A personal narrative exploring how adversity, faith, and self-discovery transformed a former outsider into an entrepreneur building 72 Grid™, a framework designed to strengthen relational dynamics in leadership teams.
Her Story
About Nicki
Nicki Runda is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of 72 Grid™, an emerging technology venture focused on relational intelligence, founder alignment, and intentional decision making. She is developing a proprietary 72 node assessment system designed to help founders and co founders better understand relational strengths, potential areas of friction, and organizational dynamics. Through structured insights and actionable strategies, 72 Grid™ aims to help leadership teams recognize challenges earlier, strengthen their partnerships, and create more sustainable business outcomes.
Nicki brings a diverse background in sales, management, entrepreneurship, and independent learning to her work. Before founding 72 Grid™, she worked as a store manager with Dollar General before taking the unconventional path of developing her own business concept without a traditional technology background.
Through persistence, curiosity, self education, and the strategic use of modern development and artificial intelligence tools, she transformed an initial idea into a structured framework with assessment logic, scoring architecture, and a growing technology vision.
Her entrepreneurial journey has been deeply shaped by personal adversity and transformation. Nicki experienced periods of homelessness and spent much of her life feeling like the black sheep of her family.
Those experiences challenged her sense of belonging and identity, but ultimately became part of the journey that led her toward faith, self discovery, and a deeper understanding of her own intuition.
As her spiritual journey unfolded, Nicki began paying closer attention to what she describes as synchronicities and meaningful patterns in her life. Her faith and practice as an Oracle tarot reader became part of that process of reflection, helping her develop a stronger relationship with intuition, self awareness, and personal discernment. Rather than viewing her past as something that defined her limitations, she began to see it as part of the foundation from which she could build something meaningful.
That transformation is reflected in the story she calls The White Buffalo. For Nicki, the white buffalo represents the journey of the outsider who learns that being different does not mean being broken. It represents resilience, faith, transformation, and the courage to follow a path that may not look like everyone else's.
Today, Nicki is focused on bringing 72 Grid™ toward launch while building relationships with technical co founders, developers, designers, investors, and strategic partners. Her goal is to transform the lessons she has learned through adversity, relationships, intuition, and entrepreneurship into a practical framework that can help other founders navigate the human side of building a company.
Through 72 Grid™, Nicki hopes to help founders make more intentional decisions, understand the relationships at the heart of their businesses, identify potential misalignment before it becomes costly, and build organizations grounded in greater clarity, alignment, and purpose.
Her story is ultimately one of resilience and reclamation. Nicki is committed to standing fully in her personal power, creating something meaningful from the experiences that shaped her, and demonstrating what can become possible when a person refuses to let their circumstances determine the limits of their future.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Nicki
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to resilience, faith, intuition, and the determination to keep moving forward, even when the path ahead was uncertain. The challenges I have experienced throughout my life taught me how to adapt, persevere, and find strength within myself when I had very little to rely on.
My faith has become an important foundation in my life, and learning to trust my intuition has helped me make decisions with greater clarity and self awareness. As an Oracle tarot reader, I have developed a deeper connection to my spirituality and to the patterns and synchronicities that have shaped my personal journey. These experiences have helped me better understand myself, recognize my purpose, and trust the direction I am taking.
Today, I attribute my growth not only to overcoming adversity, but to choosing to transform those experiences into something meaningful. I am committed to reclaiming my confidence, standing firmly in my personal power, and continuing to become the person I know I am capable of being. My greatest motivation comes from knowing that the circumstances I experienced do not have to define my future. I want my life and my work to reflect what is possible when resilience, faith, determination, and purpose come together.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I have ever received is to trust myself and keep going, even when I cannot see the entire path ahead. I have learned that you do not need to have every answer before you begin. Sometimes you have to take the first step, learn along the way, and have enough faith in yourself to continue when other people do not yet understand your vision.
My journey has taught me that resilience is just as important as talent. There were times when I did not have the resources, experience, or traditional background that people might expect from someone building a technology company. I chose to learn anyway. I chose to keep moving forward anyway.
Today, that is the advice I would give to anyone building something of their own: trust your vision, remain willing to learn, and do not allow someone else's expectations of who you should be to determine what you are capable of becoming.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to young women entering technology and entrepreneurship is to never let a lack of traditional experience convince you that you do not belong in the room. You do not have to know everything before you begin. Be willing to learn, ask questions, surround yourself with people who complement your strengths, and give yourself permission to build something that has never been built before.
There will be moments when people question your ideas, your experience, or your ability to succeed. Do not let those moments define you. Let them challenge you to become more knowledgeable, more resilient, and more confident in your own abilities.
Most importantly, do not wait for someone else to validate your vision before you pursue it. Trust yourself, stay grounded in your values, and remember that your perspective has value. The qualities that once made you feel different may ultimately become the qualities that allow you to see opportunities other people overlook.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest opportunities in technology and entrepreneurship right now is recognizing that successful businesses are built by people, not just products and technology. Founders can have a strong idea, access to capital, and the right technical tools, yet still struggle when relationships, communication, leadership styles, and decision making are misaligned.
I believe there is a growing opportunity to bring greater structure and intentionality to the human side of entrepreneurship. Technology has given founders more tools than ever to build quickly, but speed can also expose weaknesses in leadership and collaboration before teams are prepared to address them.
That is the opportunity I see with 72 Grid™. My goal is to develop a framework that helps founders and leadership teams better understand relational dynamics and identify potential areas of misalignment earlier. I believe the future of entrepreneurship will require not only better technology, but better understanding of the people building and leading the organizations behind it.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values that matter most to me are authenticity, integrity, faith, resilience, compassion, and continuous growth. I believe in being honest about who I am, staying true to my values, and treating people with respect regardless of their position or circumstances.
