Twenty years of starting companies, running sales floors, and doing the marketing myself. Brand, pipeline, people — usually all three at once.
Ownership taught me the only rule I actually trust: when there's no playbook, you write one. These are the four I keep writing.
I've started brands from a blank page — name, positioning, site, funnel, first customer. A brand isn't a logo. It's the distance between "who is this?" and "oh, I've heard of you," and that distance is worth money on every call.
Four companies founded or co-founded, including a global community for young entrepreneurs I ran for six years.
Proof: built Instant Auto Approvals from a name to a funded subprime pipeline, solo.
I've run paid and organic together because I've had to — no agency, no budget for guesswork. Google PPC, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, email. The math on each channel is different. The goal is the same: more qualified people, lower cost per deal.
I've managed six-figure ad budgets and I've started with nothing. Both teach you something the other doesn't.
Proof: ran all four paid channels at Instant Auto Approvals solo; led Cochrane Nissan's digital pivot through COVID.
Twenty years of closing rooms, training teams, and rewriting scripts that stopped working. I've sold $90k vacation memberships and $3.2M resort properties to buyers from forty countries in the same week.
I've carried the number and I've managed the people carrying it. I still jump on calls, because a manager who won't sell can't teach.
Proof: consultant to Sales Manager at Vida Vacations, in one of the most competitive sales rooms in the world.
This is the part I'm most excited about right now. I use AI where it earns its keep — research at speed, ad variations, follow-up that never drops a lead, small internal tools that delete busywork. I don't publish AI slop, and I'll tell you when it's the wrong tool.
The advantage was never the model. It's knowing which twenty minutes of your week it should be doing instead of you.
Proof: building AI-assisted lead follow-up and content systems at Complete Barndo Solutions.
02 — Current projects
Two businesses. A shared focus: bring in the right customers, then build the operation to back it up. Here’s where I’m putting my energy.
Custom barndominiums, from the first idea to the finished home. Design, land and site support, financing guidance, and turnkey construction — brought together by one team.
I lead sales, marketing, and design — including the team that creates our custom barndominium plans. I help people find us, explore what’s possible, and turn their ideas into a design for their home.
Marketing and systems for service businesses, especially the trades. Search, ads, websites, CRM, and automated follow-up that connect getting customers with taking care of them.
I help our customers get more customers — then build the systems that let the business handle that growth, with less of the follow-up done by hand.
Different industries, same approach. Build the brand, find the buyer, never stop optimizing.
The room. Resort sales at the highest level — buyers from forty countries, properties from $90k to $3.2M, a room where every rep was competing and the manager was expected to win too.
What I did. Arrived as a consultant and left as a manager who'd set records for volume per customer and close rate.
The problem. A pandemic closed the showroom and the old way of buying a car went with it.
What I did. Took over the marketing department, moved the store to digital and social lead generation, and trained the team to sell to people who never walked in first.
The gap. Subprime buyers get shuffled to the back of the lot. Nobody was talking to them like adults.
What I built. A brand, a lead engine across four paid channels, and the financing and delivery process behind it — start to finish, by myself.
The idea. Young entrepreneurs everywhere were doing the work alone. They needed a room, even a digital one.
What I built. A blog and worldwide community I ran as CEO — PR, contributors, interviews, the forum, and a lot of the writing.
Justin Nowak · Teague, Texas
Cell phones in Calgary. A blog for young entrepreneurs. Resort properties on the Pacific. Custom homes in Texas. Every time I started something new, I had to learn the product, the buyer, and the market from scratch. I'm fast at that now.
I don't pitch myself as a strategist who draws on whiteboards. I've been on the floor. I know what it feels like when a deal goes cold, when a campaign bleeds money, when a new hire quits on week three. I fix those things because I've fixed them before.
Sales, marketing, AI, and what building in Texas actually looks like.
Follow me on LinkedIn →Top skills: account executives · high sense of urgency · inbound sales
A barndo on your land, a sales team that's stalled, or a brand that nobody's heard of yet. Send me the details and I'll tell you what I'd do first. No deck, no pitch.