Tony Franco is a fractional COO and founder of SageWell Advisors, helping founder-led ecommerce and CPG brands build the operations to grow. He’s also Team Director for his town’s NICA youth mountain bike team, which he counts as one of his clients. Not a well-paying one 🙂

I can be found at LinkedIn. Hit me up – happy to help with all your type 2 fun needs.

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PHYSICAL

• Rite in the Rain notebook. Always a notebook. Writing something down does something to my brain, and I think it tells the other person that what they say matters and is worth remembering. I’m not a long-form journaler, more of a scribbler and jotter. My current favorite is a Rite in the Rain I picked up at my favorite local outdoor store before our summer mountain bike trips out west.
• Biofreeze roll-on. Sort of addicted to it. It lives on my desk and works just as well for tense Zoom calls as it does for post-ride shoulder aches.
• My Pivot. Our bike money tends to go to our three boys, and I was a bit past ready for a new bike myself. Then a friend at church gifted me this 10-year-old, barely ridden, amazing Pivot out of the blue. So grateful.

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DIGITAL

• Notion + Claude. Whether it’s a client or the team, I track to-dos and roles in Notion. Then I use Claude to turn a well of data and spreadsheets into “pocket-sized” or executive summary views that communicate well.
• NICA coaching resources. A lot of what I’ve learned as a mountain bike coach came from NICA’s great resources and training. I absolutely love helping someone confront something hard, push through it, and grow on the other side. Sometimes that’s a hard ride or a challenging skill. Sometimes it’s a ride where the flow just works and the joy comes through. Now I try to help student mountain bikers and business founders, leaders, and teams experience the joy of type 2 fun.

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INVISIBLE

You gotta earn the view. Embrace the suck, enjoy the climb… the whole thing is the thing.

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10/21/26