My experiences have taught me the importance of resilience and the strength that comes from continuing forward even when life does not go according to plan. Faith has also become an important part of how I navigate uncertainty and make decisions.
In my work, I value curiosity, accountability, collaboration, and the willingness to keep learning. I believe great ideas become stronger when you are willing to listen, challenge your own assumptions, and surround yourself with people who bring different strengths and perspectives.
Above all, I want my personal life and my work to be aligned with purpose. I want to build something meaningful, create opportunities for others, and remain authentic to the person I am becoming along the way.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Nicki
The White Buffalo: Finding My Way Through Adversity and Building 72 Grid™
From Feeling Like an Outsider to Building a Framework That Helps Others Find Alignment
The White Buffalo: From Adversity to Entrepreneurship
For most of my life, I felt like I was different.
I often felt like the black sheep of my family, as though I were standing outside looking in, trying to understand where I belonged. There were times when I struggled simply to survive. I experienced homelessness, uncertainty, and moments when I questioned my own worth and the direction my life was taking.
For a long time, I thought those experiences were evidence that something was wrong with me.
Eventually, I began to see them differently.
My journey toward finding myself began when I found my faith.
Faith gave me something to hold onto when I did not have many answers. It taught me that not everything has to make sense immediately and that sometimes the path forward becomes visible only after you take the first step.
As my relationship with my faith grew, I also began paying attention to what I experienced as synchronicities and meaningful patterns in my life. I started listening more closely to my intuition and becoming more aware of the choices, relationships, and experiences that seemed to appear at significant moments.
My spiritual journey became a journey of self-discovery.
As an Oracle tarot reader, I developed an even deeper relationship with intuition and reflection. For me, tarot became less about predicting a fixed future and more about asking meaningful questions, recognizing patterns, and creating space to listen to myself. It encouraged me to look beneath the surface and become more conscious of what was happening within me and around me.
That process changed the way I saw my life.
I began to understand that the experiences I had survived did not have to become the definition of who I was. They could become part of the foundation from which I built something new.
That realization eventually became connected to my entrepreneurial journey.
I did not come from a traditional technology background. I was not someone who had spent years working in Silicon Valley or building software companies. My professional experience came largely from sales, management, and entrepreneurship. When I began developing the idea that would become 72 Grid™, I had to learn things I had never been taught.
So I learned.
I researched. I asked questions. I taught myself. I used modern development tools and artificial intelligence to help turn ideas into something structured and tangible. What began as an idea gradually became a framework with assessment logic, scoring architecture, a 72-node system, and a growing technology vision.
72 Grid™ is focused on something I believe is often overlooked in entrepreneurship.
Businesses are built by people.
We talk constantly about products, technology, funding, growth, and strategy. Those things matter. But behind every company are relationships, decisions, communication, leadership, trust, and human dynamics.
A founder can have an incredible idea and still struggle if the people building it together are not aligned.
That is the problem I want 72 Grid™ to help address.
The framework is designed to help founders and leadership teams better understand relational dynamics, recognize potential areas of friction, and make more intentional decisions before problems become more difficult and expensive to solve.
In many ways, building 72 Grid™ has mirrored my own personal journey.
I spent years trying to understand where I fit. Now I am building something centered around helping people better understand alignment.
I spent years questioning myself. Now I am creating a framework designed to encourage greater clarity and self-awareness.
I experienced moments when I had very little certainty about where my life was going. Now I am building a company based on the belief that greater understanding can help people make better decisions about where they are going.
That transformation is why I call my story The White Buffalo.
The white buffalo has become a symbol in my personal story of being different, walking a path that does not always look like everyone else's, and discovering that what once made you feel like an outsider can eventually become part of your strength.
I no longer look at my past only through the lens of what happened to me.
I look at it through the lens of what I chose to become because of it.
I am still learning. I am still building. I am still figuring things out. There are days when I have doubts, just like anyone else. But I have learned that confidence does not mean never being afraid. Sometimes confidence means continuing forward while you are still afraid.
That is one of the greatest lessons entrepreneurship has taught me:
- You do not need to have every answer before you begin.
- You need enough courage to take the next step.
- You need enough humility to learn what you do not know.
- You need enough resilience to keep going when the path becomes difficult.
- And you need enough faith in yourself to believe that your current circumstances do not determine your future.
To the young woman who feels like the black sheep, I want you to know that being different does not mean you are broken.
To the woman who has experienced setbacks, remember that your past does not have to be the final chapter of your story.
To the woman who has an idea but does not have the traditional background, resources, or connections to make it happen, start anyway. Learn what you need to learn. Find people who complement your strengths. Ask questions. Keep building.
You do not have to become someone else to create something meaningful.
You have to become more fully yourself.
My journey from adversity to entrepreneurship has not been a straight line.
It has been shaped by faith, intuition, resilience, failure, learning, relationships, and the decision to keep moving forward.
I cannot change where I came from.
But I can decide what I build from it.
And that is what I am doing with 72 Grid™.
I am taking everything I have learned about resilience, relationships, alignment, and human connection and turning it into something that I hope can help other people build stronger foundations for their own futures.
The girl who once wondered where she belonged is now building a place for her ideas to belong.
Maybe that is what finding your path really means.
Not discovering a road that was waiting for you all along, but having the courage to create one.
That is The White Buffalo.
And I am still walking.
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