Zap's Wrap August 30th

hi friends,

wow, so much happened this week!

i hosted an event for overline, a generalist early stage fund that only invests in founders in the southeast. we brought founders together for a fireside chat with one of our shared portfolio founders, matt peltier, who’s working on a stealth startup. it was great to interview an expert and have a closed room of founders who are either raising now or about to raise.

startup stuff that’s cool:

• i was able to help get cardinal security, a cyber security startup, their 2nd design partner! jonathan scarbeau is the CTO who lives here. also, gotta love a startup that has 2 customers and no website, just doing the work that matters lol.

• tari, a web3 company, is hiring for a marketing coordinator. ping me if you’re interested! the founder naveen would love someone local if possible, but the role is remote. need someone who can get their hands dirty and execute building a consumer brand!

• i had lunch with my friend tim connors, who’s back in town for the summer. tim is a first check in AND a do-good focused investor and it’s been awesome to learn from him. specifically, his winning metrics framework that everyone should check out. im most excited because he is investing in his first nashville startup that i introduced him to (:

• i caught up with finn hodgins, founder of grouped. they’ve created a product that helps artists monetize their audience. their product is really, really good and because of it, they have gotten a ton of traction with very little resources. they will have some exciting updates soon, but no matter what, finn is going to have a killer story to tell about his startup journey.

• i gave my teammates at overline a guided nashville tour! now, we only had 24 hours to see everything, but they got to meet some awesome players in town like the angel/founder/investor mike rosengarten, the construction tech gp joey kim, the person i turn to for anything healthcare rachel kern, the martech/adtech expert clark landry, and the founder/investor/ultramarathon runner josh payne!

• i met the team from arms cyber for the first time. they are a ransomware cyber security startup that spun out of vandy and is led by michael bryant.

• i learned more about what zilin dong, a vandy undergrad, is working on with meteo ai. he has created better models to measure weather and is now packaging it into a product for the aviation industry. we’re exploring his biz model and if aviation is the best industry to go after or what the best value of his data really is. but this kid is definitely going places!!

personal stuff:

• im in a busy girls book club and we had a send-off dinner for my friend alexis isham who is going to get her mba from stanford!!!

• i sit on the board of mending hearts, a non-profit dedicated to helping women recover from addiction. our annual breakfast is coming up on thursday, september 26th and i am raising money for it. if i have ever helped you get a job, meet people in town, find customers, etc, i would really appreciate it if you gave a donation. here is the link.

events coming up:

• entrepreneur family pool party on saturday sept 7th: me and my friend/entrepreneur/angel investor bill brennan are hosting a pool party for the families of entrepreneurs. somehow i am roped into running childrens games like diving contests and water balloon toss and mr zap is on the grill lol. you should def come and bring your kids. let me know and ill send you the details!

• if you’re coming to town for 3686, please let me know!!!

to the moon,

zap