# James Nichols ## I turn business and customer problems into working systems. I co-founded and ran US Park Pass, owned customer rollouts at Small Improvements, and now build with AI coding agents. I connect the customer conversation, the business decision and the systems that put it into practice. New York City metro · [Email](mailto:james@jamesdnichols.com) · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdnichols) · [Résumé PDF](https://jamesdnichols.com/james-nichols-resume.pdf) · [Résumé Markdown](https://jamesdnichols.com/james-nichols-resume.md) [Full profile](https://jamesdnichols.com/) ## Selected experience ### US Park Pass · Co-founder & COO · 2018–2026 Built the business. Built the systems behind it. I started shipping orders from my living room and built the operation through storefront, marketing, fulfillment and customer support. At peak, we reached $8 million in annual sales on Shopify Plus, with no developers on staff. 500,000+ orders over the life of the business. A 450,000-person email program driving 25% of revenue. I also built a daily feed of per-order profit into Google Ads bidding. A later reconstruction exposed costs the first version missed. That experience taught me to keep following the numbers back to the business. We wound the business down after a 2026 federal policy change ended the reseller model. ### Small Improvements · Customer Success, Sales & Marketing · 2014–2018 Helped customers succeed. Helped the company grow. I owned inbound sales, onboarding, training and rollout for B2B software customers, including teams at Pinterest, Dropbox, Reddit, Spotify, Planet Labs and AdRoll. Internally, I implemented HubSpot and Aha! and trained the team to use them. During my tenure: fewer than 100 to 650+ paying customers; under $1 million to $7 million in annual recurring revenue. I turned informal education into a structured video-training program and made the case for dedicated marketing and product-management hires. These are company growth figures over my tenure, not results attributable to one person. ### Trion · Mythic / EA · Sigil · Community & Marketing Management · 2006–2013 Brought the people making the product closer to the people using it. I ran testing communities, launch communications and live events for online games including Rift, Warhammer Online and Vanguard. The job connected players, developers, marketing and live operations. Developer livestreams, alpha and beta programs, and product demos at E3, PAX and San Diego Comic-Con. It was an early education in listening at scale, explaining a changing product and helping teams act on what customers were telling them. ## Current work ### [Duck Yeah](https://jamesdnichols.com/duck-yeah/) A business problem you can play through. An illustrated adventure built for my MotherDuck application. Follow a decision through its consequences, inspect the records, and see how the project changed as I challenged what was useful. I shaped the problem, story and experience. Claude Code and Codex implemented the code and queries under my direction. The business and its outcomes are fictional. The application is a working demonstration. ### [b.akery](https://getbakery.dev/) Helping people and AI agents keep work moving. I’m developing b.akery to carry decisions, context and corrections across people, projects and AI tools, so an operator doesn’t have to keep the whole business in their head. The first alpha is focused on Codex and Claude. My own projects are the starting point for learning where shared context helps and where it gets in the way. Early alpha in development. Its usefulness in other people’s work is still to be established. ### [Voice receptionist](https://jamesdnichols.com/#voice-receptionist) From a service flow to a real call. Built a voice-AI receptionist and a consent-based callback demo. A July 2026 acceptance call verified the end-to-end experience. I directed the integration and tested the caller experience. AI agents implemented the code. Historical implementation example. The callback form is no longer on this site; recordings and caller details stay private. ## Following the margin all the way through **The problem.** Revenue-based bidding treated very different orders as equally valuable. I wanted advertising decisions to reflect what we actually kept. **The implementation.** I built a daily per-order profit feed for Google Ads, first with Sheets and Apps Script, then rebuilt on BigQuery and Google Cloud with AI assistance. **The finding.** A later reconstruction of 80,268 orders from February–December 2025 found 3,032 orders losing money after full costs. It exposed costs the earlier feed had missed. **The limit.