Jesse Fowler

Operating partner at Common Ground

Jesse Fowler builds things that take years, and sits in the operating seat in between.

I’ve been building since 2004. Between projects I work inside other companies as their operating partner, usually when something is changing hands or just getting started.

The work

Projects I built, seats I held, and the call I made in each. The full story of every one is on the work record.

Role
Status
301 W Osborn

301 W Osborn

Active

Twenty-two residences in a 1971 concrete building in Midtown Phoenix, by right with no rezone. Temporary construction is done and capital is being raised.

Principal, LÏEF
Lip Loi Creative

Lip Loi Creative

Complete

Ran go-to-market for a brand studio and opened most of its marquee work. Fix it before you fund it.

Fractional CRO
Xtrata, $48M bid and a $220M pipeline

Xtrata, $48M bid and a $220M pipeline

Active

It was never a lead problem. Built the bid system and the builder relationships behind a patented wall system.

Fractional CRO
Kinetic ML

Kinetic ML

Concept

Machine learning infrastructure for enterprise-scale applications.

Advisor
Fluidmapper

Fluidmapper

Active

Took deep measurement science to market: the brand, a ranked buyer list, the proposal system and a sales team.

Fractional CMO
Chronicle News

Chronicle News

Concept

Independent media venture built for the next generation of local news.

Creator
BridgePoint Air
BridgePoint Air logo

BridgePoint Air

Exited

From formation through its sale to a much larger private aviation company in 2025. The reframe doubled the offer.

Advisory board
Tellus Design + Build, 2004 to 2023

Tellus Design + Build, 2004 to 2023

Legacy

Orange County's first green design-build firm. Design, estimating, construction and our own crews under one roof, through 2008 and COVID. It carried into LÏEF.

CEO
Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Beach

Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Beach

Legacy

An outdoor patio built overnight inside a working hotel, and development advisory on branded residences.

Builder and development advisor, Tellus
Drive for the Dream
Drive for the Dream logo

Drive for the Dream

Legacy

A golf docuseries. Eight golfers signed and three producing partners on board before a single sponsor was asked.

Creator
PGA Tour

PGA Tour

Legacy

Negotiated with Tour players and with the PGA Tour itself for Drive for the Dream.

Creator, Drive for the Dream
Oakley

Oakley

Legacy

Office and retail design through Tellus, including the orange shipping-container build.

Design-build, Tellus
Alice Mushrooms

Alice Mushrooms

Complete

Did the buyer's homework before the pitch. The brand went on to national retail.

Seed Advisor, Go-to-Market
Ink Games

Ink Games

Complete

Two vouches, fewer meetings, a narrower filter. The seed closed in 2020.

Seed Advisor, Go-to-Market
HGTV

HGTV

Legacy

On camera as the builder on construction shows, then a series-development consultant on sustainable community building.

Builder and series consultant, Tellus
LACMA

LACMA

Legacy

Fabricated and installed an interactive sculpture, inside a two-year unpaid seat reviewing bids and change orders on campus art.

Builder and Volunteer Owner's Representative, Tellus
Greensleeves Steakhouse, an 1892 landmark

Greensleeves Steakhouse, an 1892 landmark

Exited

Extended the lease before spending a dollar on the room, rebuilt it around live service, kept it open through COVID.

Owner and operator
AXT Axe Haus

AXT Axe Haus

Active

Southern California's first axe-throwing venue, and Costa Mesa's first use permit for it. A long-term position today.

Built and ran it
Kanopi

Kanopi

Active

LÏEF's estimating engine. It publishes one accuracy number, the one it earned pricing bids it had never seen.

Built it, LÏEF
HighTide Capital

HighTide Capital

Active

A buy-and-build platform for Arizona trade-services companies. My job is to make the no fast.

Operations and integration
A PE-backed medical group

A PE-backed medical group

Active

A 90-day operating audit across IT, HR, FP&A, marketing and revenue cycle. One map before any platform.

Fractional COO
A licensed cannabis operator, 56 stores

A licensed cannabis operator, 56 stores

Active

Supply chain, warehouse, inventory and compliance on one screen for every store, after a store-by-store read of how each one runs.

Engagement lead
The Triangle, Grand Avenue

The Triangle, Grand Avenue

Active

Feasibility and a consortium for a Phoenix creative district. Capital goes last, on purpose.

Development lead
Canyon Corporate

Canyon Corporate

Active

A partition package priced on the rate and measured from the drawings, so the number holds when the count changes.

Estimating, LÏEF
Hyatt Studios, Georgetown

Hyatt Studios, Georgetown

Complete

An honest no on the panel system, then an estimate built on the stack that works. The developer is raising against it.

Feasibility and estimate, LÏEF
Ghana, 1,000 acres

Ghana, 1,000 acres

Concept

A new community in the Volta Region. Who pays and who builds before anyone draws how it looks.

