ZacTownsend.com

The website for Zachary Townsend.

I am interested in technology, statistics, civic innovation, finance and financial technology, cities, positive disruption, and books.

Work

I am a co-founder of an early stage financial technology company called Standard Treasury.

I am a co-founder and general partner of Deciens Capital, where my partner and I invest in early stage technology companies with strong online-to-offline components. Currently, we are invested in TenderTree, Fuze Network, Sponsorhub, Keychain Logistics, Wevorce, True Link Financial, Simple Legal, 7 Cups of Tea, Subledger, and Work Hands.

Writing

I sometimes write on my blog:

Standard Treasury as a Startup Bank, January 13, 2015.
My Mental Health Story: Depression, Plagiarism, and Analysis, October 29, 2014.
Losing 58.3 Lbs For Science, October 10, 2014.
Building the Next Generation of Financial Infrastructure, August 28, 2014.
Mental Health, Trauma, and Startup Founders, August 22, 2014.
Founders and Mental Health, June 16, 2014.
APIs, App Stores, and the Era of Mass Customization in Banking, April 21, 2014.
Startup Banking’s Looming Leviathan, April 16, 2014.
Going Through Y Combinator (S13): Nine Lessons Learned, Mar 4, 2014.
(Translated in to Japanese)
Five Lessons from Building A Great Core Team at Standard Treasury, Feb 25, 2014.
Building A Founding Team at Standard Treasury, Feb 24, 2014.
The Path Not Taken by Simple (Bank) to Remake Finance, Feb 20, 2014.
(Republished at Bank Innovation)
Giving Credit Card Processing Away, Nov 18, 2013.
A (Successful) YC S13 Application, Oct 18, 2013.
Advice on the YC Application, Oct 17, 2013.
Getting in to YC, Oct 15, 2013.
Why I Invest in Online-to-Offline Businesses, Oct 8, 2013.
Ultimately, Banks are ‘Big Data’ and Technology Companies, Oct 4, 2013.
(Republished from the Financial Times)
Credit Card Processing as a Commodity Business, Sep 27, 2013.
Credit Card Processing is a Hard Business, Sep 26, 2013.

I sometimes write not on my blog:

Why I'm Mentoring for America, Code for America's Blogging for America, November 1, 2013.
Introducing the idea of an open-source suite for municipal governments, Harvard Ash Center, December 05, 2012.
Fairness in Civic Technology and City Services, Living Cities Blog, December 03, 2012.
Dreaming Bigger in the Civic Technology Movement, Living Cities Blog, August 06, 2012.
The Other Open Source for the Civic Sector, Google's Policy by the Numbers Blog, May 29, 2012.
A Job Vital to the State's Poor Goes Unfilled, Albany Times-Union, November 12, 2011.
Townsend, Z., Buckley, S. P, Harada, M., Scott, M. A. "The Choice Between Fixed and Random Effects", in The SAGE Handbook of Multilevel Modeling, Scott, M.A., Simonoff, J. and Marx, B.D. (eds.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Brisson, A., Murphy, C., Rothman, C., Townsend, Z. "Hazardous Beginnings: How Neighborhood Housing Quality and Affordability Affect Birth Outcomes in New York City." (Revise and resubmit).

Online Identities

LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
CrunchBase
AngelList

Contact

Take the first letter of my first name and prepend it to my last name. That's my gmail address.

Media

Forbes, 30 Under 30: Enterprise Tech, January 5, 2015. (Also full enterprise tech list, YC list, NYU List).
Bank Innovation, 2014 Innovators to Watch, July 1, 2014.
Wall Street Journal Blog, Standard Treasury Raises $2.7M to Help Banks Deliver Digital Services, May 29, 2014.
Finovate, Top 8 Memes and Themes from Bank Innovation 2014, March 6, 2014.
Sofi Blog, 6 Entrepreneur Myths Demystified , January 21, 2014.
Silicon Valley Business Journal, 6 top startup picks from Y Combinator Demo Day, August 21, 2013.
Venture Beat, Celebrities (but not Ashton Kutcher) share their top cloud & infrastructure picks at YC, August 20, 2013.
Programmable Web, Standard Treasury Wants to Bring Banks into the 21st Century, July 23, 2013.
Business Insider, YC Startup Standard Treasury Plans To Make Millions By Making It Easier For App Developers To Work With Banks, July 18, 2013
Bank Innovation, Standard Treasury Is Set to Close First Clients on Road to ‘Revolutionizing’ Bank Technology, July 12, 2013.
TechCrunch, YC-Backed Standard Treasury Aims To Make Software That Eats Commercial Banking, July 9, 2013.