From foster care in Western Massachusetts to a DM that changed everything in Beverly Hills. From an Apple II GS to $172M in pipeline. From Bernardston to Santa Monica — with Banks riding shotgun the whole way. This is the story of someone who learned early that the right room can rewrite everything.
I was adopted. I spent time in foster care before finding my family — a family that gave me stability, love, and a front-row seat to the work of people who show up for others. My mother became the Executive Director at Head Start, and I spent a lot of my childhood volunteering alongside her. I watched her build programs, fight for resources, and bet everything on the idea that early access changes everything.
She was right. And I was paying attention.
What I absorbed from those years wasn't a lesson about hardship. It was a lesson about access. About how the right teacher, the right program, the right environment — even the right computer — can quietly rewrite someone's entire future.
"I understood early that where you are shapes who you become. So I started choosing my rooms very deliberately."
When it came time for middle school and high school, I enrolled as a school-of-choice student at Amherst Regional. The town I grew up in — Bernardston, Massachusetts — was small, proud, and tight on resources. Amherst was different. Better-funded, more ambitious, more diverse in what it thought was possible. I knew I needed that environment, so I went and got it.
That decision — choosing to go to a better room before anyone told me I could — is the one I trace almost everything else back to.
A Life of Chosen Rooms
Zack has never stayed still. From a small town in Massachusetts to the waterfront in Sausalito, through Chinatown and Laurel Canyon, up Canon Drive in Beverly Hills, down to Manhattan Beach — and now Santa Monica with Banks. Every move was deliberate.
The small town that made me. Tight-knit, resource-constrained, and the kind of place that makes you understand what you need to go find somewhere else. I owe it everything — including the hunger to leave it.
🌲 Where It All StartedMet Mike Kittredge Jr. in a marketing class. Left college to build Kringle Candle. Spent time at Juggler Meadow — the Kittredge family estate — one of the most extraordinary properties in Western Massachusetts, built by the founder of Yankee Candle. The classroom felt small compared to what we were already doing.
😭 Kringle Candle Era · Juggler MeadowSausalito was a revelation. Houseboats on the water, the kind of light photographers chase, and the slow realization that California was where I needed to be. A perfect first landing on the West Coast.
⛵ First Taste of CaliforniaMoved into Chinatown — deep in the city, surrounded by history and energy. San Francisco in the middle of the tech explosion was electric. I worked in tech during one of the most ambitious eras the industry has seen. Then the Airbnb wave hit and took my condo with it. So I went south.
🌇 Tech Era · Reality TV · Displaced by AirbnbLaurel Canyon in my early 30s. Steps from the Country Store where musicians and artists have gathered since the '60s. Near PACE — the gallery that represents some of the most serious artists working today. Creative, unhurried, intentional. That's where the DM to Aaron Kirman was written.
🌿 The Creative Years · The DM EraCanon Drive, Beverly Hills. Seven years at KW Beverly Hills — $2B+ in annual volume, 600+ agents. Top Print Advertiser, Beverly Hills, recognized by the LA Times. The office was on Canon. The work was everywhere.
🏢 KW Beverly Hills · $2B+ VolumeIn 2020, I got Banks — a miniature piebald dachshund with more personality than most people I know. Wherever Zack goes, Banks goes. He's been to more client meetings, beach walks, and late-night creative sessions than I can count. He's the constant in every chapter since.
🐾 Banks · Best Co-FounderJoined eXp Realty as Director of Marketing Operations. Six months in: $172M in pipeline, 819 appointments set, $2.29M+ in closed GCI. Named Leader of the Quarter, eXp Luxury, January 2025.
⚡ eXp Realty · $172M PipelineSanta Monica. The Pacific a few blocks away. Banks on the beach when the schedule allows. Wysocki Creative in full swing. This chapter feels — for the first time — like it was designed rather than discovered. Which, of course, is exactly how I prefer it.
🌊 Santa Monica · HomeThe Technology Chapter
Every computer was a new door. Not just to software — but to the idea that you could make things, build things, reach people in ways that had nothing to do with geography or circumstance. Click any entry to expand the full story.
I was seven years old when I got my first computer. An Apple II GS. To most people in 1993, it was a machine that did things. To me, it was a portal. It had color. It had sound. It felt like the future had arrived in our living room and decided to stay.
Christmas, 1996. A Gateway computer arrived in a box covered in black-and-white cow spots. That box wasn't just packaging — it was brand identity. Gateway made technology feel accessible and a little irreverent. I didn't have the vocabulary for it yet, but I was studying branding without realizing it.
After years on a Dell Inspiron that increasingly felt like a liability, I went back to Apple. The MacBook era. iPhoto. GarageBand. Pages. A machine that understood design wasn't a feature — it was the point. This was the year my relationship with creative tools deepened into a career.
The tools that mattered in 1993 were hardware. The tools that matter now are intelligence systems. Claude, ChatGPT, Zapier, and the emerging infrastructure of AI-assisted everything. At eXp Realty, AI workflows replaced entire process layers and generated $172M in pipeline. At Wysocki Creative, every client engagement benefits from this.
