This Week in Startups
E983: The Next Unicorns: Zola CEO & Co-founder Shan-Lyn Ma shares insights on growing her all-in-one wedding platform in a $100bn market, adapting to changes in wedding demographics, balancing growth and profitability while keeping her team focused, raisi
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Show notes
0:51 Jason intros Shan-Lyn Ma 3:17 Starting Zola and competing in a crowded space 5:14 Jason and Shan go through LAUNCH President Sam's Wedding Registry live on air 6:30 How Zola's registry and business model work 9:10 How does Zola look at Amazon's wedding lists 14:29 What has changed in wedding demographics, and how does Zola keep up? 21:26 Jason and Shan share thoughts on romantic proposal locations 25:37 How working for Kevin Ryan at Gilt impacted Shan 33:27 Shan's insights on keeping employees focused, balancing growth and profitability 39:28 What do the next few years look like for Zola? 42:20 Wedding SEO competition 46:33 Raising moral standards in tech 50:19 Shan's thoughts on being underestimated as a female founder 54:01 How the NYC tech scene has changed over the past 10 years