Kraken Golf was born in a garage in Acushnet, Massachusetts, where founder Marc Cordeira taught himself to machine brass on nights and weekends after a 25-year career in direct marketing.

Eight years later, his CNC-milled ball markers, divot tools and putters sell out in minutes, retired forever after runs of 50 to 100 pieces. In our latest Q&A, Cordeira talks about building a brand by hand, why he refuses to scale into a factory, and the fine line between respecting golf’s traditions and refusing to disappear into them.

Check out the full Q&A below.

Gianni: For those discovering Kraken Golf for the first time, can you tell us how the brand came about?

Kraken Golf: Kraken is the product of a lot of different threads in my life pulling in the same direction. I grew up in Acushnet, Massachusetts, next to the city of New Bedford, a whaling city with real history and real edge, and my dad was a machinist in a factory there. So I grew up around people who made things with their hands for a living.

Kraken’s Caged Peach marker

Art was always part of my life too, the other side of that same coin. Then I went the other direction professionally: got my MBA, spent 25 years in direct marketing, learned how to build brands. What I didn’t have was the shop. So I taught myself machining – nights, weekends, a lot of ruined brass – because I wanted to actually make the thing, not just market it.

“Kraken came out of all of that colliding with a frustration about golf. Every ball marker, every headcover, every accessory in the bag felt like it came off the same conveyor belt. Safe, forgettable, built to blend in.

I wanted to build accessories for the golfer who doesn’t want to look like everyone else on the first tee.”

Who feels the obsession, the hunt, the thing that pulls you back to the course at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, or for me, to the workshop. So I started machining pieces in my shop, ball markers, divot tools, eventually putters, and built the brand around the idea that what you carry in your bag says something about who you are. Eight years later, that’s still the whole thing.

Gianni: Every Kraken product passes through your hands. As the brand grows and demand increases, how do you protect that without burning out? Is there a ceiling to how big Kraken can get before it stops being Kraken? 

Kraken Golf: Great question and something I think about often! The ceiling isn’t a revenue number. It’s the moment a customer opens a box and it feels different. That’s the line. Right now every drop is 50 to 100 units, designed once, retired forever. That constraint isn’t a marketing gimmick, it’s the thing that keeps the work honest.

“I’d rather make 50 pieces that matter than 5,000 that don’t.”

As we grow, I’m investing in the capability around me, better machines, better tooling, smarter systems in marketing, shipping and areas that are not product focused. But the design, the finishing, the final inspection, that stays with me. If Kraken ever becomes something a warehouse assembles, it’s dead.

“The goal isn’t to scale into a factory. It’s to scale the myth while keeping my hands on every piece.”

That’s a harder problem than just hiring people, and I’d rather solve it slowly than break the thing that makes this work.

Gianni: How do you decide what to make next? Is it pure creative instinct, or are you listening to what the community is asking for? 

Kraken Golf: It’s neither, really. It’s obsession. I make what I can’t stop thinking about. The recent Cloud Nine drop came from looking at fine watchmakers (which is an inspiration for me) and wanting to bring some of that craftsmanship to a ball marker so that it would feel like an object I’d want to hold when I’m not even on the golf course. The Peach Cage drop came out of four failed prototypes, you have to iterate to get to something worth dropping. The community informs some of the energy.

Kraken’s Cloud Nine marker

The Blacklist gives me a real-time read on what resonates with high end collectors, but I’ve learned that if you only build what people ask for, you end up making the same thing everyone else makes. So I like to push boundaries and make things that at first sounds crazy or maybe too out there – those seem to resonate most with people that collect my work. The pieces that sell out in minutes are never the safe ones. They’re the ones where somebody in the community sees it and goes “I didn’t know I needed that until right now.” That’s what I like to make. Not answering demand. Creating it.

Gianni: Golf has traditionally been one of the most conservative sports when it comes to aesthetics and self-expression. You’ve described Kraken as a rebellion against that. Do you feel the culture is shifting, or are you still fighting that battle?

Kraken Golf: The culture is shifting, but the enemy isn’t older, traditional brands (they have their space), it’s the mass-produced middle. I sometimes find companies re-creating my winners at scale which is disappointing. The light pink polo, the mass-produced cast marker you get free at a member-guest, the headcover that looks like every other headcover in the pro shop. That’s what I am against. And yeah, a new generation of golfers are pushing back on all of it. You see it in apparel, in course design, in how people are actually showing up to play. But I’d say we’re still early.

Most of the industry is still built for the golfer who wants to disappear into the tradition.

“Kraken is for the golfer who loves the tradition and wants to stand inside it as himself.”

Those aren’t opposites. The guys wearing a Kraken hoodie on the first tee are usually the ones who can quote Hogan. They just don’t think respecting the game means dressing like a stock photo. They want to have their own identity and nuance, which is what I am like on the putting green as well.

Gianni: You’re based in Acushnet, Massachusetts, the same town as Titleist headquarters. Has that proximity shaped how you think about craft, or is it purely a coincidence?

Kraken Golf:  Not a coincidence, but not the way you’d think. Titleist being up the road is a daily reminder that world-class golf manufacturing came out of this part of Massachusetts. That the standard was set here. I don’t compete with them at all, different scale, different game entirely. But there’s something about working in the same zip code as a company that built an empire on getting the small details right. It keeps me honest. You can’t make a half-serious ball marker in Acushnet and feel good about yourself.

 

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The deeper thing, though, is the region itself, New Bedford, the coast, the maritime history. That’s where the Kraken name comes from. Whalers (my high school and significant history in the area), local makers, people who built things by hand, my dad was a machinist in a local factory in New Bedford. That’s the lineage I’m actually pulling from. Titleist is the neighbor. The whaling port is the blood.

Gianni: What’s next for Kraken Golf? Are there product categories or collaborations you haven’t explored yet that excite you?

Kraken Golf: Apparel is the big one. Right now it’s a small percentage of revenue, however its a focus area moving forward, hoodies and tees, headwear, etc. perhaps with the same one-design-one-drop philosophy plus stock offerings as well. Some pieces retired. I’m also deep in putters as art work as well as other forms of golf art that might break some moulds in the industry, opening some new aesthetic language for collectors.

“Beyond product, the real frontier is the community.”

The Blacklist is 200 members right now; I want to build that into something closer to a private club: app-based, gamified, concierge-level. Not only early access and members-only drops, but experiences. Collaborations I’ll say less about, but I’ll give you the filter: I will only partner with people and brands whose work I respect. I am picky. The brand took eight years to build. I’m not trading that for a check.

Find out more about Kraken Golf here.