Meet Stephan Aarstol | Founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Stephan Aarstol and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephan, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
My latest startup, and the one I am most excited about, is called The Cut List.

I have been fortunate to build several Tower companies over the years, including Tower Paddle Boards, Tower Electric Bikes, and Tower Beach Club, our San Diego-based waterfront event venue where we host more than 160 events per year. Mark Cuban invested in Tower Paddle Boards on Shark Tank, and I returned his investment more than tenfold. That track record, along with his continued backing, has put me in a position to swing for the fences with what I believe is my most impactful company yet. Mark now owns 30% of The Cut List.

The Cut List does the homework so you don’t have to when it comes to finding both the best products and the best things in your community. From the best local fish tacos to the best paddle boards, we list just three top picks in every category, chosen for quality, value, or innovation. No clutter. No endless scrolling. Just expert recommendations designed to help people find the best, faster. Those lists get smarter over time as consumers, makers, and experts contribute real-world input.

The problem we are solving is that virtually everything people read about products online is tainted. Ads pose as recommendations in search engines and marketplaces. “Best of” lists and influencers are bought and paid for. Fake reviews and fabricated discussions from shills, bots, and trolls fill the gaps, and now AI is confidently regurgitating it all. It is far worse than most people realize.

The Cut List is different. We do not sell products, take commissions, or run ads that distort results. Our only goal is simple: if it makes our shelf, it is worth your time.

Once people understand what we are building, the impact becomes clear. The Cut List exists to fix a broken discovery system that quietly harms communities and small businesses. Today, visibility is largely dictated by ad spend, algorithms, and monopolistic gatekeepers. That pushes truly great products, local businesses, and independent makers out of view, even when they are doing everything right. The result is higher prices, less variety, and a slow erosion of trust.

We flip that model. The Cut List is built on merit, not money. Our Top 3 picks are the starting point, not the end. Consumers, brands, and industry experts can challenge our selections and submit evidence, allowing the system to improve over time instead of becoming corrupted by pay-to-play incentives.

While we cover more than 1,500 product categories across ten comprehensive stores, including Bed & Bath, Home & Living, Electronics, and Baby, we are also beginning to expand into local guides, with San Diego as our test market. In addition to our on-site picks, we are launching a weekly podcast called The Cut List San Diego with Chris Cantore, a dive into the city’s best food, drinks, culture, and news through the insider lens of one of San Diego’s most iconic voices. Our goal is to elevate local restaurants, bars, artists, and small businesses that deserve attention based on merit, not marketing budgets.

At the same time, The Cut List supports makers everywhere who are focused on building better things. On a global level, we are building AI infrastructure that listens fairly instead of amplifying fake reviews, paid rankings, and recycled misinformation.

When discovery is based on merit instead of money, prices drop, quality rises, and variety returns. That is how you support thousands of small businesses and makers around the world while preserving what makes local communities like San Diego special. We are building this for every maker who dares to create something better, and for every consumer who wants a fair choice. Merit, not monopoly, should decide what wins.

What should our readers know about your business?
The Cut List is the culmination of everything I have learned building consumer brands over the past fifteen years.

At its simplest, The Cut List does the homework so you don’t have to. From the best local fish tacos to the best paddle boards, we list just three top picks in every category, chosen for quality, value, or innovation. No clutter. No endless scrolling. Just expert recommendations designed to help people find the best, faster. Those lists improve over time as consumers, makers, and experts contribute real-world input.

What sets us apart is not just the format, but the incentives. We do not sell products, take affiliate commissions, or run ads that distort results. Most discovery platforms today are financially compromised. Ads pose as recommendations, “best of” lists are bought, fake reviews are everywhere, and now AI is confidently amplifying all of it. The Cut List is built to do the opposite. If something makes our shelf, it is there because it earned its place.

