Oliver Cookson

Built @Myprotein from 0 to exit
Founder @vavaverve
Founder @cooksonfirstaid
Building 👀
Author of 'Bootstrap Your Life'
Patron 'Make-a-Wish'

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Midjourney announcing a move into health and medical scanning is fascinating.

But the bigger lesson is founder control.

It started as an AI image company.

Now the founder has decided to move into health, ultrasound scanning and medical hardware.

That is not just a pivot.

It is a double pivot.

Creative AI to health.
Software to hardware.

In many companies, that idea would get buried under investor meetings, board caution, strategy decks and people asking whether it fits the current narrative.

At Midjourney, the founder can see something, believe in it, and move.

That is why control matters.

Not because founders are always right.

But because original ideas often look irrational at the beginning.

I am not anti capital.

I am anti dependency.

Capital is useful.

Founder conviction is still more important.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@itsolelehmann Absolutely agree and why founder control is key to all my businesses.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@midjourney That’s known as a “pivot pivot”

I love it.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@darrenmarble Relentless

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Suno just shipped a feature called “My Taste.” The AI learns what you like and makes more of it.

I’ve played with it. It’s impressive. But I don’t use it to make my own music I prefer building the tracks myself in Ableton. That’s the enjoyment for me.

The output was never the hard part. Taste is.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

The Fable 5 restriction feels like a major AI moment.

Reports suggest Anthropic had to cut access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 after a US government directive linked to national security concerns and possible safeguard bypasses.

Whatever the full details, the signal is clear:

Frontier AI is no longer just a model race.

It is a trust race.
A security race.
A governance race.
An access race.

This feels like an opportune moment for OpenAI.

Not to rush irresponsibly, but to land something that resets expectations.

GPT 5.5 is already very strong. I use it across strategy, content, product thinking, research and business. But the next true leap cannot just be better benchmarks.

It needs to feel:

• More reliable
• Better at execution
• Stronger in long context
• Less confidently wrong
• Safer without becoming blunt
• More like infrastructure than a chatbot

That is what interests me with Zenor and Arthur too.

AI as an operating layer.

Not novelty.
Not hype.
Actual decision support.

GPT 5.6 may be an incremental step.

But GPT 6, whenever it comes, needs to knock it out of the park.

The winner will not just be the company with the most powerful model.

It will be the company people trust enough to build their lives and businesses around.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Resources help. Resourcefulness wins.

No perfect plan. No ideal timing. No big team. No one coming to save you.

Just the problem in front of you and the willingness to solve it.

Anyone can operate when it's all set up. The real test is what you do when it isn't.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@Frankiercl Stick to what works for you - thats the point.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

I rarely wake before 9am and didn't when building Myprotein.

Don't listen to anyone who says you need to be up at 5am

There are 24 hours in the day, do what suits you.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@leon_cvetkovski It means high purity and low in toxins.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Creatine Has Come Full Circle

The most talked-about ingredient in fitness and longevity right now is the same one I was selling in 500g bags in 2004.

When I launched Myprotein, creatine monohydrate was one of the first products I truly believed in. Sports nutrition was a different market back then less education, less transparency typically; far fewer brands selling serious ingredients directly to consumers. Creatine was one of the few products that actually deserved the attention.

It was simple. It was proven. It worked.

I was there right at the beginning of the modern creatine market in the UK and Europe, and I was one of the first to bring high quality creatine monohydrate and Creapure to consumers at scale. Back then, Creapure wasn’t a recognised ingredient brand it is today. It had the quality, the purity, and the science, but the market still needed to understand it. That was a big part of what we did at Myprotein: take ingredients that were niche, expensive, and misunderstood, and make them accessible, transparent, and trusted.

I sometimes joke that I’m one of the godfathers of creatine in Europe. Not because I invented it, obviously but because I helped take it from a niche powder to a mainstream staple.

Back then it came in raw 100, 250 and 500 gram bags. You bought the bag, took your scoop, used it every day. That worked for the market at the time. But the world has changed people still want products that work, they just don’t want the friction.

That’s why, with Verve, we’re bringing a tripled tested Creatine back in a format that fits modern life.

The same trusted ingredient.

The same simple logic.

Now in precise 5 gram single-serving sticks.

No mess. No measuring. No friction. One clean daily serving of Creapure creatine monohydrate, ready wherever you are.

And the timing matters. Creatine is no longer just a gym product. It’s now at the centre of conversations about strength, ageing, muscle preservation, cognition, energy, and long-term health. In many ways, the world has finally caught up with how important this ingredient really is.

Some products come and go. Some trends burn brightly and disappear. The best ingredients endure.

Creatine was there at the beginning of my journey in sports nutrition. Now it’s at the centre of what we’re building with Verve.

—

We’re launching soon. **Comment CREATINE below** and I’ll make sure you’re one of the first to get it — plus **20% off your first order**.

Same ingredient. New format. Full circle.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@geoheaton 🎯

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@Tanzim_at Would love too, but I don't have time to do 1 to 1 mentorship anymore.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Thinking of doing a 30 minute founder Q&A on here.

Bootstrapping, direct to consumer, sports nutrition, brand building, Myprotein, Verve, Zenor, mistakes and execution.

Would people find that useful?

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@TayKingsleyc 4 residencies.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Perfect summers day today and an incredible view from one of my homes. 💫

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@RussellShaw_MLS Yes for sure.

That’s my point it’s what works for you.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@Josee_Web3 Yes it’s beautiful.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@HAPM1610 This is exactly right and essentially shaped my early Myprotein journey

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

In 2004 I with a $600 overdraft. This company went on to the largest online brand globally.

When exited fully over 15 years later I sold it for ~$500m cash.

I owned 100% of it the day I sold. Every share.

No VC. No co-founder. No mentors. No degree.

In Silicon Valley that story sounds impossible. In reality it was just unfashionable.

While funded competitors bought growth, I had to earn it. Profitable from month one — not as a virtue, as a survival requirement.

The $600 wasn't the obstacle. It was the strategy. It forced me to learn the one thing a raise lets you postpone: making customers pay you more than it costs to serve them.

I'm not anti capital. I'm anti dependency.

Dilution isn't just losing equity. It's losing the right to decide what the company is for.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Next stop > 🇬🇧

Not used a Learjet for a while they are great aircraft and fast.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

@Nmnzbr Thanks for the kind words.

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Good question.

The main insight was vertical integration.

Myprotein was the first sports nutrition brand globally to manufacture, brand and sell direct to consumers online.

That gave us control of quality, price, speed, choice and customer experience.

The customiser was another USP. Sports nutrition felt too generic, too "salesy" and too oversold. I wanted clean products, clear facts and protein people could tailor to their own needs.