I moved everything to nickchristensen.co. Same person, same newsletter, and the same focus on marketing and AI.
I had my personal website in one place and Nick Builds in another. Keeping both updated started feeling like extra work. The marketing, the AI experiments, the software I build—it all comes from the same work, so I wanted it in one place.
So I put it all here. The old posts are still around, the old links redirect, and if you're on the email list, you don't need to sign up again. I also stripped back the design. I wanted a website I liked looking at and emails that felt more like something I'd actually send a friend.
Seems like a good time to reintroduce myself.
What I spend my time on
I live in Austin and lead growth at AppSumo. I've spent about 15 years in marketing, trying to understand why people buy things and how to get something useful in front of the right person.
Lately, a lot of that work has turned into building software. A few weeks ago I wrote about a product feed tool I built with AI. We're now using it to prepare feeds for Google, Meta, and our affiliate platform at AppSumo, and we canceled the subscription it replaced. That was a pretty satisfying moment.
It started with work I already understood. Product data needed cleaning up. Images needed changing. Different platforms needed different versions of the same catalog. I could explain those problems because I was dealing with them.
That's what keeps pulling me back into building. I can run into something annoying during the day and try to make it better while the details are fresh. I've done that with calendars and a teleprompter too. Some ideas turn into things I keep using. Some need a lot more work than I expected.
I put the projects here, and I share parts of my AI setup on GitHub. I'd like to keep showing the actual work, including the parts I have to redo.
A few things I keep coming back to
I think knowing the problem is becoming a much bigger advantage in software. When I work on the feed tool, the useful feedback comes from trying to get a real job done. I know when a screen is confusing, when the numbers don't make sense, or when a supposedly finished feature leaves me doing the same manual work.
My bet is that we'll see more people build small tools around jobs they know well. Marketers, operators, people who have spent years working around the same annoying gaps. I'm one of them. There's a lot you can attempt now that would have felt like a whole company before.
I also know how easy it is to get excited about a working demo. Keeping something useful takes more effort. You have to check it, fix it, and care enough to come back when it breaks. I still pay for plenty of software. Building something myself only makes sense if I want the responsibility that comes with it.
The same goes for the creative work. AI gives me ideas and gets me moving. I still have to decide whether the design feels right and whether the words sound like someone I'd want to listen to. I've rejected plenty of pages that technically worked. I wouldn't have wanted to buy from them.
People buy from people is something I come back to a lot. Understanding somebody, listening to how they describe a problem, and having a point of view still matter to me. I don't want to lose that just because I can generate more stuff.
Outside the laptop
I love traveling, playing golf, cooking, and getting outdoors. My mom worked for American Airlines, so I grew up flying standby. Being curious about other places has stuck with me.
I like learning by doing, which explains a lot of my projects and probably a few of my mistakes. I also care about having time for the people in my life and doing things that don't need to become a business or a post.
The writing here will stay focused on marketing and AI: what we're testing, what I'm building, and what actually helps us do better work. Putting it under my name gives it one home and makes it easier to keep sharing that work.
If you've been reading along, thanks. And if we haven't talked, send me a note. I'd love to know what you're working on, or what you're making more time for outside work.