Zap's Wrap October 29th

hi friends,

I’m sure many people were worried that they didn’t receive a Zap’s Wrap in their email yesterday!!! (just kidding lol).

Truth is, I’m way behind and catching up on life. I was super sick last week and barely functioning for several days ): For me, being sick is my least favorite thing in the world because it prevents me from doing all the things I love to do, working on startup projects, meeting people in person, riding my bike, and going to the gym. I’m finally feeling more like myself, but this one took me out.

I’m writing this email on my flight home from Vegas. I was there for my first Money20/20 conference! I was on the ID8 team and we worked with the conference to organize their first Startup Connect event, where over 50 VCs had curated, one-on-one meetings with fintech startups.

I think conferences are super chaotic and it can be challenging to figure out who to meet. Events like this help get shit done!

Also, I learned how to love Vegas. I’m not much of a gambler, but I discovered it also has great SPAS and now I want to go back lol. I am finally feeling better after a spa day (:

Startup stuff that’s cool:

• People often ask me, what’s my ‘best’ startup. Which is literally impossible to quantify. It’s like asking which of your children you love the most! BUT, I am an extremely proud ‘parent’ right now because InRev just had their first 1M month of premiums. I met the founders Jack and Adam a year ago when they were doing 180k/month in premiums. They’ve more than 5xed their business in 1 year and even on track to grow by 37% more this month alone!

• I pretty much only accomplished 2 calls last week and one of the ones I did NOT want to miss was catching up with Brooke who’s building saas for the heavy trucking industry with Offload. She’s a beast and I honestly need to learn more about her space, but I want to be involved just cuz I like her lol.

• My other cannot miss call- a pitch deck review with Mike Rosengarten. I’ve done over a dozen of these and it’s been a great way to learn since Mike is a multi time founder, investor, and comes from Silicon Valley. I have been in a limbo-ish spot in my career, I now work for myself doing lots of things and I’m going after some big projects coming up that aren’t going to be easy. He pointed out that much like him, I tend to be a lone wolf and pick the ‘harder’ path. There are many, many days I think, ‘life would be easier if I cared less and just got a job doing 1 thing.’ But, that’s just not how entrepreneurs roll, is it? Maybe one day I will pick the easier path, but for today, I pick the founder path every time to build things I care about.

• Caught up with Ian from Xuron, they now have over a dozen customers!

• I’ve been saying for weeks that I am going to do an SPV and I finally got the ball rolling on my first one!! Woohoo!! Stay tuned for more information about it.

• I’m looking for a killer b2b marketing strategy person who knows how to sell to employers.

Events coming up:

• Nov 6th 4pm- Program Showcase at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. This is a first time event where companies from across programs will be sharing about their business and pitching for investments and customers. Great way to meet and support the early entrepreneurs in town! I will be MCing so please come out and check it out!

Personal stuff:

I really liked this fortune cookie I got. As you guys know, I have been frustrated with my experience of starting a dedicated space for tech startups. I had space, I didn’t have it, then I thought I had another, I didn’t, I’m frustrated by commercial leases, etc, etc. Learned a lot, could’ve quit, never will.

to the moon,

zap