About

I’m Zack. I’ve spent my career as the second in command.

Origin is the right hand most owners never had. We find the priority that will do the most for your business, build it, and stay until it holds. Then we take the next one.

Book a walk-through Why I do it ↓

Founder, OriginCo-owner, Curio StudioAFSP advocateUltra and triathlete

Zack speaking at an event, microphone in hand

Where I come from

Every owner has a list. My job was to get it done.

Every owner I’ve met has a list of fixes their business needs, and no time to make them. For years I was the second in command inside growing companies. My job was to reverse-engineer the owner’s vision into reality, and align the people, the technology and the systems to get there. Origin does that from the outside.

Today

The next 90 daysThis week Peoplewho owns each part Technologythe tools that do the work Systemshow the work gets done, written down

Your visionWhere you want the business to be in a year.

It starts with where you want to be in a year.Then we work back from it, to the next 90 days and to this week.Then we line up the people, the technology and the systems, so the vision becomes real.

Why I do it

This is me going first.

I’m Zack. At twelve, I walked into my first suicide-prevention walk a broken kid who had just lost his sister and was questioning everything. Healing didn’t happen alone, and it didn’t happen by building my way out of the dark. It happened through people. Everything I do now, Origin included, is me trying to turn what I’ve been through into something that helps other people grow, heal, and go first too.

1The people

The ones who carried me, and still do.

When I say I healed through people, I mean these people. My family carried me through the darkest stretch of my life, and they’re the reason I get to do any of this.

My mom introduced us to AFSP when we needed it most and turned her own grief into something that lifts thousands; she’s the most badass, inspiring person I know. My sister Ashley is a first responder who once saved a man from taking his own life on the edge of a building, without hesitation; even as her older brother, I look up to her. Savannah, my partner, builds beauty for a living and keeps me honest, present, and grateful. And Oakley makes sure I never take a hard day, or myself, too seriously. These are the ones I’m doing all of it for.

2The turn

I was twelve when we lost my sister, Brittany.

I was a broken, confused twelve-year-old, questioning my purpose and my existence, when my mom first brought us to an AFSP walk after we lost her.

For a long time I lived in the depths of it. What I couldn’t see then, but see clearly now, is that I’d be pulled out, and that it would let me see, hear, and understand other people’s pain, and help them the way I was.

The very thing that breaks us is also what lets us light the way for others. That belief sits underneath everything I build.

Be the reason someone smiles today.Brittany Petrocca

3Turning it into something

So we built something to keep the light on.

Grief doesn’t end, so my family decided to build with it. My mom, Carrie, turned her loss into a life of showing up: leading Team Brittany, helping run the AFSP Long Island chapter, and refusing to let anyone grieve alone. In Brittany’s name, we’ve raised over $360,000 for suicide prevention.

Keep the Light On is our next chapter: a community for the people still here. The ones fighting, the ones grieving, and the ones who just need to know that somewhere, someone left a light on for them tonight.

Zack and his family at the Out of the Darkness walk with the Team Brittany sign

Zack holding a sign that reads: the world is better with you in it

Zack speaking alongside his mom at an AFSP event

Visit Keep the Light On ↗Support AFSP ↗

Keep the Light On Project, in memory of Brittany Marie Petrocca.

4Curio Studio

We design spaces that make people feel more alive.

It’s the design studio I co-own with my partner, Savannah. She’s the creative heart of it; I look after the parts that aren’t design, so she can. It’s where I get to make something genuinely beautiful, and I get to do it alongside someone I love.

See Curio Studio ↗

Building something beautiful, together

5What drives me

I run for the ones who no longer have the choice.

I run ultramarathons and race triathlons. I go in to embrace the pain, to push past what’s comfortable, and to meet the parts of myself I haven’t met yet. Some of it I do for me. A lot of it I do for the people who no longer have the choice. Pain passes, joy passes; showing up through both is the whole point.

Embrace the pain. It passes.

6What I live by

The compass, not just the map.

My mission

To put the skills I was given to work every day, to change hearts and minds while making the world a better place for future generations.

My vision

To embody peace, presence, and purpose so fully that my life itself becomes the example, inspiring others to grow, love deeply, and live with integrity.

How we decide

Seven principles, each with the question that decides.

The whole company decides by them, in this order. Tap one to see what it means.

What it means
We move before we feel ready. We step toward the thing that scares us, and go anyway.
What it means
We start with why, the outcome it serves, and cut what does not serve it.
What it means
We learn so we can teach, and pass what we know to the people and generations coming next, so they go further than we did.
What it means
We build the machine so success never depends on one hero having a good day.
What it means
The first place we look is inward. We change in ourselves what we want to change in the world, and stay teachable enough to keep doing it.
What it means
The real ceiling is the one we assume. We push past what we, and those we serve, thought was possible.
What it means
We leave people, places, and the planet better than we found them.

Why Origin exists

Every part of my life kept pointing at the same thing.

Origin is how I put all of it to work. I believe business is one of the most powerful ways to change hearts and minds. So Origin exists to lift the weight off founders and push them past what they thought was possible, so their business becomes a source of life and momentum for them, their people, and the generations that follow.

Companies that develop people instead of using them, and leave people, places, and the planet better than they found them. That’s the whole point.

Zack with his arms wide in a red-rock canyon

I’d love to know what you’re building.

Thirty minutes with me. We find the priority that will do the most for your business, and you leave knowing where to start.

Book a walk-through