I'm Nick Christensen. I lead performance marketing at AppSumo, consult bootstrap businesses on profit-first growth, and write this newsletter from Austin, Texas. AI agents and automation handle a growing share of the work every week. This site is where I publish the field reports.
What I'm building
- AppSumo: Helped grow performance marketing from $7M to $90M+ in annual revenue. Currently leading paid media across Google and Meta, with AI agents handling more of the operational work every week.
- Consulting: Performance marketing growth systems for bootstrap businesses, with a profit-first lens.
- Zero Dark Tactical: A tactical gear brand with fully automated Instagram operations (28K+ followers).
- Nick Builds + AI Ads Operator: This newsletter and series. Field reports from running paid ads end-to-end with AI agents at six-figure-a-month spend.
- Operator tooling: n8n workflows, Claude skills, and AI agents that automate paid media reporting, ICP synthesis, and creative production. Most of it gets shared in the newsletter.
What this newsletter is about
Every Wednesday I publish field reports from running paid ads with AI agents at bootstrap businesses spending six figures a month. What I built. What broke. What made money. No advice posts. No "5 ChatGPT prompts for marketers." Just the operator-grade work.
Connect
Find me on Twitter / X or LinkedIn.