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

Over the past four weeks, I’ve received 93 applications to Generalyst. Here’s what to avoid if you’re currently applying to jobs: 

(1) Using ChatGPT-generated answers to free-text questions. 

We smell this from a mile away. It sounds good and professional, but tells me absolutely nothing about YOU. I want to see how you, not your AI, think and write. If you’re going to use AI, get so good at prompting that it doesn’t read like generic fluff. Don’t be a politician; be someone with edges. This ain't corporate. 

(2) Say: "I'm a results-driven professional with cross-functional expertise that spearheaded expansion". 

My brother in Christ, I have no idea what you're trying to tell me (besides that you're good at bullshit bingo). What's a "results-driven professional"? Like, would anyone ever describe themselves as an "activity-driven professional"? Why say "spearheading" when you could use a word that one actually uses in their day-to-day life? 

(3) Say: “I’m looking to do strategic work.” 

Instant no. In a startup, even the founder does like 97% operational work. Building a company is about, well, building. Not planning. In order to produce prime strategic work, you have to get your hands dirty first. (If you want to do strategic work, maybe strategy consultancies are your jam.) 

(4) Straight up lie in an interview. 

I never would’ve thought I’d have to say this, but this happened twice now: candidates claimed to have done something that was very easy to invalidate with a few Google searches. 

What else grinds your gears as hiring manager/recruiter?

Founder @ Generalyst | building talent infrastructure for early-stage startups | 1,022 generalists read my newsletter to future-proof their career

Our educational system is (still) broken. Because it conveys THIS as the perfect career: 

- pick a degree that you wanna specialize in
- get a master's that drives you further down specialization 
- start your first job 
- specialize further in one thing 
- do that thing for the next 40 years 

I have two problems with this. 

One, it's incredibly f**king boring. 
Two, it's a terrible way to prepare for the future. 

We don't know what the future holds. Had you told me six years ago that today that in 2025, I'd be able to run any research using a chat interface and get better results than most interns would produce within ten minutes at the price of $20/month, I'd have told you you're insane ... yet here we are. 

However, there's one skill I know is gonna be important: 

Adaptability. 

New technologies emerge daily. You can either fight them, or adapt to their existence, learn how to use them, and move forward. 

The best way to build out this skill: becoming a generalist. 

→ build out your set of meta skills
→ then, build a broad foundation in your field.
→ once you have this, go deeper on a few topics

I believe the future belongs to generalist. 
To the ones that adapt, learn new things, see intersections between different technologies. 

The days where being a "jack-of-all-trades" was a disadvantage are over.

No alternative text description for this image

Applicants, I hate to break it to you, but: 

Nobody reads your CV in full. 

If you take a look at the number of applications for any given job here on LinkedIn, you get a feeling for how many CVs hiring managers sift through on a daily basis. 

Given that they also have other things to do, you can't assume they'll spend >5min reading your CV. So while it may be tempting to put EVERYTHING on there ... please don't. 

When I screen CVs for Generalyst, I look at it for 20-30 secs before forming a snap judgment. Pretty sure others operate similarly. 

Use this to your advantage: 
→ make your CV as short and concise as possible, less is more
→ outline the most important factors that make you stand out
→ write a brief 2-3 sentence summary (and for the love of God, DON'T let AI write it)

The job of a CV isn't to get you a job, it's to get you a first interview.

I'm currently building my second service business. Success comes down to 3 things (imo): 

Strong branding, relentless execution, and aligned incentives. 

A brand only becomes strong when external perception matches internal intention. If at Generalyst, we say we have top candidates for early-stage startups, but founders disagree, the brand breaks. When founders consistently confirm that our candidates are exceptional, the brand compounds.

That external pressure forces us to deliver every time.

I learned this during my first startup, Linguedo. We taught Italian nurses German in-house and put in far more effort than was strictly necessary. The course was so intense it would've become prohibitively expensive for most people. 

Once they passed their German exam, we placed them in local hospitals. 

The result: every single hospital was a (or at least, wanted to) become a repeat customers. Turns out, we did a much better job teaching German than any other language school. 

Underneath it all is one principle: value creation and value capture must live in the same place.

- We only earn money when a candidate signs.
- Candidates never pay.
- Companies pay for a successful hire.

Everyone wins when the match is right.

Building a great service business isn’t art. It’s just a craft. 

Do the basics better than most, do them longer than most, and let people talk about it.
That's it.

One hour from now, my 100th newsletter is gonna go out to 1,031 subscribers. Inside: 

→ how a single email I sent out on Dec 31st, 2022 lead to a fledgling portfolio career
→ how I'm currently designing said portfolio career
→ what the plan for the future is 

You can still subscribe to get those insights delivered into your inbox. Click the link below my name and it's gonna take you there. :)

(and to everyone reading all these newsletters – thank you!)

No one: 

People on LinkedIn: "after raising 120M, finally got that corner office" 

(just kidding, this is a WeWork - views are nice though)

A misconception that drives me nuts: young employees work harder than old employees. 

