We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nic Townsend-Falck a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Nic, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

While the fundamental accounting equation, assets = liabilities + equity, is ingrained in me, I am on a mission to prove out a newfound equation; sober ≠ boring.

To me, like many others in the space, the non-alcoholic space hits very close to home. Unfortunately, too many friends and family of mine were either good at drinking, or are too good at drinking. In February of 2023, I physically lost my dad to complications from alcoholism. Years before that, however, he was, mentally, already lost due to alcohol.

I am not focused on recovery or the recover journey, as I am not equipped to handle that, however, I and what I do focuses on the space for people that are either sober curious. sober sometimes, sober always, or somewhere in between.

Nic, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Of course. I am Nic, or “The NA CPA” – I am a CPA by day, and by, well whatever other part of the day I can be, a content creator or influencer.

You’ll never get the CPA out of me – accounting is a big passion of mine which is why I am so excited to be the NA CPA, because a lot of individuals and businesses in the n/a space need help, and I am here to help.

Of all the people you want in your life to be sober, I think your CPA is one of them, am I right?

I became, “N/A” around the age of 24.

Since I graduated college, I have run nearly 10 marathons, so I consider myself a runner.

My significant other and I like to go to New York City. She is lucky in that she, via the lottery, got into the NYC half or NYC full marathon several times.

In 2023, for the NYC half, we attended one of Sam’s (@thirdplacebar) events and met her as well as Rachel (@soberincentralpark) for a dry St. Patrick’s Day. We returned to Seattle parched. We wanted events and a community that were as cool and focused around the lack of alcohol rather than the presence of it.

I am a big YouTube nerd. I often find myself watching videos on old New York architecture, ancient European history, etc. One day, I looked up non-alcoholic related material, and while there were videos on the subject, I felt there was opportunity for me to serve the space in creating videos that were the same level of party that I felt the n/a space was (I mean, have you seen Hiyo, have you seen Pathfinder, have you seen Flyers?).

By day, I am a CPA, hence the “CPA” in my handle, and I found myself moving from the most creative thing I did each day being adding borders to my spreadsheets, to filming and editing YouTube videos on non-alcoholic drinks.

That was February of this year when I first started to hit record on my iPhone, and about 20 videos later, I am here: My home bar is overflowing with product (I have a large backlog of videos to do, sorry brands, I am churning through the videos!), I now film at Seattle’s only non-alcoholic bottle shop, Cheeky and Dry, and I am starting to put on events in my hometown.

Events include a cocktail hour + sunset viewing (I live in the West Coast’s tallest residential tower) + movie viewing (Sleepless in Seattle – would it be any other movie?), n/a wine and cheese pairing, dry pub crawl, and more. I also am serving as a mixologist at local festivals, parties, and will be breaking into the corporate event space too.

Through my videos, I introduce people or consumers to fantastic tasting drinks (spirit alternatives, beer, or wine). Through my events, they have things to go to again, people to see and connect with again.

Through all of this, what I am most proud of is how well received my work, whether the videos or events, has been, and the connections I have been able to make.

I am still a runner now now, and I listen to podcasts. One of my favorite podcasters is Mel Robbins. Mel talks about, among many things, if you find yourself not getting invited to the party, make the party yourself. So, through this work, I am creating one big party. It has been fun so far, and it has only really just begun. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I remember after my second or third video, looking at the number of views my videos had had up to that point (only hundreds), and my number of subscribers (nothing to balk at), thinking, “I am not famous yet, what the…”

I was seriously devastated upon seeing this.

I didn’t know, given my background in accounting and nothing video production wise, that filming and editing videos was an extremely time consuming process. For example, at that point, filming would take 2 to 4 hours because not only did I have to look at the camera, smile, get all the words out, etc., but even before hitting record, I had to set the scene right, make sure the lighting was decent, check audio levels, etc. etc.

Scripting beforehand wasn’t as bad, but the editing of the video. For a five minute video, I found myself spending 8 hours, minimum, on the task for each video.

I tracked my hours on YouTube related tasks at the beginning, and for the first two months from starting I had logged more than 100 hours each month. That’s on top of my day job and my responsibilities as a family man.

Like a runner that experiences “the wall” I found myself feeling that wall after my second video had posted, but, given I am writing this now, I climbed that wall and haven’t looked back.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I am still working on building a sizable audience on social media (I just crossed the 200 followers added mark since beginning of February, nearing the 500 level), but I liken my strategy, if you’ll call it that, to value provided.

When I look at my content, for a majority of it, I ask myself “is this providing value to my follower or customer” (really I view them as friends, so it is weird to say “customer” or “follower”).

Friends and family are more than likely to follow you, even if your content is garbage (even some won’t, or they’ll be slow to), so if you want strangers to look at your wall and follow you, or click your thumbnail and subscribe to your channel, your content has to look engaging or valuable.

Once a creator or business solves for this, creating value consistently, I think followers will start to flow. Not all at once, but consistency will bring a steady trickle of improvement,

You may get lucky with a funny post or content that goes viral and gets you followers, but if you’re looking to continue to build your base, you have to be consistent, and eventually you have to get your content to be valuable, whatever that is or means for your base, because people can unfollow you and will because there is so much out there.

On top of that, I am always thinking about how to engage with folks. My wall or videos are not just a one way thing, I want people to comment, ask question, etc., as I’d love to comment back at them, and get to know them. While a lot can be said about Social Media, it gives us the opportunity to connect with and engage with folks we otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to. I want to make good on that, and really connect with people I normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to. I think that if a creator keeps those two things in mind and is genuinely interetested in their followers wants or needs, social media audience will build.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://thenacpa.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenacpa/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nic.townsend.falck
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@thenacpa

Image Credits
These are my photos.