Zap's Wrap September 30th

hi friends,

I spent the end of last week visiting some startup ecosystem folks in Cincinatti. (Yes, I really am that big of a nerd about startup ecosystems lol).

I met with many of their players like the Ohio Angel Collective, a brand new angel group that has already done 8 local deals in their first 8 months. Cintrifuse Capital, part non-profit, part venture fund, part fund of funds, on how they are investing into their local ecosystem. Refinery, a fund I already send lots of stuff to. And Fireroad Ventures, a brand new fund trying to invest in super early rounds. Overall, Cincy has a lot of the right infrastructure moving in the right direction and I was impressed. It made me think about what I should work on next.

I am about to do my 10th and 11th angel investment into deals. And cross 4M invested into Nashville startups through my intros. I feel more comfortable with the deals I do then ever before, so I am thinking about raising an SPV for the next deal I do. That stands for special purpose vehicle, but it just means that when I plan to write a check, I can allow a bunch of other small check writers (2k-50k) to invest alongside me.

If you are interested in angel investing through small checks, reply to this email so I can keep you posted as I identify the 12th startup (:

Startup stuff that’s cool:

• I caught up with Daniel, founder of Fifr, a startup building tech-driven, flat-fee financial advisor. He thinks the current system is broken- financials advisors are incentivized to sell you on investing in specific products, they spend a lot of their time selling vs advising, and they don’t use tech enough. Their mission is simple- save their customers $1 trillion by charging them a flat-rate as opposed to AUM (assets under management). You can check out the site and see how that math plays out for yourself. I’m testing out the product and am impressed!

• I caught up with Adam, CTO of InRev, a startup I’ve already invested into. I love getting to tell people that I invested into a surety bond tech company LOL. They are growing really fast and it’s fun to watch them.

• I met Brianna, cofounder of Vampons. It’s what you think it is- vampire themed tampons. After working in corporate innovation and women’s health venture, she’s taking the Liquid Death model and applying it to an industry that she thinks needs disruption. They already sold out of their first batch and are scaling up rapidly! She recently moved here from LA.

• I was thrilled to see my good friend Channing, founder of Eva, in a major TechCrunch article about her recent raise!!! She is such a badass and I just used the platform myself recently to book a DJ for a pool party!

• I caught up with Jon, founder of EKOM, AI content automation for major ecommerce brands. He is about to cross 1M in revenue and close his seed round. I’ve been able to help him hire a few folks, which has been great (:

• Nikki with Giggs is hiring for a lead full-stack engineer. JD is here. If you want to work in entertainment/music tech and are excited about being engineer #1, def check this out.

• My friend Ajay just left his job as a PM at Hubspot and is looking for more work with local startups. He’s done a lot of work with some of the startups in my network (and continues to do so), but has about ~20 hours/week to dedicate toward something and really wants it to be local. So hmu about him!

Events coming up:

• TOMORROW- hosting an event exclusively for engineers to learn about startups. We will have 5 technical leaders share and many other founders in the room looking to meet engineers! Sign up here.

• I’m headed to Venture Atlanta!!!! If you’re going to be there, let me know. It’s my first year attending. Excited to be there with the Overline team. We’re hosting an investor only pickleball event that you better be at (:

Personal stuff:

• I spoke on a Women in Tech panel with these ladies! Also, I just think my outfit with these earrings was 🤌🤌🤌 lol

• Talked to TWO college classes. When the heck can I become a paid lecturer at a university?! lol. I talked to a vandy engineering class about how venture capital actually works and how to get it. And I talked to a Michigan urban planning/technology class (my alma mater with my former professor!!!) about regional startup ecosystems and how I built a non-traditional career in the space and they can too!

to the moon,

zap