Zap's Wrap March 9th

hi friends,

Last week was busy, busy.

• Hosted first AI builders gathering @ Josh’s house

• Shared about early stage investing at sip & smoke event that Travis hosts

• Got a brand guide made by the wonderful Ricardo!!!

Reflections

• On game selection: Most people play games they didn't choose. The best move is to design the game around yourself because nobody can beat you at your own game. I sometimes envy the games others play, then remember I wouldn't actually enjoy playing them. The more I focus on my own game and stop watching everyone else's, the better I get.

• My biggest Nashville pet peeve: founders/orgs competing against each other. I've literally been told I'm "competition"- which is absurd. We're fighting for scraps in a tiny local ecosystem when we should be fighting FOR Nashville. You can always create value and create more money, there is no scarcity. And at the end of the day, it's always you vs. yourself anyway.

• Getting rich slowly: I've started telling people I'm going to make $100M, but that it'll take about 40 years, so check back in. It gets a laugh, but I mean it. When everyone's chasing ‘get-rich-quick’, saying "I'm going to get rich very slowly" feels almost counterculture. But it also feels infinitely more possible. And everyone I know who’s super successful built it brick by brick.

• The end of manager-managing-managers: A discussion topic at a founder dinner was "Any organization that employs managers to manage managers deserves to die." White collar work is getting disrupted fast. Big companies won't survive because they're structurally incapable of cannibalizing themselves. The ones who figure that out might make it. The rest will be replaced by AI-native startups running lean with a handful of people and hundreds of agents doing the work.

Startup stuff I think is cool

• I met an investor who recently moved to town, Jacob. He previously was GP of his own crypto fund, but now he’s been leading SPVs into other types of startups.

• I met Andy. He built a real estate consulting firm previously and is now building a tech platform called CityScout as a real estate data company. I recently met a bunch of folks building in proptech, so I am trying to bring them together to hangout on the 18th. We might put together a demo day during a large real estate conference happening soon too.

• I caught up with my friend Preston. He previously sold a marketing agency and a drone camera business. He is starting another CPG company in the hair loss space.

• I caught up with Eric & Tyler, who are building the Public Bored. They have a marketplace where you can put ads on digital billboards. You can use them to run an ad on the Nashville sign in Midtown!!

Startup jobs

• Joey Kim with Longview is hiring for a Customer Experience Liaison. This role would work out of the Lighthouse!

• Jimmy Speyer w/ Glasshouse is hiring for an Associate Account Executive. This role would be in their Cool Springs office 3x/week and have the chance to learn from the pro seller Jimmy himself.

• Tristan Wilson with Edgevanta is hiring for a Founding Customer Success Manager.

• Randy Rausch with 4IR is hiring for a Senior Site Reliability Engineer.

• I have MULTIPLE startup ops opportunities. Chief of Staff + VP of Ops. Both full-time in person.

Events

• FOUNDERS ONLY, Thursday, March 12th

  • Founders only hang @ the Lighthouse

• Proptech Breakfast Hang, Wednesday, March 18th

  • Come meet other builders in proptech

• Cofounder Connect, Thursday, March 19th

  • Meet coders and sellers to potentially team up with (:

• Startup Run Club, Friday, March 20th

  • Run 3-4 miles with breakfast after!

• The SPV Playbook, Wednesday April 22nd

  • ​SPVs allow investors to share access to deals, build track records, and back founders alongside other great investors. But most people only see the surface- not how they actually work behind the scenes. ​Join us for a conversation on how SPVs really work in practice.

Personal

Went to dinner with Brooke and Joey to celebrate Offload closing their round!!! We are so, so proud of Brooke and it honestly felt like a fun group project getting to help in the process (:

I also hosted a group of music tech founders at my house and Mr Zap made homemade Chinese food: orange chicken, spring rolls, spicy green beans, bok choy, and rice! We failed to get a group photo, but hanging out with this crew of founders is always so energizing: Travis, Johnny, Ira, Chris, Channing, & Nikki. 

Finally, if there are any cross fitters who read this, I did the Open 26.2 @ HDUB. I haven’t felt that much lactic acid in my body in years 😅

to the moon,

zap⚡