Zap's Wrap June 22nd

hi friends,

I have a LOT to share in this week. Stick with me through a wordier than usual email (:

This week: I am closing Lighthouse SPV #8 and #9! Now at $1.375M raised for Nashville startups (to be exact haha). Found a CTO for a portco that starts today, so a big win, woohoo!

Last week: I launched my first product! The Lighthouse Talent Network. 

You can check it out at talent.lt.house.

Here's how it works: there are NO job postings. Only talent postings.

If you live in Nashville (or want to) and you're startup-hungry, or even just startup-curious, you fill out a quick form that says you want in on startup life. On the other end, founders reach out to you, share what they're building, and recruit you to their team. That's it. Talent first.

Why I built this:

Startup hiring is broken. 2 reasons:

1. "Software engineer" at a startup and "software engineer" at a Fortune 100 are the same title but completely different jobs. Different function. Different culture. Different risk. People say "I want to be an X." What startups actually need is someone who wants to be an X at a startup. Not the same person.

2. Job boards get you applicants who are looking for a job. Resume ready, actively applying. We call them greenlights 💚 But the people startups really need to hire are usually the exceptional ones who already have a job. The ones you have to find and then convince to bet on you. We call them yellows 💛

I've been hiring for Nashville startups for years. And I'm really good at it- not because I'm a recruiter, but because I find the talent first. People curious about startups come to events, reach out, tell me they want in. So when a founder says they're hiring, I already have a roster of yellows 💛 to pull from.

This platform is built to scale that.

Right now, 108 candidates have applied to the network. We've approved 46 we think startups will actually want to hire. I'm hiring for a bunch of roles myself (senior MCP engineer, senior AI automation & application engineer, full stack engineer, client success engineer, senior data engineer, AI engineer, and customer success) and manually making the relevant intros. In the next few weeks, I'll roll it out so founders can use it themselves.

Want to work at a startup? Go here: talent.lt.house

Want to use it to hire? Just hmu. I am adding beta-tester founders and will do a larger founder rollout in the next few weeks!

This is my first vibe-coded project to ever launch, and I'm feeling really proud of it. Now comes the real work, making it more than a product, making it something that genuinely creates value for startups!

Where I’m locking in at for Q3

Last week I did my Q3 planning, and omggg I am pumped about what I figured out!

I've been feeling pulled in a bunch of directions and I’ve had a hard time determining where to prioritize my time. So I sat down and mapped it out. Here’s where it landed:

Portfolio support is, and always will be, my #1.

No matter what else is going on, this is where 75% of my time goes. This is the work (and it's the work I love most!).

1) It means catching up with founders. Lighthouse founder-only events. Talking to potential customers and advisors and making the intros. Triaging founders to each other so they can get help from someone one step ahead of them.

2) The bulk of it is fundraising support. Helping a founder put their story together can be time intensive and I try to stay deeply in it with them.

3) Then there's hiring.

I’ve figured out that I can support around 50 companies at a time. That's roughly the size of The Lighthouse right now. And I'm not looking to grow just to grow. Fifty founders I can actually show up for beats a hundred I can't.

So then the harder question: everything else.

Outside of portfolio support, what moves my mission forward of building billion dollar companies in Nashville the MOST?

Here's what was on the table:

1. Grow the LP base

2. Build the talent platform

3. Build Founded in Nashville

4. Content

We deliberated and pressure-tested it. And here's where we came out:

The Lighthouse’s #1 objective to push the mission forward is building the talent platform. The #2 is launching, growing, and making foundedinnashville.com a success.

Growing the LP base and producing more content than I already do is being pushed down the line for now…

Which means in Q3, I'm making a hire to help me build the talent platform. Figuring out what I need and who that person is now… 👀

Upcoming Events

• Finance & Accounting for Startups 101, Tuesday, June 23rd @ 12pm

  • ​Join us for a founder-focused session with Riverfront Advisors covering the financial fundamentals every early-stage founder needs to know, without the jargon. ​We'll cover what you actually need to set up, what you can ignore for now, and how to build a financial foundation that doesn't come back to bite you later.

• Making Your Products Go Viral: Basics of PLG, Thursday, July 16th @ 9am

  • Founders only workshop on PLG!

• CTO Board Game Night, Wednesday, July 22nd @ 5:30pm

  • CTOs only!

• ZAPPY HOUR, Wednesday, August 5th @ 5:30pm

  • Drinks and hangs… location tbd

Personal

Got dressed up to celebrate my friend Brianna’s birthday!

I was also way too excited for me and mr zap to hang up a bird feeder in our yard 😹😹😹 I may be getting old given my night out was home by 10pm

to the moon,

zap⚡