Nathan Schweitzer

How did you first hear about Rize, and why did you decide to take a Rize course?

Nathan is a senior at Fisher College, attending on an eSports scholarship for Fortnite. His journey to a marketing degree was anything but guaranteed. After a challenging time in high school where he struggled to stay engaged, he originally planned to get his GED and join the military.

Everything changed when he connected with an eSports recruiter from Fisher. “I sent him a DM on Discord. I’m like, ‘Hey, I finally graduated high school. Still want me at your school?” Nathan says. He chose a marketing major because he wanted a business degree with the “most bang for the buck,” but he ended up finding something much more valuable: a way to learn that actually worked for him.

Nathan’s success is rooted in life lessons he learned in high school. He struggled in traditional settings, but a freshman English professor changed his trajectory by giving him autonomy and creative freedom. When Nathan discovered Rize, he realized he could apply that exact same philosophy to his marketing degree by using real companies and products as the starting point for his marketing assignments.

How did you apply your Rize skills outside of the classroom?

Nathan discovered Neuroptima, a gaming supplement startup, through his connections in the esports community. The owner appeared frequently on his Twitter feed through mutual gaming friends. When his marketing professor offered students the option to choose their own brand for a project, he reached out to the owner: "I need to use some of the brand assets for this email thing. It's part of this big project." The owner asked him to send the completed work.

SEO/SEM project: He completed a 90-day SEO project including SWOT analysis, competitor analysis, and website mock-ups. He interviewed the owner about target audience, competitive landscape, and product details to tailor his research. Throughout the semester, he sent work to the owner as assignments progressed, incorporating feedback from both his professor and the owner to refine the project.

Email marketing certification: He got certified in email marketing and created email campaigns including discount programs, review requests, and promotional content using Figma for design.

After receiving a good grade on his SEO assignment, he sent everything to the owner, who then offered him a position on the team.

Current role: He now does all the marketing for Neuroptima, primarily email marketing. In August alone, his email flows generated $50,000 in revenue. He maintains a content calendar with structured campaigns (blog posts on Mondays about products, followed by availability announcements later in the week).

Recent projects include completely redoing all SEO on their new custom website (not Shopify), adding h1/h2 headers, semantics, and alt text. He also continues applying new skills from ongoing coursework, like pricing strategy, to the business.

How did this experience impact your career trajectory?

The transition from student to working professional was fueled by a direct feedback loop between Nathan's Rize professors and his work at Neuroptima. While email marketing came naturally for him, SEO required more effort. "With the hierarchies of SEO—how things should be placed and what words are considered—it took a little bit to know what was what."

His professor's feedback became essential for improving his work. "My professor would say, 'Hey, maybe don't pack so much into this or you need to shorten this up,' and we would think of ways to do that." This was critical for communicating Neuroptima's complex product—46 different patented ingredients—to an audience with "probably the shortest attention span ever."

The education shaped his entire approach to work. "That feedback shaped me into everything I do now. In a classroom, you learn something in a very specific context, but through the internship, I've been able to apply that in a lot of different ways." The experience built genuine professional confidence: "I remember running my first Google search ad campaign and being scared that I was going to mess something up. And now I'm like, 'Yeah, this is how it's supposed to be.'"

For Nathan, who once felt alienated by traditional schooling, the experience transformed his relationship with education. "That's something everyone should be doing... picking your own assignments. That's what college is all about. You have smart professors who are there to prepare you for life. You should take advantage of that and practice what you want to do."

What's next for you?

Nathan is graduating in spring and exploring starting his own marketing and AI agency. He's been building with AI since 2021, doing automation work and attending industry shows. He sees marketing and AI converging: "Everything is going to be integrated more. It's going to be about how accessible data is to be related back to a consumer... to make things not only accessible and relatable for humans, but also easy and accessible to where data can be extracted by someone that's not a human and relayed back without losing the message. It's like kind of like a game of telephone without losing anything."

He's already applied for Neuroptima to be one of the first supplement companies on OpenAI's new marketplace with one-click purchase functionality, with the format they’ve applied for pending approval.