Venture Athlete & International Expansion Expert | Thriving as Generalist in a Specialized Economy

I’m Dominik, founder, athlete, & creator. A proud generalist. This is my story: 

For the last 7 years, I helped bootstrap one startup from 0 to 1M in revenue and built the international business from scratch for one of Europe’s fastest growing EdTech companies (50 -> 240 employees in my three years there).

All while competing at the highest level of the beautiful sport of Lacrosse, including an appearance for the German National Team at the 2022 World Games (the Olympics’ little brother).

While my professional achievements may seem more impressive on paper, representing Germany on an international stage is the feat that I’m most proud of.

I wasn’t very athletic up until my mid-twenties. Very little talent, but a lot of injuries to make up for it.

Until one day, I started working with a personal trainer. He helped me break down the fundamentals I needed to fix.

I worked hard, and I worked consistently. Showed up to every practice, every gym session. Did my recovery & mobility work daily.

4 years later, I made the national team roster.

The potential was in me. But it needed help unlocking.

Throughout my entire career, I’ve also helped humans unlock their potential, just in different ways:

- By teaching people in rural Rwanda and Brazilian homeless shelter how to make glasses for less than $1, and how to build a business around it
- By bringing unemployed nurses from Italy to Germany and teaching them German, opening a completely different career path for them
- By expanding the leading operating system for schools throughout Europe, so that education becomes more digital and thus accessible
- By writing about my experiences online and sharing them with the world

In late 2023, I made the decision to quit my cozy, well-paid, full-time job that fit my profile perfectly.

I'm on a mission to build my own portfolio career - and help others to unlock theirs. Join me on my journey towards building a portfolio of cashflow-positive, impact-driven businesses.

These businesses have one goal: help others unlock their potential. Just like my personal trainer did for me.

I wish that some of the best portfolio company owners turned creators had documented their journey from day 1, and not retrospectively.

So that’s what I’m doing.

I write for generalists like myself, who want to make a living in a specialized economy without specializing themselves. 

You can do more than one thing in your life. 
Let’s design that life together. 

Sign up for my newsletter here: www.dominiknitsch.com/newsletter

Dominik Nitsch

The cool thing about a portfolio career: you can literally just do things. Like, star in a Prime Video series. 

The guys from Maxton Hall needed some people who actually play Lacrosse to play in the series. Shooting was in Berlin. So I took 2 days off and became the oldest high schooler you'll ever see. (and had to keep my helmet on at all times 😂)

Would I do it again? Probably not.
Was it fun? Absolutely. 

PS – wanna build your own portfolio career where you do more than just one thing? Download the Portfolio Career Playbook here: https://lnkd.in/dGZaPsrv

Founder @ Generalyst | building talent infrastructure for early-stage startups | 1,163 generalists read my newsletter to future-proof their career

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When I graduated from university, I was the perfect business-school cliché. 

Top 11% at TUM.
760 GMAT.
Ran a student org with 120 people.
Startup experience at a massively scaling company (Flix). 

What do you do as high-potential graduate? It felt like I had two options: 
1. Apply to McKinsey, BCG, or Bain. 
2. Apply to Siemens, Allianz, or BMW. 

That's what everyone did. It was the safe, high-status, well-paid career path. And at 22, I just didn't know any better. 

But here's the uncomfortable truth: 
Following the beaten path is intellectually lazy.

You don’t have to think about what you actually want.
You just copy-paste the life everyone around you is living.
Go to business school. Get a master’s. Work in consulting. Buy real estate.

But in the end, by doing so, you postpone the only decision that actually matters:
→ What do I want to spend my life building?

To answer this, you don't need more information. You need action. 

The beaten path is paved with other people’s dreams.
Build your own instead.

(Photo: me, fall 2016, on my way to a consulting interview)

Gonna be a busy week at Generalyst: 

- 3 startups pitching to a pool of ~80 hand-picked candidates (feels like quality on both sides is going up)
- launching a new product (in beta) on Wednesday 
- 10 in-person meetings with startups, candidates, partners 
- fully onboarding a new team member 

Guess the late evening sessions (photo below) paid off. 

LFG. 🔥

PS – 2 out of 3 of the positions being pitched currently aren't published anywhere else (in case you needed another reason to apply). 