Principal, master plan proposal
Silver Mountain Ranches

Silver Mountain Ranches

Complete

The land was real and the paperwork wasn't. Every capital claim checked before an outside dollar moved.

Sponsor diligence
A medical device enters the US

A medical device enters the US

Complete

Five problems found in under two weeks, before any investor saw a page.

Diligence and go-to-market
Jason Scott

Jason Scott

Active

He wasn't asking for enough money. The plan, rebuilt from the doors up, said so.

Go-to-market and raise advisory
Mike Fields BBQ

Mike Fields BBQ

Active

One name a buyer can find in one search, then a price a buyer can check.

Advisor
BridgeBrain.ai

BridgeBrain.ai

Complete

The gap wasn't capital. A month of work, a diagnosis and a proposal, and plain advice on what comes first.

Advisor
A five-star barbershop

A five-star barbershop

Active

Booking straight into the calendar the shop already ran, the phone off the owner's cell, then the school.

Advisor
Greensburg, Kansas, $30M+ in donated materials

Greensburg, Kansas, $30M+ in donated materials

Legacy

After the EF5 tornado, national manufacturers supplied the rebuild in exchange for a place on camera.

Preconstruction and general construction, Tellus
LA Clippers practice facility

LA Clippers practice facility

Legacy

Sixteen months of phased work while the team kept practicing in the building. Finished on schedule.

General construction and design, Tellus
Shelby American, Las Vegas

Shelby American, Las Vegas

Legacy

Run trade-direct with no general contractor layer. Opened on schedule in March 2015.

Owner's rep and construction manager, Tellus
Carroll Shelby International, Gardena

Carroll Shelby International, Gardena

Legacy

Four phases over four years, starting with a mural the city said it would never have approved and then told us to keep.

Design-build, Tellus
Sublime Medical

Sublime Medical

Complete

A collections problem that was really a paperwork problem. The client kept the fix after the seat ended.

Fractional COO
Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity

Legacy

Nine years with three Southern California chapters, giving what they could actually use.

Construction partner, Tellus
H.E.E.A.L. Santa Barbara

H.E.E.A.L. Santa Barbara

Legacy

A grief and loss nonprofit. Make the referral easy for the counselor who hands a family the program.

Volunteer president
Save the World Air

Save the World Air

Legacy

Testing a hard technical claim from close range, and the five questions I still ask any of them.

Consultant

Partners & Press

Ritz-CarltonDiscovery ChannelPGA TOURArchitectural DigestShelbyLACMAHGTVPlanet GreenDIY NetworkOakleyForbesMarucciBuilderFox RacingMaya Day + NightclubKeller WilliamsZillowU.S. News & World ReportRobb ReportLos Angeles Times

About

I’ve been building since 2004. Tellus Design + Build in Orange County, and now LÏEF Development in Phoenix, is one practice under two names: design, estimating, construction and our own crews under one roof. It got us through 2008 and through COVID. Development was always the core business and it still is. These days it’s a few bigger projects at a time, and the good ones take years.

Between those projects I sit inside other companies as an operating partner, as COO or CRO, whatever the problem needs. By the time an owner calls me the obvious fixes have been tried. If they’d worked we wouldn’t be talking. So I listen first. It’s almost never what anybody thought going in, and a lot of the time it comes down to a person, not a process. Find the rock everything is piling up behind and move that first.

That work runs through Common Ground, five operating partners who each own a seat. We run our own companies on AI we built ourselves, and it does the reading and the first drafts fast. It’s great at telling you what usually happens next. The call still comes from somebody who has made these mistakes before and knows what it took to fix them. That’s the seat I take, and my name is on it.

The full record, project by project, is on the wiki.

Operations and fractional COORevenue and go-to-market, fractional CROBuy-side diligence and integrationReal estate developmentDesign-build and general contractingEstimating and preconstructionApplied AI inside operationsCapital planning, sources and uses first
Jesse Fowler

Open to

Operating partner seats

Fractional COO or CRO for owner-led and PE-backed companies that are changing hands, starting up or stuck. I take the seat myself.

Buy-side diligence

For buyers and sponsors. Run the cheapest test first, so the answer that can kill a deal costs the least to find. Then the operating plan that has to hold after close.

Development partnerships

Feasibility, entitlements, estimating and the build. Lock the classification before the unit count, and raise the capital last.

Questions

Because I've been doing it since before anybody called it AI. At Tellus in 2014 I built an estimating algorithm so we'd stop waiting on trade bids. Kanopi is that same engine with AI inside it now. The rule hasn't changed either. A number we can't check doesn't leave the building, and the only accuracy claim Kanopi carries is the one it earned pricing bids it had never seen.

Tell me
what's stuck.