Getting here was anything but easy. My background is in building direct-to-consumer brands, starting with Tower Paddle Boards, followed by Tower Electric Bikes and the Tower Beach Club event venue here in San Diego. Those businesses taught me how hard it is to build something great and how broken the discovery system really is. Even when you have a better product, fair visibility is never guaranteed. I saw firsthand how merit gets drowned out by money, scale, and gatekeepers. After doing over $50 Million in sales with Tower’s DTC businesses, today we face a world where it’s pay to play or don’t be found, regardless of the quaility of our products or value proposition. It’s a struggle to survive in that world as all of the leverage goes to a handful monopolistic gatekeepers, and the millions of small businesses actually making great things just struggle to survive.

That frustration is what led to The Cut List. Instead of trying to game the existing system, we decided to build new infrastructure for discovery in the AI age. Our Top 3 picks are the starting point, not the end. Consumers, brands, and industry experts can challenge our selections and submit evidence, allowing the system to get smarter over time rather than more corrupted. We are using AI as a listening engine, not a hype machine.

One of the things I am most excited about is how this plays out locally. San Diego is our first test market for local guides, and we are launching a weekly podcast, The Cut List San Diego with Chris Cantore, to spotlight the food, culture, and small businesses that make this city special. Chris is one of San Diego’s most trusted voices, and that trust matters when you are trying to surface what is genuinely good rather than what is most promoted.

The biggest lesson I have learned along the way is that incentives shape outcomes. When discovery is tied to ad budgets and commissions, everyone loses except the gatekeepers. When discovery is tied to merit, prices drop, quality rises, and variety returns. That is better for consumers, and it is especially important for makers and small businesses who are focused on creating something better, not just shouting the loudest.

What I want the world to know about The Cut List is that we are building this for the long term. This is not a media site chasing clicks or a marketplace chasing fees. We are building a living, evidence-backed system where merit wins over money. My success with the Tower companies and Mark Cuban’s backing have given me the opportunity to take a real swing at that problem, and I believe it can meaningfully improve things for thousands of small businesses and for anyone who simply wants a fair choice.

At the end of the day, The Cut List is about restoring trust. When people put their passion into making something great, it should rise because it deserves to. That is the future we are trying to build.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
This question actually captures the essence of what we are building with The Cut List.

Rather than telling you how to take my vacation, The Cut List lets you build your version of the perfect San Diego trip. You can explore hundreds of categories, food, drinks, beaches, hikes, neighborhoods, experiences, and more, and see just three top recommendations in each, chosen based on local insight, quality, and real-world experience. It gives you a curated local understanding of what is truly worth your time, without the noise.

If I were showing a best friend around for a week, I would lean fully into beach culture. I would skip renting a car and grab bikes instead. Most days would revolve around the beach communities, Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, and Mission Bay. Start with coffee near the water, eat fish tacos somewhere casual, spend the afternoon on the water paddle boarding, surfing, or just hanging out, and end the day hopping between neighborhood bars or watching a game with locals.

I would absolutely include a day in Old Town to experience a unique part of San Diego’s history, and maybe a sunset walk or drink along the coast in La Jolla. But overall, I would avoid over-planning and most of downtown. San Diego is at its best when you slow down and immerse yourself in the rhythm of its neighborhoods.

That approach is exactly what The Cut List is designed to enable. Whether someone is visiting San Diego or exploring their own city, we help them quickly find the best options in the categories they care about, backed by local knowledge and merit, not marketing budgets.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
First, Mark Cuban. His investment in Tower Paddle Boards on Shark Tank was not just capital, it was validation. I returned his investment more than tenfold, but more importantly, his belief gave me the confidence to think bigger and build companies rooted in merit instead of marketing spin. His continued backing and belief in The Cut List, where he now owns 30%, has been instrumental in allowing me to pursue something truly ambitious.

Just as important are the roughly 40 employees who have been part of the Tower companies over the years. From Tower Paddle Boards to Tower Electric Bikes and Tower Beach Club, these teams helped build real brands from the ground up. They showed up, took pride in what they were creating, and pushed through the unglamorous work it takes to build something meaningful. Any success I have had is a direct reflection of the people who believed in the mission and did the work alongside me.

Website: https://thecutlist.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cutlist3/

Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/stephanaarstol

Twitter: https://x.com/cutlist3

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecutlist3/