The Brand-Building Chapter
His name was Mike Kittredge Jr. His father was Mike Kittredge — founder of Yankee Candle, one of the most successful consumer brands in New England history. We met in a marketing class at UMass Amherst, and somewhere between lectures on positioning and consumer behavior, we started talking about what we could build.
And we were doing it from one of the most extraordinary homes I've ever been in. Mike lived at Juggler Meadow — a massive estate in Amherst, Massachusetts that his father built. The place is legendary: an immaculately designed property that was the physical expression of what the Yankee Candle empire had made possible. Walking through it was its own education in what success could look like.
"Building at a table inside the estate of the man who built Yankee Candle — that sets a certain standard for what you think is possible."
What we built was Kringle Candle — launched in Bernardston, Massachusetts — alongside The Farm Table restaurant. Two brands, one small town, and the kind of ambition that only makes sense when you're young enough to not fully understand the odds. I was VP. I was also all-in.
Eventually, I was pushed out. I won't dress that up. It happened. It hurt. And it changed the way I think about ownership, loyalty, and what it means to build something versus what it means to own something. Those aren't always the same thing.
Juggler Meadow — the Kittredge family estate in Amherst, Massachusetts. This is where Zack Wysocki and Mike Kittredge Jr. worked on the ideas that became Kringle Candle. Built by Mike Kittredge Sr., the founder of Yankee Candle. The scale embedded in this place set the standard for everything that followed.
Bernardston, Massachusetts
Kringle Candle
& The Farm Table
The Reinvention Chapter
Some people reinvent themselves once. I've done it as a habit. Not because I was lost — but because I've always been drawn to what was next.
Started in Sausalito — waterfront, boats, Marin light, a gentler introduction to California. Then moved into Chinatown, deep inside San Francisco, in the middle of the tech boom. Ambitious, caffeinated, absolutely convinced it was inventing the future. I was there for it.
While in San Francisco, I appeared on a Bravo reality show — and separately, on Mystery Millionaire with Mike Kittredge Jr. Television shrinks things and amplifies them simultaneously. What I took away: story is everything. How you frame something is as important as the something itself.
The Airbnb boom converted my SF condo into short-term inventory. So I moved to Los Angeles — into Laurel Canyon in my early 30s, near the Country Store and PACE gallery. The canyon has a specific creative energy: unhurried, intentional, musical. That's where the DM to Aaron Kirman was written.
Every one of these chapters forced a choice: collapse or adapt. I've never been particularly good at collapsing. What I've gotten very good at is looking at a room I'm not in yet, deciding I belong there, and figuring out how to get through the door.
Hi Aaron — I know you don't know me. I've followed your work and I believe I can help you grow. I'd love to come work for you.
Thanks — but we're not hiring right now.
I'll work for free. I'm telling you — you won't find anyone better. Give me a shot to prove it.
I'd moved to Los Angeles — living in Laurel Canyon — and I needed a job in the industry I'd been studying my entire life. Luxury real estate marketing. I DM'd Aaron Kirman — one of the top real estate agents in Beverly Hills — cold. He said no. I pushed back. I told him I'd work for free because I knew I was worth it. I meant every word.
He gave me a trial run. I showed him what I could do. He hired me. That led to KW Beverly Hills. Seven years. $2B+ in annual volume. Canon Drive. The work that built everything that followed.
That moment — the bet on myself, the willingness to show up and prove it before anyone asked — is maybe the most "me" thing I've ever done. You identify the room, you decide you belong in it, and then you go make yourself impossible to ignore.
The Most Important Co-Founder
In 2020, I got Banks — a miniature piebald dachshund with more personality than most people I know. If you've spent any time around me, you know: wherever Zack goes, Banks goes. He's been to more client meetings, beach walks, open houses, and late-night creative sessions than I can count.
Piebald means he's got this gorgeous patchwork of brown, black, and white — like someone designed him with intention. Which, frankly, is the only kind of design I respect. He's not just a dog. He's the constant in every chapter since 2020. Santa Monica is made for him.
He grounds me. On the days when the work is heavy or the calendar is relentless, Banks has an uncanny ability to remind you that the most important decision of the next hour might just be which beach you go to. He's been right more often than I'd like to admit.
To anyone considering working with Wysocki Creative: there may be a small dachshund in the background of some of our calls. This is not a bug. This is a feature.
The Career
22 years of building at the intersection of marketing, technology, branding, and real estate. Every role a new room. Every room a new lesson.
Today
"I've been adopted, displaced, pushed out, and underestimated.
Every time, I found a better room."
The thread through all of it — the Apple II GS, the candle empire, the Bravo show, the cold DM, the $172M pipeline — is this: I have always been more interested in what's possible than what's comfortable. I've always been willing to bet on myself before anyone else did. And I've always understood that the right environment can rewrite everything.
That's why I built Wysocki Creative. Because I've spent 22 years doing this work for other people's brands. It's about time I did it for my own. And now I get to do it for yours. Banks will probably be in the background of our first call. He approves of all new clients.