the z list 💥🧿✨ 3 months as a founder

rumblings, reflections, momentum, and fandom obsession at the core

Author

Zehra Naqvi
May 08, 2025

Hello there friends (I’m channeling Obi Wan atm),

It’s been a whirlwind behind the scenes—building, dreaming, and getting Lore ready for the world. I’m excited to finally share a glimpse of what we’ve been building—and what’s ahead.

It feels good to be back in your inbox. Let’s catch up. 🧡
The Z List, No GPs Allowed, and Fan Behavior will now go out on a regular cadence

P.S. I’m in LA + SF May 19th — 23rd

Lore Updates

Lore has always been about giving people a better way to explore what they love—and we’re starting with fandom. The past few months have been indescribable as we’ve validated every inkling we have about the future of fandom, obsession, and adoration on the internet.

  • We closed our pre-seed round led by Village Global (Max — our first believer) with follow on participation from Precursor (Marina), Signal Fire (Josh), and Cory Levy / Z Fellows + scouts from a16z (Ali) and Bain Capital Ventures (Jacky). More announcements shortly re: our incredible angel investors and a few other participants in the round.

  • Our waitlist is at 50,000+ in less than 7 weeks cc: Walid growth genius (more on him below)

If you haven’t already, you can claim your Lore username here.
Early access is coming soon.

EMAIL ME!

Lore is looking for Founding Engineers—someone excited to help build the future of cultural infrastructure, fandom search, and joy-first software. More soon but for now email [email protected]! (also new lore domain coming soon 👀)

Founder mode means content mode is back so stay tuned for more fun content from the Lore team! If you’re a female founder and want to be part of the series below, DM Miri. 

But First, Thank You ❤️ 

Building Lore wouldn’t be possible without the people who held me up while I went heads down the past few months. A few shoutouts:

  • My family—for giving me roots and wings. (Mama + Baba + M + S)

  • Max and Village Global, for instantaneously believing in both me and this market.

  • Danielle at NEA and Maya at Spice Capital: two of the first people I ever shared Lore with who relentlessly encouraged me.

  • My lifers: Nick, Mason, Marly, Carissa, Shiv, Lauren, Bilal, Dan, Patrick—for making everything feel possible (and dealing with my crash out lock in cycle).

  • My founder friends: Jad, Zibo, Fai, Avante, Sabina, Aaron, Andrew, Lior, Megh, Brett, Amy, Miri, Surya, Scott, Dini, Eve, Anam, Ali, Em, Maxine, Jacky, Suraya, Besart, Terri, Ami—thank you for the late night texts.

  • VCs who kept me sane: Aman, Matt, & Nicole.

  • Georgie, Matt, and Jett—thank you for everything you taught me during my time in venture. You helped shape the founder I’ve become.

  • And obviously, everyone building Lore: Evan, Taha, Celine, Caleb, Walid, Elana, Johnnie + co.

Z List IRL hosted by Zehra + Friends

After attending a “bring your own founder” dinner earlier this week I was inspired to host something similar; I’m now hosting a “bring a (trustworthy) VC” dinner with 7 other founder friends later this month. LMK if you want to join or attend a future iteration!

Speaking of which, as a former VC turned founder I had a lot to unlearn the past few months.

It wouldn’t be a Z List without a few event shout outs.

today !! 5/8

thursday - friday 5/8 - 5/9

tuesday 5/13

wednesday 5/14

thursday 5/15

Velocity, Village Global’s pre-seed program, is now accepting new applications. They back founders at the very beginning of their journey—offering up to $1M in funding, a world-class peer group, and resources like $350K in Microsoft credits and $10K from OpenAI. If you’re starting something, or know someone who is, this is one of the best early-stage programs out there. Apply here.

Founders to Watch

Walid Mohammed: founder of The Bread Winners Club and THEEEEEE reason we’ve been able to pop-off on Tiktok.

  • Walid grew up on the internet—running meme pages, editing Minecraft videos, and generating 15M+ views across Vine and YouTube by his teens. After dropping out of UC Berkeley during the pandemic to work with creators full-time in L.A., he’s since led viral campaigns for Perplexity, Doritos, Cheetos, Zora, and Partiful, driving over 100M views. Now he runs a creative agency focused on UGC and paid ads for consumer apps. People call him the growth hacking king—for good reason.

  • I cannot recommend him enough. If you’re interested in chatting with him reply to this email and I’m happy to intro you.

Maxine Marcus: just launched SocialGlass AI, a new tool from AmbassCo that helps brands step inside their audience’s algorithm. It curates content from 100+ personalized feeds and uses AI to surface the language, trends, and signals real consumers are engaging with—before they go mainstream. Think: a cultural operating system for real-time insight. I’ve seen the demo. It’s the real deal.

Nandini Mullaji: Dini just announced a $2M pre-seed round for her AI matchmaking startup Sitch, led by a16z Speedrun. Sitch is rethinking dating from the ground up—using voice-based AI to replicate the magic of a real-life matchmaker, not a swipe feed. It’s one of the smartest consumer AI products I’ve seen, and I couldn’t be prouder. (Also: the refund policy if you get ghosted? Iconic.)

Lior Cole: who’s building the next-gen fashion discovery and styling interface — a platform where how you feel is finally matched by what you wear.

aaaand I had to relearn a lot from my former founder / operator days

oh and FOUNDER OBSESSION is a moat!!!!

One Last Personal Note

A lot of you have known me through different versions of myself—event host, angel investor, newsletter writer, VC, and now (again) as a founder.

Lore is what happens when all those pieces come together.

It’s the product of years spent watching how people gather around the things they care about—URL and IRL.

It’s a return to the kind of internet that raised me: weird, wonderful, and built on shared obsession.

And it’s the clearest I’ve ever felt about what I want to build—not just now, but long-term.

See you soon — there’s so much more to come. Happy building!