PPS – just kidding, this was at 16:45, Berlin is just dark af in the winter

In 2025, Generalyst was just for full-time hires. In 2026, we’re adding internships. ⬇️

Starting today, you can hire interns via Generalyst. 
Why? 

Throughout my career, I’ve always had interns. Having them on board was awesome; some of them developed into close friends. 

Finding them was the difficult part. I remember vividly scouring university Facebook groups and posting my internship ad everywhere, with little resonance. If you don’t have a strong brand or infinite time, this intern sourcing can get kind of … tedious. 

I would’ve needed this back then. And I’m not the only one: when several companies started reaching out about hiring generalist interns, we HAD to do something. 

At the same time, throughout my studies, I would’ve needed to hear that it’s actually possible to build a career as a generalist. Even when I graduated, I believed that the only valid way to build a career was to go into consulting or join one of the Munich corporate behemoths. 

Little did I know that startups are a possibility, and that jobs where you can do a little bit of everything exist. 

Today, I believe the future belongs to generalists. This message needs to reach not just people actively looking for a full-time job, but also students. And by opening up the hard-to-navigate world of early-stage startups to them, I hope to spread the gospel of generalism. 

Here’s how it works: 

1. Aspiring interns apply to the Generalyst Internship Program 
2. We screen all applications and pick the very best (using our expertise from ~2.5k screened CVs)
3. Those create a profile in the Generalyst Internship Database 
4. As a founder, you can access this database (if you agree to our terms) – it includes everything you need to know and then some
5. You can request an interview with the candidate directly and set it up within 1-2 days 

From a company perspective: 
→ skip the entire job posting draft
→ skip the screening of 100s of applications (we do this for you)
→ skip the guessing game of who’s available now vs. later 

From an intern perspective: 
→ apply once, get several interviews
→ see companies you would’ve never found otherwise
→ access help from professional generalists 

Sounds too good to be true? Maybe, we’re just launching this thing. Probably will have a few kinks that still need to be worked out. 

But as with the Generalyst Flagship Program (see what we did there?), we’re trying to create an offer that’d be stupid not to take. 

For aspiring interns: apply via the link in the comments below. 
For founders looking to hire: email me (dominik at generalyst dot de) and I’ll send you the sales deck. 20% discount on your first internship hire if you comment on this post. 

LFG.

Simple trick that’ll 10X your networking ability: the “to-see list”. 

I keep an Apple Note with different cities in the world. Whenever I meet someone online that I want to meet, I simply add them to the list. 

And when I eventually come to the city, I simply reach out to all people on the list. Usually leads to 3-4 in-person meetings that I otherwise wouldn’t have had. 

Feel free to add me to yours for Berlin. (Or shoot me a DM if you wanna be on mine :)).

In my bubble, it’s become so sexy to be an entrepreneur that it’s almost cringe not to be one.

That’s not healthy – it pushes people into entrepreneurship who really shouldn’t be in entrepreneurship for their own sake.

If you value security, sleeping through the night and not waking up drenched in sweat, being able to buy nice things and watching movies on an airplane (like everyone around me as I’m typing these lines), then being an employee is absolutely, perfectly fine!

At the end of the day, most entrepreneurs do what they do simply because they can’t be bothered to do anything else (such as being stuck working for someone else).

I’ve tried the employee thing, it’s nice to close the laptop at the end of the day and say “not my f**king problem”, to receive a salary no matter how good or bad your performance was.

I realized: I just f**king hate following instructions that I don't agree with. I don't want to sit in meetings where I shouldn't be. I will not make decisions that are beneficial to investors and bad for everybody else involved. 

This doesn’t make an entrepreneur better or worse than someone who prefers the full-time job.
It’s just .. different.

This is the story of how I accidentally ended up working for one of Germany’s fastest growing startups (and how you can do it, too): 

During my studies, I was so busy with running a student org, playing Lacrosse, bartending, and sometimes studying, that I somehow didn’t see the need to do an internship throughout my first four semesters. Going into my fifth semester of Bachelor’s, I still didn’t have one. 

And it started to become problematic: a lot of applications were rejected because by that time, I should’ve already done one. 

One guy from my enactus team mentioned that the startup he’s working for always hires interns. They did like, long-distance buses. Flix or something 

I thought, man, I hate long distance buses. But out of desparation gave it a shot anyway – and got the invitation to interview. 

