Zap's Wrap: 2024 Recap + 2025 Goals

hi friends,

2024 was the biggest year of my career.

I (accidentally) became an entrepreneur. Still can’t tell you exactly what my business is, but I am getting to spend more time on my mission of building the Nashville startup ecosystem than ever before.

I’m writing this blog to document: 

1. The biggest highlights and accomplishments of the year 

2. Lessons learned 

3. What I’m looking to do in 2025 

Biggest accomplishments this year:

I invested into 13 Nashville startups

1. SoBet

2. Glasshouse

3. Morrow 

4. InRev

5. Stealth

6. Lahzo 

7. Amytrx

8. Stealth 

9. Elysian 

10. Landian 

11. Grouped 

12. Fifr

13. Stealth

And one fund!

1. Fireroad Ventures

Writing my first check changed the game for me. Being able to assess a deal through the lens of where I want to put my own capital allowed me to be more discerning and figure out my values when it comes to backing teams. 

The path I am taking is unique. Instead of using someone else’s capital or joining a VC fund, I’ve decided that paving my own way is the best way to learn. 

I connected founders with over $4 million in capital. 

6 months ago, this would have been a number I was proud of, but honestly this is where I am most frustrated with progress. I spent a TON of time building a network of VCs (I met with 162 funds), but this number didn’t move forward a ton. 

I am confident that I am making progress toward the future though by building all of the relationships and studying where deals are and are not happening. 

Part of me no longer loves this as a metric because the amount of capital a startup raises doesn’t determine their success anyway. Feels like vanity to measure for the startup and for me to measure for myself. Still going to be something I keep tracking and is valuable for now, but ideally want to shift this to some of my startups getting marked up.

I connected startups with 26 people that they hired. 

This one came unexpectedly! I discovered that I have a great talent for matchmaking that I leaned into this year. Oftentimes, I found the talent before I even found the job for them. 

I hosted a conference for 44 investors and over 70 founders that facilitated over 300 1x1 meetings.

Lightning was so fun to plan and host! I wanted to create something that I thought should exist in the world- a conference that skipped all of the content, panels, etc and focused exclusively on relationship building. 

I have a ton of new ideas of how I’m going to improve it next year. I am actually planning to go even smaller on the number of attendees, but try to make the relationship building even stronger.

I joined the Overline team as a Venture Scout 

I’ve known Sean and Michael for a couple of years and it’s been fantastic getting to work with them in an official capacity over the last 6 months. 

I’ve discovered a ton of values alignment with them. First of all, their thesis is preseed and seed investments in the Southeast, where Nashville is obviously a major market. 

But also, Sean and Michael are incredibly thoughtful investors who try to be as helpful as possible. I think there are a lot of VCs who are backseat drivers that like to tell people how to run their business and get mad when things are going poorly. Founders like Overline because their question is constantly, ‘how can we be helpful?’. 

I shifted my role at the Entrepreneur Center into a focus on capital advising 

The EC birthed my career and my passion for early stage startups and for that reason I will continue to be obsessed with the place. I am very happy that the new CEO Sam has found a great spot for me to still be involved and help startups in the best way I can while I pursue my own entrepreneurial path!

Last year I organized the investor matchmaking for Project Healthcare, hosted 5 workshops, and taught several classes about capital raising. Excited to be involved with their program founders again this year (apps for 2025 programs are open til Friday).

I ran several investor matchmaking events

I joined the ID8 team to run events during CES and Money2020, which was awesome!! It inspired me to host my own conference. 

My favorite conference is of course 3686 and I got to be the investor concierge and help organize meetings! 

I started a Brazilian business 

I teamed up with my boyfriend and 3 of his engineers in Brazil to launch Alvorada. We’ve been helping startups hire full-time engineers in Brazil and it’s super rewarding. 

I leased an office. 

In December I moved into a 6k sq ft office next to Centennial Park. My plan is to make a home for exclusively early stage, high growth tech startups to work out of. More to come on this soon.

I hosted 5 events for software engineers

Developing the talent ecosystem for engineering talent for startups has become a bigger part of my mission. I’m glad to have built a bigger network and created a platform for founders and engineers to connect.

Some personal highlights

I visited 5 new countries- Colombia, Iceland, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Vietnam. 

I moved in with my boyfriend. 

I lifted weights over 150 times. I did a triathlon. I got an e-bike and started biking everywhere.

I crossed a few things off the bucket list- I got a butt tattoo, I ate at a Michelin star restaurant, and I celebrated Halloween in NOLA. 

My little brother moved to Nashville. 

Big lessons learned

• Above everything else, I care about my mission to build the Nashville startup ecosystem. Because of that, I work best with folks who align in that mission. Doing good > making money. 

• Do the scary thing. Never give up.

• I like to invest in founders who have a strong ‘why.’ Doesn’t matter as much what the why is, just has to be real. 

• Having a partner who pushes me to achieve my dreams is a cheat code in life. 

• I can have anything I want, but I can’t have everything. This year has been tremendous for my career, my romantic relationship, and travel. But my social life no longer looks like it used to and I’m ok with that.

• A lot of problems no longer feel like problems when you are focused on achieving something bigger. 

• People will try to take as much as they can from you if you let them. Especially VCs. 

• The people who pay you for your work are way more grateful than the people who got it for free. 

Some things I’m still working on learning:

• I work really well by myself and get a lot done. But I won’t build something bigger than myself until I learn how to be a better team player. I’m learning a lot from my boyfriend about how to do this better.

• I’m still in the process of learning how to say no. I have gotten slightly better at it, but it’s still my weakness. I can’t get the important things done if I say yes to everything. 

• Not everyone is going to like me and I need to learn how to be okay with that. 

My goals and plans for 2025 

• Make startup house work 

• Invest in 12 new startups 

• Run at least 4 SPVs into startups so other people can angel invest alongside me

• Help Overline finish raising their 2nd fund 

• Raise $8M for startups in Nashville 

• Hire 30 people 

• Make a better Lightning conference

• Officially launch Alvorada and make that business work

Me and Mr Zap made Bingo cards this year of the things we want to accomplish. Here’s mine:

Some regular business:

• I’m hiring for a few roles right now:

  • Mid to senior full stack engineer. At least 3 years of Java is needed, and enjoying some front end work.

  • Technical product manager. Probably looking at someone with at least 5 years of experience, is comfortable working with a global team, and is a killer at communicating technical details. A former EM would work for this.

  • Customer support/account manager. Early career person/recent grad who is great at working with clients and wants to find tools to make it better.

• Hosting a couple workshops this month:

  • How to get started as an angel investor on Tuesday, Jan 14th. Link to sign up is here.

  • Because of demand, we are also hosting a virtual workshop about angel investing on January 13th at 4pm. Sign up here.

I’m about to enter the busiest phase of life ever and am super excited and scared!

I spent the last week of the year in Vietnam and it was awesome (:

to the moon,

zap