Zach Waterfield — engineer and investor in Toronto

About

I'm a software engineer and angel investor in Toronto, Canada. I grew up in Canada and went to the University of Waterloo for Computer engineering, then worked at a variety of early/growth-stage companies. I've lived in many places like Lima, Porto, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, Toronto, and Vancouver. I love travelling and exploring new places.

Writing

All writing

Favourite things

Building products
Good coffee
Talking to passionate people
Traveling to new places
Running — see my endurance events
Biking
Swimming

These days

Leading the engineering team at Rove Travel
Training for swim, bike, and run
New father — figuring out this new stage in life
Investing with Ripple Ventures and Pioneer Fund — focused on devtools, AI and B2B SaaS
Founder poker game (a few times a year in Toronto)

Previously

Engineer at PostHog
Events and dinners for founders and people in tech
Founded Zettlor
Helped source deals with Village Global and Shaan Puri's fund — investing in 40+ companies
Built and sold a bit.ly competitor named Toadly
Side projects like Scramble and Radar
Investment Club Syndicate — Ian Logan and I run a syndicate on AngelList where we invest in a wide range of companies.
On Deck — engineering lead at a community for ambitious people building what's next.
Kopa — co-founded Kopa (formerly PadPiper), a YC W19 startup making renting easier. I stepped back in 2020.
Many more including ventures like WorkOS, Farmlogs, and others.

How I can help

Engineering and product strategy — I've been around the block a few times and have a good sense of what works and what doesn't. I'm happy to help you think through your product strategy, engineering strategy, and how to build a great product.
Fundraising strategy, pitch help, deck review — I've helped over 100 companies with YC prep and reviewed countless decks for founders raising their pre-seed and seed rounds. If you need help building a strategy around your raise, improving your narrative, or just getting a deck review, let me know.
Early startup operations — I've spent a lot of time both building my startup and helping other founders. There is a lot to manage. I'm happy to help think through those early operations like organizing your team, interviewing early hires, choosing the right services for payroll, bookkeeping, etc.
Co-founder dynamics — I've been through the ups and downs you go through with your founding team. It can be hard, but there are things you can do to make it easier. I'm happy to walk through strategies I've used that have worked wonders on team morale.

For paid, hands-on work, see consulting.

Hey, I'm Zach