Builder · Operator · Dad

Great dad first,
killer operator second.

30+ years building companies, products, and teams that don't just grow — they endure. From my first business at twelve to leading organizations through acquisition and scale, the fundamentals win. Strategy, clarity, and genuine empathy are the real competitive advantages.

[email protected]

Best of Arizona Business ×4

What I've built.

The short version. Companies acquired, teams scaled, revenue moved.

President Present

CreativeOS

At CreativeOS, we're building the operating system for performance creative. Our platform combines 20,000+ high-converting ad, email, and landing page templates with AI-powered tools: copy generation, creative scoring, funnel analysis, image iteration, and more. We're helping 25,000+ brands ship campaigns in minutes, not days. From template to launch across every major paid and owned channel.

Advisor 2023 – Present

Magic Mind

Growth and marketing advisory for the world's first mental performance shot.

SVP, Marketing 2023 – 2024

ISSA — International Sports Sciences Association

Led marketing strategy and analytics team to position ISSA as the global leader in fitness, health, and wellness education. Data-driven campaigns across brand, digital, and partnerships.

~23% ecomm revenue growth Increased new customer revenue by ~24% Improved paid media efficiency 2.3x
Partner, Head of Optimization 2023

Acadia

World-class CRO through customer experience optimization and evolutionary website redesigns.

27.8% avg conversion lift across clients
CEO 2022 – 2023

SplitTesting.com — Acquired

Built and sold a conversion optimization consultancy. 88% of clients hit record revenue under our watch.

~800% growth in <9 months Acquired at ~11× EBITDA
Head of Growth 2019 – 2022

NASM — National Academy of Sports Medicine

Grew team from 3 to 34. Owned the full customer experience across NASM and 7 sister brands — site, paid, SEO, CRO, content, influencer, email, and the entire martech stack.

34.4% total revenue growth 110.6% e-comm growth ROAS 160% → 800%+
Sr. Director of Growth 2021 – 2022

Veyl Ventures

Led media buying and creative strategy at scale — hundreds of thousands per day across native, VSLs, Meta, Google, and YouTube. Delivered ~17% MoM growth in triple-digit millions.

Director of Marketing Operations 2011 – 2019

Enjoy Arizona — 9 resorts, 2 restaurants

Built the marketing engine from scratch. Data-driven strategy across digital, e-commerce, and offline. Grew portfolio from 2 resorts to 9.

57.6% avg annual revenue growth
Founder 2008 – 2020

My Discount Tech → Fast Fix Computer Repair

Built two #1-ranked computer repair businesses in Phoenix metro. Voted best local service nine consecutive years. Grew from $35K to $1.3M. Both sold.

Earlier

Director of IT — MasTec Network Solutions 2012 – 2016
Sales Manager — OfficeMax 2006 – 2007
Geek Squad Manager — Best Buy 2004 – 2006
Founder — CompuVid (age 12) 1992 – 1994

Education

Building and Leading Effective Teams — MIT Open Learning
Advanced Strategy — MIT Open Learning
Practical Leadership — MIT Open Learning
Executing Strategy for Results — MIT Open Learning
Readings in Optimization — MIT Open Learning

I help operators build
things that actually work.

Not theory. Not frameworks for the sake of frameworks. I work with founders, growth leads, and marketing teams to solve real problems with real constraints.

01

Growth strategy & paid media

Campaign architecture, creative performance diagnosis, tracking infrastructure, attribution, and scaling — primarily Meta, Google, and native. I've managed spend from $500/day to hundreds of thousands per day.

02

Conversion & customer experience

CRO, funnel architecture, landing page strategy, UX optimization. The work that turns traffic into revenue. I built and sold a company doing this.

03

SEO & content positioning

Technical SEO, content strategy, AEO, and the positioning work that puts you in front of the right people at the right time. I've taken brands from single-digit market share to category leader.

04

Building with AI

How to actually use AI tools to build products, content, and systems — not toy demos. First-principles problem solving applied to real business problems. I build SaaS products, audit codebases, and ship production systems with AI daily.

If you're building something real and need a thought partner who's been in the seat — not watching from the sidelines — let's talk.

Get in touch

The work happens before
you ever touch the tool.

This is a V1 framework. 90% of building with AI is thinking. The other 10% is typing.

50%

Problem identification

Think long. Seek extreme clarity on what you're actually solving. Most people skip this entirely — then wonder why the AI can't help.

50%

40%

Outcome and goal alignment

Define what "done" looks like. What must this thing do to be accepted? Acceptance criteria kill revision loops before they start.

90%

10%

Building and validation

Execute with the system. Validate output against your criteria. By now, the AI isn't guessing — it's finishing a solved problem.

100%

90% thinking. 10% prompting.

Front-load the leverage. The tool becomes execution, not exploration.

First principles protocol

How to think before you ever write a prompt.

01

Strip

Remove all assumptions

What do I actually know vs. what am I assuming?

If I'd never seen a solution to this, what would I see?

What's convention and what's truth?

02

Decompose

Break to irreducible parts

What is the smallest true statement about what needs to happen?

What are the real inputs? What are the real outputs?

What transformation actually needs to occur?

03

Constrain

Define the real boundaries

What must be true for this to work?

What cannot change? What's actually flexible?

What resources, time, and tools do I really have?

04

Define done

Build acceptance from truth

What specific thing must this produce to be accepted?

How will I know it's right without subjective judgment?

What's the minimum viable proof it works?

05

Instruct

Now talk to the system

Your prompt is a specification, not a wish.

State the problem, the constraints, and the acceptance criteria.

The AI fills the last 10% — you already did the work.

Clarity is the prompt. Everything else is typing. V1 Framework — Nick Harris