Dude yeah, of course a 20-year old needs to work harder than a 40-year old:
- they haven't figured out yet how to be ridiculously productive
- they lack the experience to understand what's important 
- they don't have the tools yet to get stuff done quickly 

I'm 100% convinced that: the candidate with ten years of experience will generate more output in six hours than the recent graduate will in twelve. 

Case in point: the most productive people I've ever seen are parents with several children. 

If they gotta go pick up the kids at 15:00, you can rest assured that whatever they needed to get done WILL be done by 15:00. They might say no to useless meetings, maybe skip lunch break, not respond to low-priority emails. 

But they will get it done. 

And isn't that what you want in an employee? 

We don't need more "productivity porn" where people simply sit at their desk all day. 

Output is what matters.

“The difference between greatness and mediocrity isn’t in the spectacular moments but rather in avoiding critical errors.” — Shane Parrish

Warren Buffett's first rule of investing? Never lose money. His second rule? Never forget rule one. 

This isn't clever wordplay - it's the mathematics of success. A 50% loss demands a 100% gain to break even. Or look at elite athletes: while average quarterbacks mix brilliant throws with costly interceptions, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes protect the ball first.

For Lacrosse defenders, fans look for the hard hits, fancy takeaway checks, and high-risk double teams. 

Coaches look for: 
→ accurate positioning
→ loud, constant communication
→ rock-solid footwork 
→ proper passing & groundball technique 

The best defense is the one that makes no critical mistakes, not the one that makes fancy plays. 

In business, most people look for high funding rounds, quick hacks, and eccentric founders.

Whereas most successful businesses have: 
→ solid profit margins
→ a legitimate problem that they solve well 
→ people who genuinely enjoy going to work 
→ a hiring process that avoids mis-hires 

Let’s wrap it up with another quote from Shane: 

“Excellence isn’t about occasional brilliance – it’s about consistent execution.”

Photo cred: Rebecca Fällenbacher

Fusion Media

Media and Influencer Specialist

Delivery Hero

· Successfully leading and managing a high-performing team of 4 Product Support Specialists, fostering a collaborative and motivated work environment, ensuring that the support team is trained and equipped to handle inquiries and issues of various global and local stakeholders.

· Proactively investigating and efficiently triaging bug reports, queries, and feature requests, ensuring swift and effective resolution.

· Collaborating with departments, such as product, engineering and performance, advocating for essential improvements to address high-impact issues and enhance product performance.

· Overseeing the support operations for Delivery Heros native products, including developing and implementing support strategies and processes.

· Pioneering a culture of innovation within the team, encouraging the exploration of new ideas and approaches to improve the support processes leading to a more agile and adaptable working framework.

· Developing and monitoring support metrics to measure the effectiveness of support operations and identify areas for improvement.

· Serve as an internal consultant to leaders and teams at varying levels throughout the organization.

Manager of Product Support

Aklamio

• Developed, implemented and led vision and direction of the Customer Support Team across all seniority levels.
• Coached and defined directional plans to address any KPI deficiencies  and career progression paths in partnership with the Managers and Team Leads.
• Acted as an active stakeholder in the Revenue team as well as liaising with Product, Integrations, Marketing and Data teams to uncover and address partner and customer pain points.
• Lead customer service strategic initiatives to transform the way we support and serve our customers (analysing and refining existing team and company processes and guidelines to assure a high level of e efficiency and improved CSAT).

Head Of Customer Support

Care.com

• Managed Customer & Provider Service Operations for 16 European and overseas countries (incl. AU, NZ, CA) for a multi milion subscriber base.
• Conducted analysis and reported on operational KPIs and adjusted processes and staffing to ensure SLAs and goals are being met. 
• Developed Operational forecast and planning including scheduling, hiring, cross-training, tool and process optimization. 
• Organised collaboration with independent and cross-functional teams icluding Product, Marketing, DevOps and Salesforce to present and prioritize customer insides in the areas of Member Servicing, Member Review and Safety projects.
• Analysed and refined existing operational processes and guidelines as well as working with outsourcers to ensure consistent performance and cost containment.

Operations Manager

Skyroam

Actively contributing to creating and maintaining good customer relationships and ensuring smooth sales team operations.

Assisting sales teams in their everyday job by providing all necessary data, reports, tech support, customer care and product information. 

Coordinating and monitoring the work of various departments involved in production, warehousing, pricing and distribution of goods. Monitoring performance and implementing improvements. Ensuring quality of products. Providing technical support where necessary.

Providing troubleshooting assistance for customer orders, account statuses and other relevant problems. Dealing with any customer complaints and resolving the issue as necessary.

Basic account management for B2B customers as well as wholesale resellers and partners. 

Maintaining close cooperation with Marketing and Product team in order to develop new product and features and to ensure Sales team is on board. 

Reviewing orders and specific customers’ requests to ensure excellent customer service and customer experience. Liaising between Sales team and Product in order to address customer’s needs and feedback.

