Nick Loui

MADE FOR INNOVATION. For Nick Loui, entrepreneurship is a way of life. From a young age, Nick was captivated by technology and innovation. “I recently pulled up an old family newsletter that talked about how I was building my first computer company and attempting to raise venture capital. I was 10,” he recalls. By high school, he was starting businesses with his long-time friend and now co-founder, Bobby Lincoln. Nick’s passion for coding began early, but his curiosity didn’t stop at technology. He chose to study marketing in college, driven by a “fascination with the intersection of communications, storytelling, and engineering—and trying to figure out how these worlds come together.”

This blend of interests eventually led Nick to cofound PeakMetrics in 2017. PeakMetrics is an AI-driven narrative intelligence platform aggregating social and traditional media, using machine learning to predict how messages will develop and spread online. The inspiration for PeakMetrics came when Nick reflected on his marketing and communications experiences. “We were in a post-2016 election world, seeing how online narratives and social media played a uniquely influential role,” he explains. Recognizing that many marketing tactics were being used adversarially, Nick was driven to create a solution to break down and understand these trends. “I wanted to figure out how organizations negatively affected by these trends can get ahead and understand why that’s happening.”

Today, PeakMetrics supports some of the world’s largest brands and government clients in areas ranging from brand reputation management to combating state-sponsored disinformation. Their work uncovering narrative threats around the 2024 Paris Olympics and the U.S. presidential election has been featured in the New York Times, Associated Press, CNN, and more. “We’re mapping online narratives, trying to predict why they’re spreading, where they’re spreading, and bringing more transparency into how information flows online,” Nick says.

SAVOURING MILESTONES. Since co-founding PeakMetrics, Nick has learned the importance of celebrating small wins in the journey of entrepreneurship. He reflects on PeakMetrics’s impact on understanding the online narratives around the January 6th events, where their insights were instrumental in breaking down how platforms like Parler played a role. “Those mini successes, where we see the real-world impact of our work, are some of my most exciting moments.”

Nick’s journey has been significantly influenced by his identity as a gay man, the support from his husband, and the LGBTQIA+ community at large. “My partner reminds me all the time that I code switch, which is something I think a lot of queer founders struggle with.” Despite this, Nick firmly believes that the LGBTQIA+ community’s understanding of storytelling and narrative is a valuable asset in his work. “Our community understands the importance of narrative and its role in social progress.”

A VALUES-DRIVEN VISION. Nick is acutely aware of the impact of his work and thinks deeply about the importance of making decisions that he and his team can stand by in the future. “Given the nature of our work, we face ethical questions daily about the types of clients we work with and the long-term impact of our technology,” he says.

For aspiring LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs, Nick recalls a pivotal moment that helped him on his journey, creating a mastermind group for queer founders within Slack’s Out in Tech group. “Building a community of peers who are at the same stage as you is one of the most valuable things you can do.” The journey from a risky startup to a successful company is a testament to Nick’s dedication and vision. “We’ve proven that we can build something meaningful, and now we’re just at the beginning of what we can achieve.”