stevecooker.com · South Florida
STEVE
COOKER.
I build businesses, products, marketing and sales systems, and AI tools around things I think are coming next. Usually before the market knows it needs them.
"I treat AI like a production system, not a novelty."
The Card Room.
Eight years playing poker for a living. It started in Atlantic City, then San Francisco, with Las Vegas so close the round-trip airfare cost less than the cab to and from the airports. That's when I went from a mostly live player to online, and settled into 6-max NL Hold'em Double-or-Nothings plus live cash: deep 1/2 with 300bb buy-ins, and 2/5. Every misread cost money, so it's where I learned to read a room.
The Taj's Midnight Madness was the most fun poker I ever played. Out of control, and iconic too: it's the same room where Matt Damon's Mike McDermott plays in Atlantic City in Rounders. Probably my funnest poker years, and I cherish them.
I never became the pro athlete I dreamed of being. But honestly, what made me good at sports was my brain: knowing the strategy and the situation way earlier than my peers. At 8, while my team was still figuring out left from right, I read a baseball book that mapped every scenario and how the field adjusts, and I kept it. Pattern recognition and strategy showed up early for me, in baseball, football, math and writing.
Tournament 1st-place finishes: 6 at Harrah's, 9 at the Taj's Midnight Madness, and about 20 online MTTs. I went deep at the Borgata a few times too, but couldn't close anything big.
Won the Harrah's AC daily in my first-ever live tournament, my second game of poker ever. Took 2nd the next day.
My first game was a home game where I embarrassingly didn't even know the rules. So I read 6 books on poker math, strategy and psychology before game two. I hyperfocus and overprepare.
Poker tournament final tables, the last table left once everyone else is knocked out, going back to the early days at the Taj's Midnight Madness and the Harrah's daily.
Harrah's daily wins, from roughly 15 final tables there. Plus deep runs in tournaments all over Atlantic City in my first few years full time.
Wins in a row. 27 6-max NL Hold'em Double-or-Nothing SNGs won, back to back, no losses. That niche is where I ended up.
Full time in my 20s: live cash games, crushing low-to-mid stakes online MTTs, and the Atlantic City dailies.
In a Double-or-Nothing, half the table doubles up and half goes home. Even for a great player, every game is close to a coin flip. Now flip that coin and call it right 27 times in a row.
About 0.0000007%. That's roughly the odds of picking one specific home out of every household in America on the first try. If it were pure luck, that is.
Luck doesn't last 27 games.
A coin can't get better. A player can. Regulars in Double-or-Nothings count a win rate in the high 50s as a solid edge, and specialists who study the spots push higher. Each point of edge compounds 27 times. Drag the slider and watch the "impossible" become expected.
Math: single run = 1 ÷ p²⁷. Career odds computed exactly over 10,000 games for at least one run of 27+. Win rates are illustrative, not tracked stats.
What the felt
taught me.
- 01ValidateShow someone their logic makes sense, so they don't get defensive.
- 02AlignNever let it turn into me vs. you.
- 03ClarifyMake decisions on incomplete information, calmly.
- 04ReframeShape how the situation looks. Don't force it.
- 05GuidePeople walk away feeling like they had the insight. That's the win.
Conexticon
Welcome to my homepage!!! ▌
Local businesses live or die by getting found and chosen by the people nearby. I sold the work, did the work, talked to clients, solved problems and learned cash flow the hard way. Real local marketing, not marketing in theory.
Conexticon was learning on the job. After my first year of full-time poker, my goal was to build capital to fund a portfolio of businesses, then chase WSOP bracelets and WPT trophies while managing it, instead of grinding out an ROI. Poker meant 35–60 hours a week from about 4pm to 3am, Sundays best, Mondays off to recover and study. The opposite of everyone else's schedule. Sports taught me to train and study more than the competition.
It started with social media management. I had a semi-automated production system nobody doing it by hand could keep up with, so I offered double to triple the content for as much as 80% less than clients were paying. I scraped and found content, then bulk uploaded 2 days a month. Clients wanted more exposure, so I added brand awareness ads. Then they wanted leads, so I learned ad buying best practices and built a ton of landing pages. It was thriving and growing.
93% client retention
Then COVID wiped it out. My clients were small business owners, all on month-to-month agreements, and when the shutdowns hit, 85% of my revenue was gone in 6 weeks. So I shut it down to start something new. It didn't help that I was getting married in less than 90 days while it was all unraveling.
I took my agency skills inside someone else's company, and that's how I landed in the commercial laundry world.
Learning
my chops.
Solopreneur to a W2 to an entrepreneur. I started as Director of Client Communication, leveled up fast to VP of Client Services, and helped grow Infinite Laundry 143% in ARR in 2 years, from $2.3M to $5.6M. I also repackaged our 1–3 service starter packages (the upsells we hoped for never came) into one bundle of all 4–5 core services. Average new-client MRR went from about $1,350 to about $2,300, up 70%. The bundle made revenue stickier, since dropping one piece meant breaking the whole bundle, and it gave us the full toolset to get clients better results. This is where I learned the commercial laundry industry. The AI I learned on my own, nights and weekends for years, before I started putting it to work in 2026.
The company was sold to LinenMaster in a private equity roll-up by Mainsail Partners. They later bought competitor Alliant Systems and put it all under a brand called Texo, but by then the building didn't involve me and the accounts weren't mine. At Infinite Laundry, before the merger, I sold about $2.6M in ARR of marketing and lead gen services over those 2 years, plus about $460K in one-time fee projects. After the merger I played SaaS sales guy for LinenMaster and sold another $1.2M in ARR of SaaS and add-on products, on top of marketing services, plus about $270K more in one-time projects, but I had to get back to building and servicing. In 2026 I went back out on my own and launched a bunch of ventures at once.
