Nick has lived in South Africa for most of his life and was born in Cape Town. After school, at Diocesan College, he was drafted into the army, the South African Intelligence Corps, in Kimberley. He was trained there for a year and was commissioned as a Lieutenant. The army, quite thoughtfully, transferred him to his home town of Cape town, where he worked in the propaganda arm of the Intelligence Services: "my first exposure to marketing!".

University called, and Nick studied commerce at the University of Cape Town, after which he travelled to the U.K., Portugal, Netherlands and the U.S.A. He returned to South Africa, a year later, enriched by his travels and studied COBOL computer programming while working as a river guide for Felix Unite River Adventures. It was a happy time and Nick was led deeper into the business world when his father opened up an educational toy business. He managed it with a colleague, under the guidance of his father, and took control of the accounting and computing side of things - overseeing a new network installation and inventory system. Lots of lessons were learned, including a large one on cashflow.

Feeling a little restless, Nick journeyed up to Johannesburg, in the hope of securing some finance for a business idea and walked into a game ranging job with Conservation Corporation Africa. He spent almost two years in the bush, guiding and hosting international tourists in the five star private game reserves that are situated on the western border of the Kruger National Park (www.ccafrica.co.za , www.singita.co.za , www.chitwa.co.za). It was an unbelievable life that only a handful of people in this world have the privilege of experiencing.

Nick returned to Cape Town, even more determined to set up the business he was planning and learnt a great lesson: You need your own capital to start a business. A few months of study catapulted him into the IT industry, where he joined a local corporate firm called AST (www.ast.co.za) - steep learning curves and great fun, and this led to another job as an Account Manager for Prism (www.prism.co.za). He learnt how to design web sites as a hobby (and in order to understand the business he was working in) and is now helping Steen Jakobsen with www.carvoeiro.com.