Hey, I'm Zach! 👋

About

I grew up in Canada 🇨🇦. I went to the University of Waterloo for Computer engineering and 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.

Favourite things

• 💻 Building products
• ☕️ Good coffee
• 🗣 Talking to passionate people
• 🛬 Traveling to new places
• 👟 Running - See my endurance events
• 🚴‍♂️ Biking
• 🏊 Swimming

What I'm doing these days

• Leading the engineering team at Rove Travel
• Training 🏊‍♂️ 🚴‍♂️ 🏃
• 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)

Things I've done in the past

• Engineer at PostHog
• Events / dinners for founders and people in tech
• Founded Zettlor
• Helped source deals with Village Globals 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.

Find me on the internet

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zlwaterfield/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/zlwaterfield

How can I 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.