About Zach

Hi. My name is Zach Ware. I’m an entrepreneur and investor based in Central TX and Northwest MT.

You can email me at zw at zgware dot com or DM me on Twitter. Here are some of my favorite readings are here.

Work

Expanding quality housing options for working families at Freehouse Capital Partners, a real estate private equity firm that acquires and develops multifamily housing in the mid-sized markets of Texas and the Upper Rockies.
Angel investor.
Managing Partner of VTF Capital with over 70 seed stage investments in companies including Ring, SpaceX, Asana, Mizzen + Main and 50+ more. We are not currently investing in new companies but continue to support our portfolio.
Consulting venture partner at Trust Ventures, focused on startups tackling systemic problems in highly regulated industries.

Outdoorsman, aspiring river guide, wakesurfer, skier, hunter, uncle.
Learn and write about functional health, evolutionary biology and psychology, stemming from a 2015 shift to focusing on my health in a way that helped me stay healthy in the midst of the craziness of multiple startups.
Train (for whatever random competition I’ve chosen without thinking about how hard it is) six days/week for with my coach from Central Athlete and the team at Kollective.

Co-founder of Downtown Project in Las Vegas, a 41-acre urban redevelopment project with former Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh including commercial redevelopment, multi-family residential, small business investment and operating hospitality outlets. Led real estate development, government partnerships and major projects. (NY Times, Fortune, Wired)
Developed the the 4.5 acre, four building Zappos.com LEED Gold HQ in Downtown Las Vegas. (BI).

CEO of NYC-based Pilotworks which provided shared commercial kitchens and services to food companies. I joined as CEO in 2018 to lead a turnaround, ultimately shuttering the company.
Founded Shift, a Las Vegas transportation startup that nearly killed me. I shut it down in 2015. (Washington Post)
Head of Product at Zappos.com including product management, content and business operations for our family of sites and apps.
Co-founded multi-unit coworking company Work In Progress (acquired by Let’s Rally).

Led retail and ecommerce at The Republic of Tea.
Led sales and distribution in the Southeast US for a DC-based gourmet food importer and distributor.
Studied economics and computer science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN and attended high school at Woodberry Forest School in Virginia.
Held lots of random jobs including working at Starbucks, managing a convenience store, being an electrician’s assistant, picking tobacco on my family’s farm and working in a Walmart meat department for two days.

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