** The rebuilt pipeline ran during wind-down. There is no clean before-and-after performance result to claim. ## Where I can help ### Business ownership: Make the business run better. At US Park Pass: storefront, fulfillment, shipping, support and the economics behind each order. Connect the storefront, fulfillment, support and economics. Keep responsibility for the operation after the launch. ### Growth & customer systems: Connect attention to customer value. At Small Improvements: customer adoption and growth. At US Park Pass: paid acquisition and a 450,000-person email program. Carry the customer journey from acquisition and sales through onboarding, education and retention. ### Product & customer feedback: Turn the problem into something useful. From software onboarding and game launches to today’s working AI projects. Turn customer and community feedback into priorities, clearer communication and a better rollout. ### AI-assisted implementation: Take it from idea to implementation. A voice receptionist, margin tools and Duck Yeah. The implementation and the limits are part of the story. Define the problem, direct coding agents, test the result and own the decision to ship, revise or stop. ## Tools in context Tool depth varies. I own problem definition, solution design and delivery decisions. AI agents write much of the code. I can read and modify SQL; I’m still learning to write it from scratch. ### Commerce & acquisition Running a store, paid acquisition, lifecycle marketing and social publishing. Shopify Plus, Google Ads, Meta Ads, Klaviyo, Buffer, Triple Whale, Report Pundit ### Customer, product & team systems Sales, onboarding, customer education, product planning and team collaboration. HubSpot, Close, Aha!, Jira, Trello, Notion ### Data & business decisions Connecting order economics, inventory and fulfillment to business decisions. Google Sheets, Apps Script, BigQuery, Google Cloud, QuickBooks, ShipStation, Sage Inventory Planner ### Software & AI-assisted delivery Directing coding agents and assembling working applications. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub, Cloudflare Workers, Astro, Retell AI ### Current project exploration Tools I’m exploring through current projects, including Duck Yeah. Jev, MotherDuck, DuckDB, SQL, Python, TypeScript, MCP ## A builder. A lifelong learner. A bigger challenge. I’m open to full-time and fractional roles where I can learn the business, own a meaningful problem and stay with it through implementation. Operations, growth, product and AI solutions are all ways into that work. I like curious people, unfamiliar problems and the moment an idea becomes something useful. I want to help a team explore what AI makes possible, with responsibility for how it works for customers. ## Full career history ### Independent Builder & Operator · Independent · 2026 – present Define business problems, direct AI coding agents and test the results. Work includes a voice receptionist with a verified acceptance call, margin tools, the fictional Duck Yeah demo and b.akery’s coordination alpha in development. ### Co-founder & COO · US Park Pass · 2018 – 2026 Co-founded and ran the storefront, fulfillment, marketing and customer support, with no developers on staff. Owned paid acquisition, lifecycle email and operating systems. We wound down after a 2026 federal policy change ended the reseller model. ### Customer Success, Sales & Marketing · Small Improvements · 2014 – 2018 Owned inbound sales, onboarding, training and rollout for customers including Pinterest, Dropbox, Reddit and Spotify. Implemented HubSpot and Aha!, trained colleagues and built a video-training program. Figures describe company growth during my tenure. ### Community & Marketing Management · Trion Worlds · Feb 2011 – Aug 2013 Launch community manager for Rift; started one of the first in-studio developer livestreams; ran ArcheAge's pre-launch community. ### Community & Marketing Management · Mythic Entertainment (EA / BioWare) · 2007 – 2011 Ran the alpha and beta programs and convention demos for Warhammer Online, and wrote the Executive Producer's Letters. ### Community & Marketing Management · Sigil Games Online · May 2006 – May 2007 Ran the beta community and worldwide launch of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, and stayed through the studio's close. ### Project Coordinator · 500 Group Inc. · Jan 2005 – Feb 2006 Project coordinator and executive assistant to Paolo Tiramani, on the folding home system that became Boxabl. Contact: [james@jamesdnichols.com](mailto:james@jamesdnichols.com) · [Book a conversation](https://calendly.com/jamesdnichols/30min)