For the interview (it was a business development internship), I thought about what else Flix could do. At the time, I was going to a lot of festivals, and thought: man, if you don’t have a car, going to festivals sucks. Why not implement bus lines? 

Cool. Did that. Went to the interview. 

Then, the interviewer walked in. 

Wrist full of FESTIVAL BANDS. 

Oh f**k yeah, I had struck gold. She loved the idea, I got the internship, didn’t do anything for a few weeks besides moving boxes around on PPT slides, and eventually got reassigned to a new division. 

Together with Dominik Eggert, I started building out FlixCharter - a bus rental company inside Flix. Kind of in a Founder’s Associate function, learning from an experienced founder. 

That, in turn, gave me the confidence to start my own company after my studies. But had it not been for this internship, I might well have been a management consultant today. 

A seemingly random internship changed the entire trajectory of my career. 
I got lucky to find the right startup at the right time. 

So now, I want to re-engineer that luck for others like me, early in their career, not sure what they want to do. 

That’s why last week, we’ve launched the Generalyst Internship Program. Application-only, and free. 

We’re reversing the internship search process: instead of you applying to internships, hiring managers reach out to you. 

Apply today: https://lnkd.in/dVe7TGR3

PS – looking to hire a generalist intern? Email me at dominik at generalyst dot de. 
PPS – thank you, Tamara Christoph, for believing in me back then and making that offer! 🤝

Advice for anyone who wants to become a Founder’s Associate / Venture Builder: 

The best thing you can do is to show that you can build something yourself. 

A side hustle. 
A website. 
A social account. 

Entrepreneurs appreciate other entrepreneurs who don’t just talk the talk, but walk the walk. 

Building something yourself is the best entrepreneurial education, no matter what business schools are trying to sell you. 

PS: Have built something, however tiny it may be, yourself? Consider applying to Generalyst. Link is in my bio.

Last October, I spent a few hours playing Lacrosse against pro players from Canada. Here's what it taught me about B2B sales: 

(like, actually)

Chatting with Owen Grant (first-team all-star in college, now field and box pro), he told me: “when I got to the pros, practice was completely different – the focus was much higher on nailing the fundamentals perfectly, instead of running complex plays or doing crazy stuff individually.”

Running a business feels very similar: it comes down to making something people want, and then telling them about it. 

This doesn’t mean that it’s easy (it’s not); just simple.

Stop using complex 17-step AI-based outreach sequences (that you have to comment, idk, “AI overlords” or something to receive in your DMs). 

Focus on nailing the fundamentals.

I write newsletters for a living • I also share my thoughts on self-improvement, creativity & philosophy • 5+ years in marketing

I work as the behind-the-scenes operator for founder-led brands who want their newsletter to be their sharpest asset. That means capturing your voice, turning your ideas into weekly narratives, and building a consistent rhythm that compounds trust, demand, and sales over time.

I’m proud to have worked with 40+ clients across accountancy firms, marketing agencies, design studios, FinTech, Sunday Times bestselling authors, vertical SaaS, and leaders in the UK creator economy.

If you’re already doing ~£150k+/month and want a long-term email operator who can run the channel end-to-end (strategy, writing, cadence, and execution), you’re in the right place.

If you’re earlier than that, you’ll likely get a better ROI once your offer and demand are a little more proven - and I’ll happily point you to the right next step.

-

If you want to learn how I recently helped a B2B agency generate 7-figures in pipeline revenue, DM me the word "INFO".

Harrison McIntyre-Miller

6 milestone outcomes my clients achieved in 2025:

- Generated $1.17M in pipeline rev
- Launched a Podcast & paid Substack
- Grew to 1K subs in <30 days
- Hit a £70K course launch 
- Hosted 2 in-person events

And added ~20K new email subscribers across the board. 

Some of these results were a direct result of their newsletters, others were downstream effects.

But my clients all came to the same conclusion:

If you want these results, you have to be consistently nurturing your email list (at an extremely high quality). 

You need to make it easy for the right people to remember you exist, and to become part of your ideal clients weekly routine. 

You'll have a far easier time reaching these people when they're ready to buy this way, as opposed to when they're scrolling through 100s of overstimulating posts at once. 

I cannot stress this enough. 