Managing sales tracking tools and report on important information as well as keeping record of sales trends. Managing and maintaining Sales and Tech Ops CRMs to ensure information quality. 

Keeping a close eye on the inventory, forecasting, movement of goods. Ensuring warehouse efficiency. 
Ensuring that products are manufactured in a correct, cost effective and timely manner in alignment with specifications and quality requirements. 

Working closely with GM and management team to set and/or implement policies, procedures and systems and to follow through with implementation.

Sales Support Manager

Trade Machines FI GmbH

Developing and maintaining a strong long-term relationship with Trade Machine's customers and partners to ensure customer satisfaction, growth and retention as a result of gaining a deep understanding of the needs and goals of our customers.
Ensuring a smooth onboarding experience for new customers and supporting them throughout the process. Resolving issues, identify and mitigate risks which threaten customer growth or retention. Driving technical issue escalation within multiple internal and external teams. Proactively driving adoption and increasing retention through an ongoing dialogue, monitoring of customer data and utilization of analytics tools.
Liaising between customers and product management by ensuring that customer needs are reflected in product development and customers are aware of new features. Prepare and educate customers on new features and releases. Champion and advocate for customer requirements within Trade Machines.
Preparing and reviewing operational performance reports with customer, as appropriate for weekly, monthly, and quarterly cadence.
Proactively working with sales on subscription renewals, identify renewal risk and collaborate with internal teams to remediate and ensure a successful renewal.

Customer Success Manager

Movinga

Ensuring a smooth order process for customers, from start to finish. 
Proactively dealing with any issues and resolving customers requests from multiple channels. Facilitating communication between the Removal Agents and Operations team in an effort to accommodate customer's wishes and needs.  Assisting customers with any questions regarding Movinga and its services. Collecting reviews and collaborating with all departments in response to the learnings. Internal quality assurance in order to identify weak points and areas in need of improvement.

Customer Care Officer

HomeToGo

Supporting Country Managers (PL, UK, US) in their daily tasks, employing different SEO tools and techniques, testing and escalating successful ones, working on linkbuilding, monitoring backlinks and supporting projects in PR, researching, writing and translating press releases with cooperation with country managers as well as PR agencies, content promotion and outreach: define and execute the outreach to maximise the impact of every content piece and optimise web contents according to the SEO strategy, managing and updating HTG websites, cooperation with other departments to improve the company's brand awareness.

PR & SEO Manager

Fara Charity Shop

Building and maintaining relationships with customers. Great work and people management in organizing donations and achieving targets.  Creativity in setting up displays and play-days. This position made me learn about whole new baby and kids market that proves my skills in quick learning and assimilating into new environments.

Sales Assistant

Metropolitan Police

A 3 months summer project (extended until June 2013) focusing on the investigation of various swabbing materials for the collection and recovery of gunshot residue (GSR) and low explosives. Analysis performed for organic and inorganic counter ions commonly present in GSR. Cation analysis was performed using an isocratic unsuppressed cation exchange/chelation IC method and anion analysis was performed by suppressed anion exchange chromatography

Intern

Driving Operational Excellence & Customer Satisfaction | Transformational Leadership | Community Building | Strategic Partnerships | Cycling and Outdoors 🚴‍♂️🌲

I’m Kasia, a dedicated and versatile outdoor enthusiast with a passion for transforming operations, optimising product performance, and delivering exceptional customer support. 

Currently based in Berlin, I am looking to pivot my career into the sports and outdoor industry, where my professional skills and personal interests can thrive together.

For the past several years, I’ve had the privilege of working in various high-impact roles. 

My career has been driven by a love for leadership, strategic planning, and customer insights. I am fluent in Polish, English, and German, with a basic understanding of Italian, which has helped me navigate and manage multicultural teams effectively.

As an avid traveler and cyclist, I deeply resonate with the values of this vibrant sector. I am eager to bring my operational expertise and customer-centric approach to a field that celebrates adventure and community.

I am looking forward to connecting with like-minded professionals and exploring opportunities where we can make a meaningful impact together. Let’s chat!

Kasia Szomborg

Heading to Rouleur Live today and can’t wait! 🙌

It’s one of those events that feels less like a trade show and more like a big reunion - a place to reconnect with familiar faces, meet inspiring people from the cycling world, and soak up all the energy and creativity that surrounds this community.

This time I’ll be representing Bespoked, and I’m really looking forward to catching up with brands and creators who share the same passion for all things bikes.

If you’re around and want to chat, come say hi or drop me a message! 🚴‍♀️

Operational Excellence & Customer Satisfaction | Community Building | Strategic Partnerships | Cycling and Outdoors 🚴‍♂️🌲

taplio

The Battle

Dominik Nitsch

Kasia Szomborg

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreDominik Nitsch's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreKasia Szomborg's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Dominik Nitsch

Kasia Szomborg

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dominik Nitsch's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreKasia Szomborg's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDominik Nitsch's LinkedIn Performance