Nick and April Ray | ModerNash
Owners of ModerNash
Nick and April Ray are the owners of ModerNash, a kitchen, bath, and closet cabinetry business in Middle Tennessee. They share their entrepreneurial journey, from starting with debt to learning the power of pivoting along the way. Their story is full of valuable lessons for anyone looking to grow their business.
The Risky Start
Nick and April launched Modern Nash with passion—but not much else. They dove into the cabinetry business without capital, starting out in debt. It was a bold move that made the early years stressful and tight. On top of that, their business model was built around IKEA products, which meant they were tied to another company’s decisions—any changes from IKEA forced them to pivot on the fly.
Despite those early limitations, they kept going. They were scrappy: starting in their garage, then renting a corner of someone else's shop, before eventually securing a space of their own. Growth came slowly and with intention.
The Pivot
They learned early that flexibility wasn’t optional—it was essential. When IKEA changed their systems, pricing, or products, it impacted everything for Modern Nash. Instead of panicking, they leaned into pivoting. Eventually, they expanded beyond cabinets into small home remodels—floor to ceiling.
Nick also credits personal growth and humility for the business’s survival. He sought out mentors and advisors who could critique their processes and spot things he and April couldn’t see.
As a husband-wife team, that same principle applied at home. Working together meant being honest, humble, and sometimes uncomfortable—because blending marriage and business meant a constant balancing act.
Growth Inside and Out
Entrepreneurship didn’t just build a business—it reshaped them as people. Nick describes business ownership as a refining process, constantly revealing new challenges and gaps in character, leadership, or strategy. And with every pivot or decision, there was always something new to learn. Through all of it, Nick and April built more than a business—they built resilience, self-awareness, and a shared mission. The work is hard, but it’s theirs. And it’s growing
“Success isn’t always just up and to the right… It’s ups and downs, followed by leaps and bounds and valleys—and sometimes feels like cliffs”
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[Nick]: My name is Nick Ray, and my business is Modern Nash. We do kitchen, bath, and closet cabinetry, as well as small home remodels. This is my beautiful wife, April.
[April]: I do most of the administration, HR, bookkeeping, and accounting for our company.
[Nick}: A little bit more about what our business does—we’re mainly focused on kitchen, bath, and closet cabinetry in the Middle Tennessee area. But just in the last year, we’ve gotten into home remodeling. So pretty much everything from the floor to the ceiling—and in between.
There are three main things: we help you design your space, we help you source the materials, and then we help you get it installed and functional so you can use it.
[April]: We had some early successes and failures. I would say we had more successes at the beginning than failures. One of our biggest failures was that we didn’t start with capital—we started with debt. That made the first several years of running a brand-new business difficult.
If we could go back and start over, we would start with capital instead of starting with debt. That’s what I would recommend.
Our successes, though—we started small. We started out of our garage. Then we built from the garage to renting a corner of someone else’s space. Then we went from there to renting our own space. So we started small, and we built. I think that was part of what helped us to be a success at the beginning.
One of the hardest lessons—but also one of the best lessons—we’ve learned as entrepreneurs is the ability to pivot.
Our company started one way. At the beginning, the market changed. A lot of our business was dependent on IKEA and what IKEA did as a company. When they changed something, we had to change. So we just got used to pivoting.
[Nick]: Pivoting is huge.
Also realizing that life doesn’t happen in a vacuum—every moment isn’t going to be awesome. There are going to be challenges you run into.
Some of the best advice I could give to fellow or future entrepreneurs is: get to know yourself. Know yourself better than anybody else—if you can. Because you’ll know what your strengths are, you’ll know what your weaknesses are.
In the areas where you’re weak, I encourage you to find someone who can partner with you to fill in that gap.
One of the greatest skills you can have as an entrepreneur is allowing someone else to scrutinize your business—to look at your numbers, to look at your processes, to look at the things you do to operate your business—and be able to give you input on what they see as beneficial, or what may be hurting you. A lot of times that’ll open up blind spots you may not see.
[April]: We are a husband-and-wife team. In some ways, that is really great for our business. It helps because we’re always together. We don’t have to schedule meetings—we’re always thinking about the business together, and we’re on a trajectory together.
In other ways, it’s difficult to be a husband-and-wife team because we have different personalities and different functions in the business. A lot of times we can be at odds.
So if you are a husband-and-wife team, you have to find ways to work together. You both have to be humble—humble enough to accept criticism from each other. You just have to be humble with each other and love each other through it.
Being an entrepreneur definitely changes you as a person, because you’re always pursuing something new. You’re always realizing something new about yourself. You’re not just sitting at the same job day in, day out. You’re constantly challenging yourself.
There are always challenges presenting themselves to you—so you’re realizing your weaknesses, you’re trying to get better. You’re constantly working on yourself and working on your business. You’re never satisfied with the status quo. You’re always growing.
[Nick]: One thing I would’ve liked to know when I started my entrepreneurial journey is that it’s not just going to be all the way up. Success doesn’t look like a straight line up.
Success is actually more like—[holds up graphic]—I printed this off because I keep it above my desk. It shows a day in the life of an entrepreneur. There are lots of ups and downs. It’s filled with pain points, where you don’t think you’re going to succeed. You think you made a bad decision and all is lost.
The truth is—being an entrepreneur isn’t always an uphill climb. It’s ups and downs. It’s followed by leaps and bounds, valleys, and sometimes it feels like cliffs. You have to be committed to going through all of that to get to the end result.
Why We Share These Stories
We believe that celebrating Tennessee’s entrepreneurs will inspire the next generation of bold thinkers, risk-takers, and community builders. Entrepreneurs don’t forget where they come from—and they carry the power to transform not just their businesses, but entire neighborhoods, towns, and local economies. See more entrepreneur stories from the Patton Foundation.
