I was six years old when I picked up my first pack of matches. Wait. That makes me sound like a pyro. What I mean is that my own entrepreneurial fire started at a very young age. You see, my mother emboldened me with the idea that I could do anything and be anything if I put my mind to it. I proved her right at a young age by running a paper route empire at age 6 (maybe not an empire, but still, I was a balling 6-year old). Growing up, I watched my friends parents struggle with money. I saw the toll it took on their families and remember vividly them not being able to attend the important things like little league games because they were always working. I remember stories of uncertainty that comes from working for other people. I vowed to never let that be me. I’ve been an entrepreneur on a mission for about 11 years now. Here’s my journey…

MY FIRST HOME RUN

While in college I discovered network marketing and built a very successful business. I made the typical mistakes of a reckless 21 year old…I leased a $50k car and was spending money recklessly. Sure enough the parent company that I was selling products for went belly up out of the blue.

nick's hot car

That’s when I experienced my first true hardship. I literally lost it all and then found myself 30k in debt going from business opportunity to business opportunity.

CHASING THE DREAM INTO THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY

I then got things together and jumped into the real estate business. This was is 2005 mind you. I missed the whole bubble where money was raining out of the sky but I figured I could build a good lifestyle from it. In 2007 I ended up moving to San Diego to work on a lending project for the Hard Rock Hotel. Not more than 2 weeks after I landed the US economy experiences the “mortgage meltdown” which was the biggest financial catastrophe since the great depression. Again, I found myself up shit’s creek and was left in a tough spot. In 2008 I returned home to CT where I focused on building my real estate business and knew that I needed to get my name out in the marketplace as fast as possible.

CREATING MY FIRST BUSINESS THAT GIVES BACK

That’s when my new venture the “NU Perks Card” was born. It was a not-for-profit business where I got 45 local businesses in town to put discounts on my NU Perks Card. It looked like a business card that folded out that was meant to carry in your wallet or purse. Basically, consumers could go to some of the nicest restaurants in town and flash their NU Perks Card and get 15% off the bill or half off a bottle of wine etc. I built NU Perks Card.com to sell them for $20 each. From there, $10 of the purchase went to the charity of their choice. My goal was to get my name out in the community while raising thousands for non-profits. When I launched the business I made a huge mistake. I went against my gut and trusted a “traditional” advertising company that recommended TV commercials.

All said and done I spent about 50k launching the business and things were rocking. I was featured on “Better Connecticut” which is a morning show, I was all over the papers in town and things couldn’t be better. The problem was that the advertising was insanely expensive and the ROI was unbelievably negative. I pulled the plug on the costly TV commercials and I experienced something that would change my life forever…my website was ranked on the first page of Google. Even after I pulled down my marketing the traffic kept coming and coming. It was unbelievable to experience the power of Google. Furthermore, a large national company that had a similar name saw that I was ranked higher than them on Google and decided to sue me for Trademark infringement. Long story short I didn’t have the capital to fight it so I had to take the business down.

LOSING IT ALL

So again I found myself on the verge of bankruptcy trying to figure out the next business that I was going to start.