Hi, I’m Nick
I’m weirdly good at finding the growth a company’s already sitting on.
It’s worked everywhere I’ve aimed it: most dramatically a pet insurer I helped take to a $2 billion valuation, and a couple dozen companies since. These days, for PE-backed companies at Day One Growth.
The scoreboard so far
$2B
company I helped build
8×
revenue growth in two years
20+
VC- and PE-backed companies advised
2
times my heart tried to quit
2
kids who still think I’m cool
What I’m building now
Day One Growth
For decades, cheap debt and rising multiples carried private equity. That era is over. The returns have to come from real growth now, and most deals miss it. Day One Growth runs the entire commercial engine inside portfolio companies: marketing, sales, product, and AI. We turn the growth your deal model assumed into EBITDA you can actually underwrite, from diligence to exit, reported like a deal model, not a marketing dashboard.
Things I think about
On growth, and everything around it.
- → B2B is more emotional
- → Growth is not a marketing problem
- → Hiring is a bet against the future
- → Private equity buys growth. It can’t build it.
- → The moat was never the product
- → The 100-day plan becomes the 100-hour plan soon
The long version
How I got here.
ages 0–10
The Silent Huckleberry Finn Era
Quiet kid. Big observer. Built forts, caught frogs, didn’t talk much. Learned more from watching than from words.
ages 10–18
The Nomad Years
Moved every two years. Learned to adapt, make friends fast, and leave faster. Found lacrosse. Almost died from ventricular tachycardia, an early read on what “limited time” really means.
ages 18–30
The Fashion Years
Got into an Ivy, somehow ended up deciding what was “cool” for a living. Traveled too much, ate too well, made Vogue’s most-stylish-men list, and realized the real profit was never in the fabric. It was in the storytelling. Open-heart surgery. Met my person. Married her. Moved to London.
ages 30–36
The Startup Era
Built Pluto, sold it. Ran growth at ManyPets and hit the unicorn dream. Advised 20+ companies. Learned the thing I’d spend the rest of my career proving: great growth looks like luck until you find the system underneath it.
ages 35–39
The Dad Era
Best era so far. Two kids, less sleep, more joy. Turns out building companies and raising toddlers run on the same fuel: chaos, optimism, and cleaning up other people’s messes. Started a search fund. It failed. Failure hits softer when you’re holding a baby and a latte.
ages 40+
The Next Era
Less grind, more groove. Doubling down on the one thing I’m genuinely good at: growing businesses. Building Day One Growth. Enjoying the short window where my kids still think I’m cool.
yes
- +momentum > perfection
- +founder-led, operator-backed businesses
- +simple systems that scale
- +compound learning
- +people who do the work
no
- ×performative hustle
- ×bureaucracy
- ×growth without purpose
- ×endless decks
- ×people who already “figured it out”