Today we’d like to introduce you to Rob Nickels.
Hi Rob, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Raised in a small town near Lake Huron, Ontario, I’ve always been driven by an ‘old-fashioned’ work ethic (my father was my hero role model in that regard) that doesn’t wait for permission – a trait that earned me a track and field scholarship to the United States where I studied Graphic Design, Film, and Advertising and eventually led me to design my own university curriculum when I realized the formal courses couldn’t keep pace with my passion for motion graphics. I carried that same competitive fire into the grueling world of national advertising, where I spent years watching the sun rise from my office desk as I over-delivered for high-stakes clients. After eventually burning out on the corporate grind, I did what every normal, young twenty-something would do: quit my job and go backpack through Europe.
I reset my perspective and I moved to Denver in 2013 with my wife and launched a freelance career that would eventually include work for names like SpaceX, Ford, and the United Nations. While these projects filled the resume and fed the ego, they eventually felt hollow. I realized I was craving a return to the values I grew up with: the grit, precision, and craftsmanship of the industrial world.
This led me to found Born Tomorrow, a video production and strategy firm specifically for the aerospace and advanced manufacturing sectors. Today, I’ve come full circle – using the modern tools of video production and motion graphics, I hope I can help in some way showcase these companies, as a visual craftsman, for the physical craftsmen in this country.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely hasn’t been a straight line. While the resume shows names like Ford and the UN, the reality behind the scenes was often a ‘feast or famine’ cycle that tested my resolve. The biggest turning point came in 2020. At the time, I had a studio in downtown Denver. But when the pandemic hit, that office became a ghost town, and the overhead became a weight. I had to make the difficult decision to close the doors and go ‘studio-less.’ The pandemic had a violent way of stripping my ego too – I was no different from several freelancers who had their income cut in half.
At first, it felt like a step backward, but it ended up being the catalyst for everything I do now. It forced me to strip away the ego of having a fancy studio space and refocus entirely on the work itself. I stopped trying to be a ‘generalist for everyone’ and committed to being a ‘specialist for the few.’ That transition involved losing clients and facing months of uncertainty, but it’s what allowed me to build Born Tomorrow. I learned that my value wasn’t in my square footage; it was in my ability to understand a complex aerospace company, and translate it into an emotional story. The road was bumpy, but it was those bumps that finally shook off the ‘freelancer’ mindset and turned me into a business owner with a clear mission.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At its core, Born Tomorrow is a video production and strategy firm dedicated to closing what I call the ‘Invisibility Gap.’ Here in Colorado, we have over 10,000 manufacturing and aerospace companies building world-changing technology, yet many remain effectively invisible because their marketing hasn’t kept pace with their engineering. We specialize in taking that high-stakes, technical complexity and turning it into cinematic storytelling.
What truly sets us apart is the marriage of two worlds: I bring 20 years of high-end advertising experience – the kind I used for Fortune 100 companies – directly to the factory floor. We also specialize in the ‘unfilmable,’ using 3D animation and VFX to make complex industrial processes clear and credible for Tier-1 buyers.
Brand-wise, I am most proud of our ‘Visual Craftsman for the Physical Craftsmen’ philosophy. I decided to build a studio-less, agile agency so that our clients don’t pay for my overhead – they pay for precision and results. I want readers to know that in a high-stakes industry, ‘good enough’ video is a liability. Our mission is to ensure that when a Colorado company is building the future, they have a brand that looks like it belongs there.
How do you think about luck?
I’ve had two distinct types of luck in my life: the kind I was born with and the kind I had to survive.
The first was the ‘luck’ of having my father as a role model. I didn’t earn that upbringing, but his work ethic became my internal compass. It gave me the confidence to design my own university curriculum when the system wasn’t moving fast enough, and it gave me the endurance to thrive in the competitive world of national advertising.
The ‘bad luck’ came in 2020. At the time, I had a fancy downtown Denver studio. When the pandemic hit, that studio turned into a liability almost overnight. I had to close the doors and walk away from what I thought was my biggest achievement. I then lost half my clients in a few months. It was a brutal stretch of ‘bad luck,’ but it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to my business. It stripped away the overhead and the ego of being a generalist freelancer and forced me to build Born Tomorrow. It pushed me to stop working for everyone and start working exclusively for the industrial and aerospace sectors where my values actually align. I don’t think I’m ‘lucky’ because things have been easy; I think I’m lucky because the hard times happened at exactly the right time to point me toward my true mission.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.borntomorrow.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/born_tomorrow_video
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/borntomorrowvideo
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertnickels/
- Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@born_tomorrow
