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.

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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

Nift

The Gratitude Flywheel – Reshaping how people discover and engage with brands.

Partnerships

Sell Grow Repeat

On a mission to help founder led sales organizations, early stage companies, and digital entrepreneurs build sales processes and strategies that work.

Some recent successes:

- From 5% to 40% close rate in 3-months
- 40% increase in revenue in 2-months 
- First 1K customers in 6-months
- From $80K to $2M+ ARR

💪🏻 Let's work together!

Founder

TalentSheets

More than 490+ marketers and founders use TalentSheets to manage and support their influencer marketing efforts.

The first influencer platform that layers on top of Google, turning Google Drive into your own personalized influencer marketing database. All without changing your current workflow or costing you a fortune.

Co-Founder

LOOM CLUB

A neighborhood club where a community of locals exercise, co-work, and socialize under one roof. 

Re-imagining community & wellness for a changing world.

Investor

Plei, Inc

Plei is the largest pickup soccer platform & organizer in the United States, boasting more than:

- 180,000+ soccer players on the Plei App
- 40,000+ games hosted on the Plei App as of Aug '23 (30,000+ in 2023 Alone)
- Partnerships with 130+ sports facilities across 15 U.S. cities

Teachable

Director Of Business Development

Fullscreen

Fullscreen empowers talent and brands to build and monetize highly engaged, social-first audiences through best-in-class strategy, creative services and technology.  Our company is a global leader in social-first entertainment experiences and services for the world’s top talent, digital influencers, brands and avid fans.   
 
For our talent and digital influencer partners, we provide a range of services and tools that include talent management, multi-platform content optimization, brand partnerships, live touring, consumer products, and a powerful consumer-facing technology platform that provides affinity brands, talent and influencers with websites, online stores, fan clubs and social optimization tools to help them seamlessly analyze data and create meaningful relationships with fans. 
 
For our brand partners, we work with marketers who are looking to engage valuable, elusive youth audiences on social platforms through original entertainment, influencer marketing, multi-platform social content, organic and paid distribution, live events, and targeted media.  We have offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta.

VP Sales and Marketing

Reelio

- Founder with a strong focus on sales & marketing
- Built and managed cross-departmental teams for goal and process alignment that continue to provide stellar relationships and results for our clients.
- Drove company from ideation and pre-revenue to annual 8-figures 
- Sold into key accounts, such as, Estée Lauder, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, & Dunkin' Donuts without pre-existing relationships
- Liaison between market demands and product development in order to better shape product roadmap
- Built an outsourced SDR org to deliver 11X ROI on cost
- Drove company to successful acquisition

Co-founder & VP, Sales & Marketing (ACQUIRED)

Partnerships @ Nift | 3X Founder (8-figures, 7-figures, and a dud) | Investor. Advisor. Bourbon Lover | Exploring the tactics and stories from the best entrepreneurs on the planet

Daily insights on business building.

Sales & Marketing Leader with 10+ years selling high-value solutions as a player/coach to meet customer needs. 

Creative and curious mindset, with a track record of leveraging problem-solving skills to uncover new revenue opportunities and drive business growth. 

Unquestioned ethics and a strong commitment to doing what is right for customers, co-workers, and the company.

EQ > IQ

Some highlight from across my career:

- Responsible for more than $100M in advertising budgets

- Scaled startups $0 to 8-figures, then again from $0 to 7-figures

- Built an outsourced SDR Team that produced 11X ROI on net new logos

- Trained more than 50 sellers to systematically attain quota through repeatable process

- Sold into and built marketing programs for some of the best companies on the planet. 

I'm excited to create something amazing with you.

💪🏻 Let's work together

Mark Borum

The hits keep coming. Nift has once again been named to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™.

One of North America’s fastest-growing technology companies, driven by 731% revenue growth over the past three years. 💪

[Full release in comments]

For the first time, the people who own the transaction are also becoming the most powerful media owners in the room. 

Walmart, Target, Kroger, Instacart, Uber, DoorDash… they have carts, orders,  identities, and now the media dollars.

Everyone’s hyped about retail media racing toward ~$100B. The more interesting question is: what happens when every “ad opportunity” is attached to a logged-in, paying customer?

The space is still relatively new, but its month-over-month rate of change can give you whiplash. If you still think commerce media is “sponsored products on a retailer’s site,” you’re already behind.

This is fast becoming the default way brands buy performance media:
closer to the transaction, closer to the customer, closer to actual revenue.

And the tension no one wants to talk about? there’s a ceiling on how many ads you can jam into an app, a feed, or a checkout flow before users tap out.

So the next phase isn’t “more ads.” It’s:

– Turning high-intent moments into value, not noise
– Growing yield per user without torching the experience
– Bringing in non-endemic dollars w/out turning into Times Square

The players who solve that balance — retailers, apps, BNPLs, streamers — will own the next decade of advertising. 

Everyone else will be arguing about CPMs while their users quietly churn.

Open article: Retail media ad spend will reach over $100B by 2027 by emarketer.com

Retail media ad spend will reach over $100B by 2027

Big milestone for us at Nift: we’re continuing our expansion in the UK with another phenomenal partner.

When Nift started, the idea was simple– help people discover great brands through gifts that actually feel good to receive. Watching that idea grow from a handful of partners in the U.S. to working with some of the biggest consumer apps in the world… that’s been surreal.

This latest addition to our UK partner ecosystem is a reminder of how far the team has taken this. 

New markets, new partners, and the same belief that there’s a better way for brands and consumers to connect than another interruptive ad.

I’m incredibly proud of what we’re building and even more excited for what opening up the UK unlocks next.

We’re pleased to share that Nift is partnering with Clearpay (Afterpay) as we expand into the UK.

Through this partnership, Clearpay customers will receive thoughtful thank-you gifts at meaningful moments in their journey—helping them discover brands they’ll love, while giving Clearpay a way to generate incremental revenue without interrupting the experience.

It also offers brands a more thoughtful path to reaching new audiences, rooted in relevance and choice rather than disruption.

We’re grateful to be partnering with Clearpay and look forward to what we’ll build together. 💪 

 🔗 Full announcement:  https://lnkd.in/gP4eRDNF

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