When a Hedge Fund Said Yes and Everything Else Moved Into Place
There are moments when a person’s entire direction begins to shift, even before they can name what is happening. For Zach Shapiro, that shift began inside a company that no longer felt aligned with the person he was becoming. He carried ideas shaped through hands on work in data, through conversations with leaders who had watched markets evolve, and through the instinct that guided him since he was young. His strategies created results. His understanding of the work felt grounded in experience. Yet inside his team, the trust he hoped for did not arrive. He felt his efforts questioned. He felt his insights overlooked by leaders who valued tenure over evidence. Something inside him began to grow. It was the sense that he was ready to create through his own judgment.
He explained that he once believed entrepreneurship was about freedom. He imagined the ability to shape his days and build with independence. Over time he understood that something else lived beneath that idea. He said he felt driven to prove that he could create something meaningful, even without a clear outline. He carried this energy throughout his life. It came from a deep place inside him, a place that pushed him to trust his own capacity. That drive shaped each step toward what would later become OutcomeCatalyst.
Zach’s foundation formed long before he left to start his own company. His first job after college was at MicroStrategy when it functioned as a data company. He learned the discipline of consulting, the structure of delivery, and the details inside large systems. He worked directly with clients and saw how organizations shaped decisions from the information they collected. He learned through doing rather than observing. He built an understanding of data that came from experience rather than theory.
His next role expanded his skill set further. He joined a smaller company as a solutions architect, a role that asked him to bridge technology with communication. The sales team scheduled meetings, but Zach often guided the conversations. He explained the work, shaped the message, and ensured clients understood the value of what they would receive. He learned how to sell without formally holding a sales title. This experience helped him see that communication and delivery are deeply connected.
As the company grew, Zach received an opportunity that revealed new possibilities. He was asked to build the data and AI practice from scratch. This task required more than technical strength. It required strategy, structure, and the ability to create a clear offering. Zach partnered with teams at Databricks, Snowflake, and AWS who had shaped similar practices in other organizations. They taught him the essentials of go to market development. He learned how to identify the ideal customer profile. He learned how to create a repeatable sales motion. He learned how to package work so it could be understood and purchased with confidence. He discovered that building a go to market plan often feels like building the company itself. This knowledge strengthened the belief that he could eventually create something on his own.
Even with these experiences, Zach still felt friction where he worked. He believed in his strategies. He saw evidence that they would succeed. He listened to mentors who understood the direction he was moving toward. Yet his company did not share his perspective. That gap between insight and recognition shaped the decision that would follow. By early 2024 he formed an LLC with no clear timeline. He simply wanted to be ready when an opportunity appeared.
That opportunity arrived in the form of a call with a large multi manager hedge fund with around thirty billion dollars under management. Zach did not know the scale of the firm when he first met with them. He approached the conversation with the confidence he built over years. He trusted his partner, who had always delivered with precision. Their first call was on a Friday. Zach left his job on Monday. They closed the contract on Thursday. It created the first revenue for OutcomeCatalyst and showed Zach that he could build something real on his own terms.
OutcomeCatalyst began as a services company because Zach bootstrapped everything from the beginning. He and his partner delivered highly profitable work and added three clients in their first nine months. They built frameworks and repeatable processes through those engagements that revealed the early form of a product. They did not set out to build a platform, yet the structure of their solutions pointed them toward one. They began working with a hosted client that generated fifty million dollars annually. This client became the environment where they could build OutcomeCatalyst with real production data. That experience moved the company closer to becoming a product organization.
A major turning point arrived when the model context protocol emerged, allowing language models to communicate directly with back end systems. Zach felt immediate clarity. He said that this change helped him show the value of OutcomeCatalyst in a more tangible way. Before that moment, their work lived in infrastructure and code. It was difficult to demonstrate because it did not fit inside a simple interface. With new tools available, he could create demo videos and help prospects visualize the entire experience. The story became clearer. The pitch became grounded.
Zach explained that most companies rely on three to five core applications. These include a CRM, an accounting system, an HR platform, and a file store. Each application holds its own data model. When someone wants to answer a question about pipeline, cash, margin, or client behavior, they must navigate each system separately. Zach described OutcomeCatalyst as a data integration platform that unifies those models. Once a company plugs in its data, it can build any application on top of it. This includes generative tools, reporting dashboards, or advanced data science workflows. The foundation remains the same. It offers clarity and simplicity where complexity once lived.
As OutcomeCatalyst developed, Zach worked toward a clearer version of product market fit. He saw how different types of financial organizations created similar patterns. He believed he could eventually offer off the shelf products for specific industries. He aimed to refine the offering until the pitch aligned naturally with client needs.
Through this growth, Zach realized that his strength always lived at the beginning of relationships. He excelled with top of funnel outreach, partnerships, and early momentum. He had not spent much time on client retention. He and his partner completed strong work for their first group of clients. Yet over time only one remained. The others respected him. They offered case studies and referrals. They expressed appreciation. Yet they did not continue into long term engagements.
This experience taught Zach something essential. Clients may enjoy working with a company and still see the relationship as temporary. They may admire the work but decide to build the capability internally. He compared it to a relationship where two people genuinely appreciate one another yet do not see a shared future. This realization helped him understand that OutcomeCatalyst needed deeper involvement during delivery. It needed presence and partnership, not only strong openings.
As he entered a new stage with hosted clients, Zach shifted his focus. He stepped into the role of client success. He attended calls more consistently. He learned the details of each client’s goals. He brought that knowledge back into product design and sales strategy. He discovered that understanding the details of a client’s world improved every part of the business. It made him more effective in conversations. It helped shape the product with greater clarity. It helped build longer term partnerships.
Zach shared several stories of the scrappiest moments inside OutcomeCatalyst. One came from their early hedge fund engagement. He and his partner were the only full time team members for more than a year. They generated nearly two million dollars in revenue as a team of two. His partner managed work for the hedge fund during the day and built the entire lakehouse for an Australian bank at night. They worked across time zones without expanding the team. They delivered by relying on trust, commitment, and stamina.
When asked what guidance he would offer to someone who wants to become an entrepreneur, Zach said the most important step is to land a client. This reveals what the work requires. It reveals what clients truly need. It shows the gap between an idea and the reality of delivery. He believed that beginning with services helps founders understand these truths before they create a product. He encouraged people to start with one client, then another, and allow the repeated experience to reveal the direction of the company.
One of the most meaningful pieces of advice Zach ever received came from an advisor he met through an unexpected encounter. This advisor carried deep experience and offered Zach guidance with directness. At one point Zach considered raising capital to hire a senior leader to own client success. His advisor encouraged him to pause. He told Zach that no one understood OutcomeCatalyst the way he did. He explained that bringing someone in too early would create confusion rather than clarity. He encouraged Zach to build the system himself before asking someone else to inherit it. This advice shifted Zach’s perspective. It helped him understand that his involvement created the foundation for the team he would build later.
Zach’s story reflects determination, learning, and the willingness to grow through challenge. OutcomeCatalyst carries the structure of someone who understands how to build from the ground up. It reflects the lessons gained through direct experience. It reflects the clarity of someone who stepped into entrepreneurship with conviction and continues to grow through every season of the journey.
We can’t wait to see where his next season takes him.
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