From Keeping the Lights On to Building Athlete Infrastructure

Hi, I’m Candace Malone, founder and CEO of Powered by AES, a sports technology company building the infrastructure that helps athletes, agents, and brands manage the business side of sports. Before becoming a founder, I spent 15 years in the electric utility industry, working in mission-critical operations where reliability, coordination, and high-stakes decision-making were part of my everyday job. That experience taught me how essential infrastructure is—and inspired me to build it for an industry that desperately needs it. Today, I’m building Powered to simplify how athletes understand contracts, manage deals, collaborate with their teams, and build lasting careers beyond the game.

I got started because I kept noticing a problem that nobody seemed to be solving. Throughout my career, I became obsessed with infrastructure—how systems help people work together efficiently and what happens when those systems don’t exist. As I paid more attention to the sports industry, I realized athletes, agents, brands, lawyers, and families were managing million-dollar careers through scattered emails, text messages, spreadsheets, and PDFs. There was no central place to understand contracts, track obligations, manage deals, or collaborate as a team. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The more I researched, the more obvious it became that the athlete economy had exploded, but the infrastructure supporting it hadn’t kept pace. That’s when I decided to build Powered. I had never founded a technology company before, but I knew how to solve complex operational problems. I believed those same principles could be applied to sports, creating a platform that gives athletes more clarity, organization, and ownership over the business side of their careers. Looking back, I didn’t start with an app idea. I started with a problem I couldn’t ignore, and that problem became my mission.

One of the biggest misconceptions about me is that I’m “just building an app.” In reality, I’m building infrastructure. There’s a huge difference. Apps solve individual tasks. Infrastructure connects entire ecosystems. Powered is designed to help athletes, agents, brands, lawyers, and families work together around the business of an athlete’s career. Another misconception is that because I spent 15 years in the electric utility industry, people assume my background has nothing to do with sports or technology. I actually think it’s my biggest advantage. My career taught me how to think in systems, coordinate multiple stakeholders, solve complex operational problems, and build for reliability. Those same principles are what I’m applying to the athlete economy. Finally, people often think entrepreneurship is glamorous. Most days, it’s not. It’s countless hours of problem-solving, learning things you’ve never done before, hearing “no,” adapting, and continuing to move forward because you believe in the mission.

What caught me off guard was the scale of what I was trying to build. I knew building a company would be hard. What I underestimated was how much time, capital, and patience it takes to build infrastructure instead of just an app. When you’re building foundational technology, every feature depends on another feature. Every decision affects ten others. There’s no shortcut. You’re building something that has to be reliable enough for people to trust with their careers. I was also surprised by how difficult it was to find mentors who had actually built what I’m trying to build. There are a lot of people willing to give opinions, but far fewer who have built a venture-backed technology company or scaled a software platform from scratch. I had to become comfortable making decisions without having all the answers. More than anything, I learned that building a startup isn’t just about building a product—it’s about building resilience. The company grows as you grow, and sometimes the biggest challenge isn’t the technology. It’s becoming the leader your vision requires.

I’m most proud that I took an idea that only existed in my head and turned it into a real product that solves a real problem. We’re still pre-launch, but today I can hand someone Powered, watch them use it, and see how it brings clarity to the business side of an athlete’s career. As a first-time tech founder, there were countless moments where I had to learn something completely new—from product development and user experience to fundraising and go-to-market strategy. The fact that we’ve built an MVP that works, that users can interact with, and that solves a meaningful problem is something I’m incredibly proud of. For me, it’s proof that you don’t have to have all the answers on day one. You just have to keep building, listening, and improving. The MVP isn’t the finish line—it’s the foundation for everything we’re building next.

Don’t be afraid of the pivot. A lot of people think changing direction means you failed. I think it means you’re learning. Some of the best decisions I’ve made came from listening to users, letting go of features I loved, and adapting to what the market actually needed instead of what I imagined it needed. Your vision should stay the same, but your path to getting there will probably change many times. If you stay too attached to your original plan, you might miss the better opportunity that’s right in front of you. Build with conviction, but pivot with humility.

No