Nicole Ouellette is the founder and owner of Breaking Even Communications. Since 2008, she has built over 500 websites and has helped more than 600 clients do more online with their websites, social media, blogs, and email newsletters. She has taught thousands of people about related topics in webinars, workshops, conferences, and college courses.
Her passion for building a smart web presence began in 2007, when she launched the Breaking Even blog and worked relentlessly to optimize web traffic and cultivate an engaged readership. Not wanting to hoard these lessons for herself, Nicole has been partnering with business owners and entrepreneurs ever since.
Nicole also manages two coworking spaces, Anchorspace Bar Harbor and Anchorspace Potsdam, and she currently splits her time between Maine and New York. In either location, she’s cheerfully accompanied by her basset hound mix, Brandy. (Nicole adores short dogs.)
Nicole grew up in Fort Kent, Maine where her family ran the local hardware store… so she got a firsthand look at the joys and annoyances of running a small business. In other words, she knew what she was getting into! And she knows the challenges all small businesses are up against, now more than ever.
She graduated with honors from Bates College (geology major, French minor, in case you were curious) and earned a certification in secondary education from University of Maine at Fort Kent. Her career has also included hands-on, place-based education projects with Vinalhaven School and working on the websites of the newspapers The Ellsworth American and the Mount Desert Islander. She’s also catered, run a rental company, and done lots of other fun work.
In her free time, Nicole races through YA novels and creates fancy zero-proof cocktails. The top items on her bucket list is to get onstage at a real standup open mic night (not just at the events she hosts) and to visit the Galapagos Islands.