How it fits: at the exit, Infinite Laundry had 126 marketing accounts, about a third of the industry. 78 of them were mine to manage, and I kept 96% of that book. Those retained accounts were a big part of what LinenMaster and Mainsail Partners were buying.
Hover the drum to stop the spin cycle.
CYCLE
The Ventures.
Sales, marketing, product and customer experience are one system to me. A bad experience becomes a retention problem, and repeated manual work becomes an AI opportunity. So I built companies around that.
AgencyMainstreet Marketing →
Holistic marketing for independent businesses that want to thrive, by invitation only. Strategy with impact and reason, then the execution: web design, SEO, AEO, PPC, Local Services Ads, social media management, press releases, email, reputation, HubSpot, automation and video. It serves my own ventures plus small and mid-sized businesses. Our specialties: suppliers to the commercial laundry industry (maybe our strongest spot) and home service pros: pressure cleaning, HVAC, duct cleaning, plumbing, roofing and pest control. A few spots, not always open, for fractional CMO work (you must have a staffed marketing team).
mainstreet.rocks password: AIDA · Attention, Interest, Decision, Action. How we look at every marketing opportunity.
See the project →
Acts 20:24.
"I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me: the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace."
That verse is where acts2024.media got its name, and it's the reason behind everything else on this page.
The businesses, the AI tools, the late-night builds: they fund and sharpen my non-profit. acts2024.media helps Christians make gospel-centered music in every genre and language, including places where human creators would face persecution.
Everything points to the mission. The mission points to Jesus.
Visit acts2024.media ↗7 artists. 8 albums.
None of them exist.
Every artist here is one I created for acts2024.media, from gospel trap to a 14-minute jam band riff. Tap a cover to meet the artist and hear the full album.
Now you can see them too.
Nissi and Trill Blessie aren't real people. These videos show where acts2024.media is heading: past AI artists you can only hear, to artists you can see.
AI Playground.
For about a year AI couldn't draw a human right. Then one day it just could, and I was suddenly a Redskins fullback and a Nationals third baseman. Hover to flip.
Career stats: 0 carries, 0 yards, 100% AI. Known for blocking the truth.
Batting .000 lifetime, still somehow in the Hall of Fame of my heart.
That's not me. (Weird, right?)
I made this to promote an upcoming webinar. Every frame and every word of audio is generated to match my face and voice. I never stood in front of a camera or a mic.
Grandmamas in Pajamamas
A children's book made with a little influence from my Mom, who was super excited about this one. Flip the pages online, or hit "Read to me" and let it read itself aloud.
Read it at pajamamas.com ↗Taking a character
way too far.
Before the video game there were 12 comic covers, a trading card, an action figure box, pixel art and a Saturday-morning cartoon. I'm a mutant hero named Logic Storm. Naturally.
A real arcade brawler. Play as Logic Storm, fight through NEXUS and take on Ferrum Vex. No download.
On Stage.
Practical, conversational, sometimes funny, and aimed at non-technical executives. I talk about what you can actually do with AI on Monday morning. Rooms I've spoken in include TRSA and CSC Networks.
AI Workshop for CSC members in HR
A hands-on AI workshop for the HR side of linen, uniform and mat rental businesses. Short on hype, long on "here's what to try this week."
All talks & booking →The human
is the story.
Mt. Pastormore.
My current Mt. Rushmore of pastors (lol). They all point to Jesus, and they help me stay focused on Him.
- Francis ChanCrazy Love Ministries ↗YouTube ↗
- Philip Anthony Mitchell2819 Church ↗YouTube ↗
- Gary HamrickCornerstone Chapel ↗YouTube ↗
- Johnny ChangUnlearned Wisdom podcast ↗
The Lab.
Everything else I've built or am building, sorted by how done it is. Click any card to open it.
Live. Go click around.
Real, working, open to the public.
In the oven.
Half-cooked, deep in development, or fully cooked and I'm still not sure what it is. Links go to wherever it's at right now.
Built for clients.
Private tools under NDA. Names and details redacted.
Operator Dossier
A confidential dossier of commercial laundry operator personas built for a textile supplier's sales team.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████Direct Ordering Platform
A direct ordering platform for a textile supplier's customers: custom orders, bulk linen purchases, shipment tracking and saved repeat orders.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████AI Content Agent
A branded AI persona that plans and writes on-brand content for a client in the textile and commercial laundry world. Finished and in use.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████Private LLM
A private, self-contained LLM for a textile supplier: trained on their own products and know-how, answering questions for their team without company data ever leaving their walls.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████AI CMO Agent
An AI chief marketing officer built for Mainstreet's marketing clients: it plans campaigns, watches results and recommends what to do next. Each one is set up for its client.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████AI Content Creator Agents
AI content agents built for Mainstreet's marketing clients: they write on-brand posts, articles and emails in each client's voice, every week.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████AI Sales Coach
Researches every prospect and sends prep notes before the call, analyzes the call afterward, and coaches reps against the sales method the team trains on, like Sandler or MEDDPICC. It rolls up into reporting that shows management the real pain points and opportunities coming up in conversations.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████Benefits AI Assistant
An AI assistant for a benefits-communication company. It guides HR teams and brokers through microsites, videos, decision support and open enrollment campaigns.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████Executive GTM Console
An invite-only internal source of truth giving a client's leadership one place to see and manage go-to-market.
🔒 Client confidential · ██████Made it, just because.
One-offs from poking at new AI.
AI-powered guide
Not sure where to start?
Tell me what you're curious about and I'll point you to the right projects.