diff --git a/src/app.ts b/src/app.ts
index f9dad138..690862eb 100644
--- a/src/app.ts
+++ b/src/app.ts
@@ -5,9 +5,6 @@ import { logger } from '@hono/hono/logger';
 import { NostrEvent, NostrSigner, NStore, NUploader } from '@nostrify/nostrify';
 import Debug from '@soapbox/stickynotes/debug';
 
-import { Conf } from '@/config.ts';
-import { cron } from '@/cron.ts';
-import { startFirehose } from '@/firehose.ts';
 import { Time } from '@/utils/time.ts';
 
 import {
@@ -145,13 +142,6 @@ const app = new Hono<AppEnv>({ strict: false });
 
 const debug = Debug('ditto:http');
 
-if (Conf.firehoseEnabled) {
-  startFirehose();
-}
-if (Conf.cronEnabled) {
-  cron();
-}
-
 app.use('*', rateLimitMiddleware(300, Time.minutes(5)));
 
 app.use('/api/*', metricsMiddleware, logger(debug));
diff --git a/src/startup.ts b/src/startup.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4ec75e03
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/startup.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+// Starts up applications required to run before the HTTP server is on.
+
+import { Conf } from '@/config.ts';
+import { createZapSplitsIfNotExists } from '@/utils/zap-split.ts';
+import { cron } from '@/cron.ts';
+import { startFirehose } from '@/firehose.ts';
+
+if (Conf.firehoseEnabled) {
+  startFirehose();
+}
+
+if (Conf.cronEnabled) {
+  cron();
+}
+
+await createZapSplitsIfNotExists();