Meet Nicolai Iuul of RACING COWBOYS

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicolai Iuul.

Hi Nicolai, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I came to Los Angeles from London about 15 years ago, having already produced a movie, a number of music videos, and a few commercials. I knew I wanted to direct commercials, but I didn’t really have a roadmap for how to get there.
What happened next was probably more useful than any formal education could have been. I fell in with a group of people working in the automotive world, and we started going to car shows, meeting manufacturers, photographing cars, filming stories, and generally getting ourselves into places we probably had no business being. It was a bit like film school crossed with journalism school, except the subject was cars and there was usually a bar at the end of the day.

We eventually had our own weekly online car show on eBay Motors, which grew to millions of monthly views. From there, things evolved pretty naturally. We started making launch films, commercials, branded content and all sorts of other work for the automotive industry.

The last ten years have been an extraordinary ride. I’ve had the chance to make Super Bowl commercials, launch films with people like Glen Powell, brand films with David Beckham, and work with Bono, Alessandra Ambrosio, some of the most interesting designers and leaders in the industry, and some genuinely extraordinary cars.

What I love most about the job is that I try very hard not to make the same film twice. Every brand has its own personality, history and reason for being, and I think the job is to understand what makes a particular manufacturer different and then find a way to express that in a way that feels uniquely theirs.

After helping various brands generate hundreds of millions of views over the years, I decided last year to turn the camera around and try building a brand of my own. Together with two dear friends, I started Dizzy Donkey, a premium tequila brand. We’re basically trying to apply everything we’ve learned over the last 15 years about storytelling, branding, culture and making people pay attention—and hopefully have a good time while doing it.

So far, so good. And, thankfully, I’m still having fun.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think there are ever really smooth roads in any job or discipline—unless, of course, you win the lottery.
For me, everything has been harder than I thought it would be, and almost everything has taken longer than I imagined.

There have been plenty of wrong turns, unexpected detours and moments when you wonder if you’re actually getting anywhere.

But that’s also what makes it interesting. The journey has been far more fun than I ever expected, and ultimately much more rewarding. I’ve been lucky enough to work with incredible people, travel the world, make things I’m genuinely proud of, and keep learning along the way.

So I suppose I’ve stopped looking for the smooth road. The interesting stuff usually happens on the other one.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about DIZZY DONKEY?
Imagine one of those great conversations with friends that starts out as an idea and somehow ends up changing your life.
I was sitting at a friend’s famous restaurant in Guadalajara, listening to him talk about wanting to make an exceptional tequila for his guests. He had grown up around tequila and had gone to school with members of some of the great tequila-making families in Jalisco, so he knew the world intimately. I was fascinated.

That conversation turned into the next two years of our lives. We set out to make the best Blanco tequila we could, while building a brand that was fun, memorable and genuinely reflected our passions, skills and sensibilities. Twenty trips to Guadalajara, dozens of distillery visits, and countless recipes and flavor profiles.

The result was Dizzy Donkey—an incredibly smooth, additive-free and award-winning tequila.

But making the tequila was only the beginning of the adventure. We decided to build the brand the old-fashioned way: one great bar or restaurant at a time. It’s been small baby steps ever since. We’re not trying to conquer the world overnight. We focus on what we call the small victories.

Every day, if something good happens, we consider that a win. A new customer discovers the brand. Another case gets sold. A great bartender gets excited about the tequila. Or we make a piece of content that people actually enjoy. Those little victories add up.
The goal is to build something real, first in Venice, then across Los Angeles, and eventually throughout California. It’s been a wonderful experiment in taking something born around a friend’s dinner table and seeing how far a fun idea and a lot of small victories can travel.

The funny thing is, I feel incredibly blessed to have had the career I’ve had—to spend my life on film sets, traveling the world and creating some pretty extraordinary experiences. But this new chapter, actually creating our own brand from the ground up, feels different. It’s an extension of everything I’ve learned, but somehow it’s the one my kids and friends think is the coolest.

I’ll take that as a pretty good small victory.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
To quote someone far more clever than me, Malcolm Gladwell: “start putting in your 10,000 hours as soon as possible.”

My advice is simple: practice your craft, do the work, and keep doing it. There really is no substitute for hard work, repetition and patience. You learn as much from the jobs that don’t go well as the ones that do, and over time you start to develop that instinct that can only come from experience.

Trust your gut, too. It won’t always be right, but it’s usually worth listening to. Your instincts are often telling you something before you can explain why. And don’t be afraid to fail. Making the wrong decision is better than not making a decision at all.

So get your hours in. Be curious. Keep learning. Trust your gut. And most importantly, have fun while you’re doing it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.racingcowboys.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mydizzydonkey/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolai-iuul-16b2415/

Image Credits
Christian Freeman
James Lipman
Maz Makhani
Tiger Iuul