Growing up in San Francisco, Nico never felt like he fit in — that is, until he discovered skateboarding. "I was always kind of the odd one out," he told SSENCE during an October 2019 interview. "I went to a super bougie, preppy school. I always sagged my pants. Parents didn't like me. My mom would get pissed! So I was like, 'All right f*ck, I'm going to start skating." And since no one at his school was into skating, Nico found his own crowd.
According to Nico, his love of skating began after his cousins got him his first skateboard at the age of nine. By the age of 14, he'd earned his first sponsorship. "From that moment on, I just kind of leveled up, you know?" Nico explained to i-D in March 2020. "I tried to get better everyday. Get out of school, go skate. I wanted to be home schooled so I could skate more, but my parents weren't f*cking with that."