Zap's Wrap February 2nd

hi friends,

Lots happened:

• Closed my 5th SPV last week! 🎉

• Kicking off my 6th SPV into a Nashville startup this week! 🥳

• Booked a trip to San Francisco February 23rd-27th with 7 founders

• Celebrated another term sheet, once it closes I’ll be over $15M raised for Nashville startups! 🥂

• Filmed first 3 interviews with startup founders in Nashville, releasing 1st episode next week!

• Survived an insane ice storm (more on that at the bottom…)

Thoughts on SPVs

On Friday, I closed my 5th SPV (more details coming soon!), and today I'm kicking off my 6th.

I did my first SPV last February, and I remember being genuinely scared. I'm not even sure what exactly terrified me, I'd just never done one before, and the idea of asking other people to invest alongside me felt huge. Now, a year later, doing my 6th SPV feels completely natural. It feels like exactly what I'm supposed to be doing!

I'm doubling down on SPVs this year, and here's why I'm so bullish:

There's a massive gap in the market. Being an LP in a fund typically requires $250k minimum. Angel investing directly usually means $50k+ per company. SPVs sit right in the middle and that opens up opportunities for two groups:

1. For existing LPs: Some of my investors are already LPs in other funds, but SPVs give them deal-by-deal optionality. They get to pick which companies excite them most, on top of their existing fund commitments. It's strategic, it's fun, and it's flexible.

2. For aspiring angels: Plenty of people want to angel invest but know that writing $50k checks requires serious capital to build a diversified portfolio. With SPVs, they can invest smaller amounts, follow an experienced fund's diligence, and participate in more deals, derisking both the check size and the learning curve.

SPVs democratize access without sacrificing quality. (Before you ask, I use Sydecar and it’s super easy to set it up and manage it).

Startup stuff that I think is cool

• I met Paul, who previously built and sold a company that built software for physician recruiters. The outcome was great, but Paul is doing it again and taking a bigger swing to build for an even bigger outcome.

• I caught up with Wes. He previously founded a company called Voltron Data, which was a really big deal in its industry. Now he’s building something new that I got to demo and hopefully use!

• James announced his partnership with Tecovas.

• I talked to Rami, who is building the.garage. He’s helped a lot of technical/scientific founders and is trying to build a platform/tool that helps them build their companies, find resources, and connect with community. In simple terms, I like to think of it as if I was on software LOL.

• I met David, who just left his role as a professor at Vandy to build Adaptive Machines, a technology to keep robots safe.

• I am hiring for forward deployed engineers. Aka engineers who can talk to customers. HMU if this is you.

Events (so, so, so many events coming up)

• FOUNDERS ONLY @ THE LIGHTHOUSE, TONIGHT Monday, Feb 2nd

  • Startup founders only. Dinner + drinks + nerding out about what we’re building.

• Engineers meet Nashville startups, Tuesday, February 3rd

  • Engineers only! Hear startups pitching that are growing and need engineers.

• Tech Operators Only Networking, Thursday, February 12th

  • If you work in tech and want to meet other people who do to, I am putting together an event for you! Looking for product, sales, marketing, growth, design, ops, etc type folks.

• Angel Investing 201, Friday February 13th

  • ​This session goes deeper than the basics and focuses on how early-stage returns actually work: power laws, portfolio construction, position sizing, and why most of the outcomes you care about come from a very small number of companies. We will use real examples to walk through the numbers and make you feel more confident when evaluating startups.

• Startup internship fair, Wednesday, February 18th

  • If you are a startup who is looking for interns or post-grad hires, hmu to join this!!!

• SAFE Notes 101: Intro to Early Stage Investing/Fundraising, Thursday, Feb 19th

Personal

I was super lucky and kept power at my home & at the Lighthouse the entire storm. Honestly, it was pretty fun to host so many of my friends and have them come over for sleepovers & showers ❤️ I don’t have any photos, but it was a week of working in our pajamas together.

I am trying to get in touch with folks at the government to create some sort of hackathon for the city of Nashville. A team of a few coders could have built software that gave better tracking for outages + timelines of when homes would have power in only a few days. I’d like to identify other problems that coders could build an open source, production ready solution for.

to the moon,

zap⚡