never disappears.
What changes is how many people can help that relationship begin.
That matters because no founder can personally reach every skater in every country.
But the principle can scale.
Ownership first.
One simple economic structure.
Direct purchase.
Permanent recognition for the person who created the original connection.
Direct does not have to mean
one person carrying everything.
It means nobody has to stand
between you and the skater.
There is one paper left in The Build Series.
It is not another tool, platform or distribution system.
It is the thing that decides whether any of those systems should exist at all.
The Long Game and the Filters is about how I decide what ONE Blades does, what it refuses to do, and how I stop short-term opportunities from changing the reason the company exists.
DO THIS NOW
Find the people already
carrying what you built.
Do not start by asking who has the biggest audience.
Start by finding the people who already understand, use and believe in the thing.
Find where the recommendations already happen.
Look for the real conversations.
Customers talking to friends. Coaches answering questions. People posting because they genuinely use the product.
Distribution may already be happening before you have built a system around it.
Ask who creates value but receives none of it.
Follow the economic value created by those recommendations.
If somebody repeatedly helps your company grow, ask whether the structure recognizes that contribution.
Make experience part of the structure.
Do not build incentives that reward people for recommending something they do not understand.
Decide what real experience should be required before somebody can represent what you make.
Remove status from the opportunity.
Ask whether access really needs to depend on audience size, fame or influence.
If the same rule can work for everybody, use the same rule.
Build a flywheel, not another chain.
The best system does not create another layer between you and the customer.
It helps more people create the direct connection.
Make each new participant capable of helping the next one enter.
THE BUILD SERIES · PAPER NO. 10
Do not build
a bigger chain.
Build more owners.
Let the people who believe in it carry it.
PAPER NO. 11