🚀 ✉️ Stay the course
Freddie O' Connell shares the making of his team's mayoral campaign "Ready for Freddie."
🏡 What’s happening on StartupNash
Hey y’all. Big news from me (Kelley Griggs). I left my full time job to build and launch an idea I have that came from our group. If it goes well, I’ll see if other communities like it. If it goes poorly, I’ll learn a lot. Either way, founders and funders could really use a sense of community right now and we have a special one at StartupNash.
🌞Asks And Offers
It’s a tough time for innovation right now. If you’re a founder or a funder and you’d like to give back to the tech community by offering your knowledge or experience, join our group. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Nashville or not. If you’re someone who is starting a startup and looking for a community, we need you. Please join us.
Tomorrow night, we are going to be talking about Nashville challenges and opportunities in a chat with today’s LaunchLetter subject, Nashville Mayoral candidate, Freddie O’ Connell. Freddie's roots are here in our own tech scene, and I think his thoughts about making our town the best Nashville it can be for everyone is a conversation worth having. We are meeting at 8pm virtually this Wednesday, March 15th. RSVP below.
📣 Big announcement
Thank you to NashTech and Build in SE and especially the team at AllianceBernstein for hosting Nashville Tech Gives Back’s #615techdrive a few weeks ago. Thanks to a very generous tech community, Nashville Software School, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee, Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, and Nashville Symphony collectively received over 68 new donations. I want to thank every participating company:
AllianceBernstein, Build In SE, Mucker Capital, Nashville Entrepreneur Week, Nashville Social Enterprise Alliance (NSEA), Nashville Capital Network, Cortex,
Juice Analytics, Nom Nom, Live Oak Bank, Compass East, Rocket Propulsion Labs,
Givful, UTXO Management, The Wond’ry, Third Prime, Decode Health, Nodat Inc.,
With the Band, RootNote, Cleerkut, Inc., Gun.io, Upholdings, GraphiteRx, Brentwood Capital Advisors, Lorimer Ventures, Aloa, BundleN, TechCXO, Augment Health Inc., GrowthX, Potluck, TIKI, IceBrekr, DeductibleData Co., Athelo Health, VC3 DAO, Thrive Tutoring, Scorebird, Beliade, Long Run Capital, FINTOP Capital, Brain Candy, Agrin Health, OrangeQC, Ovyl, InfoWorks, Genus AI, Insperity, Clover Leaf Ventures, Circle Park, Glovender, Raise Financial, Viro, Position Inc, Atmos, Attivo Partners, Bunches, Oliver Wyman, Weld Recruiting, First Republic Bank, Launch Tennessee, Generous, Sequoia, wHIRED Professionals, Healthcare Innovative Partners, Stripe, MasterBorn Inc., & More!
A very special thank you to Winston Justice, Haley Zapolski, and Monique Villa for putting together a very powerful evening and for making a real impact for everyone who calls Nashville home.
Startup Spotlight: Ready for Freddie
This one isn’t a startup at all. But it’s important if you recently moved here or live here now. Nashville has an election coming up later this year. If you feel strongly about the direction of our city, you’ll have a chance to vote for a new mayor if you live in Davidson County.
I think I met Freddie O’ Connell on Twitter. We both worked at the same tech company, albeit at different times. I saw Freddie a few weeks ago at Nashville Tech Gives Back. He didn’t have to come, but he did. He does things like that. When I hear people talk about him, they often use the word passion for Nashville. I’m interested when people get excited about their craft. So I sent him our LaunchLetter interview. I send lots of people this interview and invite everyone to fill it out in our group. Side note, I’m always looking for interesting people and startups. You can fill it out here. I honestly didn’t know if he would have time to fill it out. I think it’s actually the world’s longest Google form. But Freddie really likes to show up. If you ever wanted to know a little about how a team works on a political campaign, he makes some parallels to startups that have given me more insight into how to actually prepare for a mayoral race. I think you’ll find it interesting too.
The challenge
What is the problem Ready For Freddie solves?
So this is interesting. I'm running for mayor, and a campaign is basically a startup to achieve a critically important political goal to create longer-term policy outcomes. An election is almost like a liquid event, after which governing is a nearly complete transition from campaigning, and the organization of a campaign is almost entirely different. The problem this solves is policy choices that affect economic and workforce development, quality of life, cost of living. And I'm running now because Nashville can't wait.
The lesson
Can you share a lesson your team learned from building Ready For Freddie?
Campaigns, like other startups, have to pivot. We had to be prepared both for the process of challenging and incumbent mayor and then to evaluate the impact of his decision not to seek re-election and an open field. In this case, the lesson was actually to stay the course. Consistency and authenticity are strengths in a volatile political environment.
The update
What is something great that happened recently?
In so many ways, a campaign is like organizing micro-capital for a large goal. We can only raise money $1800 at a time from individuals and LLCs (or $8300 from PACs). So when people help you organize that capital, it's a big win. We had someone help us with this several months ago, but now we have a finance committee organized around this goal. Accelerating the accumulation of political contributions is like a massive burst of capital.
Your five minute mentor is:
Freddie O’ Connell
Hard work, kindness, curiosity, passion, and integrity are all critical ingredients for me.
Freddie O’ Connell
What is one (big or small) problem that’s been on your mind that you wish someone would solve?
Nashville needs a meaningful transit system. I expect to take huge strides toward solving this. It's a critical affordability and accessibility issue for a growing city.
What is something you learned that only experience could teach?
Being car-free for three-and-a-half years taught me a lot about how transit and infrastructure are a form of financial empowerment. I had never saved money so quickly than when I was car-free. It's also great for time management!
What is a habit you’ve learned that you practice daily?
As a night owl, I've learned how critical sleep health is. I don't go to bed as early as I should many nights, but I go to bed much, much earlier than I used to. When your partner is a pediatric neurologist, you learn a lot about basic brain health. I recommend setting a sleep alarm at night. Other good habits (not daily, but occasional and aspirational): the seven-minute workout, checklists and to-do lists. Every meeting has an agenda.
What is your most unpopular business/startup opinion?
Founders should strive to give away half the proceeds of a liquid event to their employees. I've seen this before, and I've seen splits more like 90/10 or worse. When employees shared in the proceeds in dramatic fashion, it spawned a whole new universe of entrepreneurs. It was an incredible thing to witness.
What is a fundamental value or belief that you think has made you successful?
Hard work, kindness, curiosity, passion, and integrity are all critical ingredients for me. Sometimes curiosity gets in the way of talent and expertise for me because I have a hard time specializing. But that's where the other things kick in. It's been interesting in recent years to see all the research demonstrating that success so often has to do with well developed soft skills, even including empathy.
More about Freddie O’ Connell:
If you’d like to learn more about Freddie, he’s chatting with us tomorrow evening at 8pm virtually with StartupNash.
Freddie’s win: I've raised more money than ever before for a political purpose, and we continue to surprise people who assumed we couldn't succeed at fundraising. http://www.readyforfreddie.com/donate
Follow Freddie:
Ready For Freddie | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
615-260-0005
freddie@readyforfreddie.com
LaunchLetter is produced by StartupNash. StartupNash is a community group for founders and funders in Nashville and beyond. If you are part of the tech community and want to learn about Nashville startups, or you are a founder or funder looking for a supportive, remote first group, StartupNash is your space.
🚀 ✉️