Sep 21, 2026 · 39 min
Jesse Cole turns fan-first values into a repeatable spectacle
Jesse Cole: Normal Gets Normal Results | The Fans First Playbook
The conversation shows how leaders can make culture tangible by designing around customer friction, modeling values, and treating failure as discovery.
- 1Exceptional experiences begin by identifying friction and deliberately choreographing the customer journey.
- 2Values become credible when leaders repeat them, model them during difficult moments, and make costly decisions accordingly.
- 3Creative businesses scale through storytelling, personal gestures, and persistent experimentation rather than polished certainty.
Don't miss
Jesse Cole recounts Banana Ball’s early setbacks, including selling only two tickets and facing technical failures at major events, then reframes them as discovery.
The brief
Jesse Cole traces his fans-first mission to a desire for belonging, then explains why ordinary baseball practices produced ordinary results.
His operating principle is practical: find friction by seeing the business through the customer’s eyes, then choreograph every moment of the experience.
Cole says culture becomes real when leaders repeat its values, model them under pressure, and use mistakes as visible teaching moments.
The Savannah Bananas scale an intentionally personal experience through stories, gratitude, and gestures that make fans and employees feel recognized.
The standout lesson comes from Banana Ball’s rough beginnings, including selling two tickets and enduring technical failures without abandoning the experiment.
Cole treats reinvention as continuous practice: running, journaling, generating ideas, and responding to failure as discovery rather than defeat.
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Jesse Cole
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