-

I’m ending 2025 grateful to have crossed 2 years of running this business. 

Still surreal that it started as a simple idea:

“Maybe I can add one client a month to my 9-5 salary”

Funny how it all works! 

P.S. 

Thank you Thomas for the post inspo 🤝

Newsletter Management Partner for Founder-led Brands | Founder @ Motif

Alicia Teltz has a well earned reputation for running brilliant webinars and events...

...but before working together she didn’t have a way to turn those webinar attendees into newsletter subs (and eventually nurture and convert them into her paid community).

But today, after a 4-week DWY sprint together, she now has a 14-day conversion focused welcome flow, a beehiiv account set up and ready to go, and a killer lead magnet. 

The last part of our process together, which is still in progress, is a newsletter opt-in page (with a quiz funnel and thank you page built in). 

This is what Alicia had to say: 

“Harrison slipped into my DMs at exactly the right time when I was thinking about launching a newsletter. I had an initial chat with him and instantly felt he knows his sh*t 🤓. As frazzled as my mind is, he guided me through the whole process and made it super simple for me to understand what needs to be done and the effects it will yield. Can’t recommend him highly enough and currently planning to bring him on as an expert in my community to educate my members about the benefits of starting a newsletter.”

Excited for Alicia to continue crushing it with webinars (you might even see me chatting on one coming up 👀), especially now that her funnel has a clear path to growing MRR!

-

If this process sounds like something you’d like to hear more about, DM me here on LinkedIn and we can talk it over.

Cheap tools I use in my one-person business to save time & make money:

Perspective:
builds clean, conversion-focused opt-in pages for client funnels

beehiiv: 
runs client newsletters, automations, and list growth in one place

Calendly: 
makes it frictionless to book calls

Zapier: 
connects client funnels, forms, and email tools behind the scenes

Fireflies.ai: 
captures and summarises client calls so nothing gets missed

Claude: 
thinking partner for writing and strategy

And that is all I pay for. 

I have no team or contractors, although I’ve tried this previously. 

For now, and likely this full year, I’m enjoying keeping it lean. 

Anything not in my stack that I’m missing out on?

82% of newsletters aren't using any automation beyond a basic welcome email.

I had to read that a few times.

beehiiv dropped their State of Newsletters 2026 report. 28 billion emails analysed. And that stat genuinely shocked me.

It means 82% of newsletter operators are actively leaving money, attention, and trust on the table. 

Every single week.

The window right after someone subscribes is the most valuable attention you will ever have from that person. They just raised their hand. They're curious. They're leaning in. They will never be more receptive to you than they are in that moment.

And 82% of people send one email. Maybe two. Thanks for subscribing, here's your thing, see you whenever.

Then nothing.

Silence until the first broadcast lands. By which point half of them have forgotten who you are and why they signed up in the first place.

I genuinely don't understand it. 

It means the bar is on the floor.

It means if you set up proper welcome infrastructure, you're immediately in the top 18% of newsletter operators. 

Most people are so focused on growing their list that they completely ignore what happens after someone joins it. They're pouring water into a bucket with holes in the bottom and wondering why it never fills up.

The opportunity here is absurd.

If you have a newsletter and you're not running a proper welcome sequence, you're competing with one hand tied behind your back against people who also have one hand tied behind their back.

Fix it and you're suddenly in a different race entirely.

P.S. 

If you missed it, I put out a post that shows you exactly:

how I structure high-converting welcome flows

what each phase is responsible for

why aggressive onboarding outperforms “polite” email every single time

Link in the comments to check it out.

I make my living writing and managing newsletters for 6–7 figure brands. 

A common thing I pick up on when I audit lists (even very good ones):

They spend all their energy getting the subscriber…
…then do almost nothing with the highest-intent window they’ll ever have.

The first 14 days after someone opts in decide:

- whether they trust you
- whether they remember you
- whether they ever buy from you

Most waste this window with:

 “Thanks for subscribing”
 “Here’s the free thing”
 “Talk soon”

I regret to inform that this is boring and forgettable 😥 

This carousel breaks down:

how I structure high-converting welcome flows

what each phase is responsible for

why aggressive onboarding outperforms “polite” email every single time

If your list isn’t converting the way you’d like it to, this is usually why.

👇

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The Battle

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