Your Next Move - Becoming the Best Leader for Your Growing Company

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Aisha Bowe talks with Shan-Lyn Ma, co-founder and co-CEO of Zola. One of the biggest challenges of being the founder of a high-growth company is adjusting to the changing demands of leading that enterprise. This episodes offers advice on how to navigate growing and managing teams through all of the stages of a company and how those needs change as a company progresses. It also features hard-earned wisdom about these journeys.

With the VentureX Business Card from Capital One, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. And with no preset spending limit, your purchasing power adapts to meet your business needs. Capital One, what's in your wallet? Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureXBusiness. Terms and conditions apply. I'm Sarah Lynch, and you are listening to Your Next Move,

audio edition, produced by Inc. and Capital One Business. On today's episode, host Aisha Bowe talks with Shan Lin Ma, co-CEO and co-founder of Zola, an online wedding company that's helped over 2 million couples seamlessly plan their celebrations through their digital tools, resources, and community. Prior to that, she served as chief product officer at Chloe & Isabel, a social commerce jewelry company. With two very fast-growing companies under her belt, Shanlyn is the perfect person to discuss what it means to be a leader when your company is growing rapidly and how to manage teams through periods of intense transition. But before we get to that interview, I talked with Karen Bonner, VP of Brand and Acquisitions Marketing at Capital One Business.

We talked about the essential skills that leaders need in order to motivate and build trust. Karen, thanks for being here with us today. Hi, Sarah. Thank you for having me. Effective leaders can truly motivate and inspire their teams where others may struggle to lead. You believe there are some skills or attributes that effective leaders have. Let's talk about them. Yes. Leaders may have very different styles, but in general, they have some skills in common. And the first, which is probably not surprising,

is the ability to build trust with team members. Trust is earned over time through both words and actions. Your team needs to feel like you are looking out for their best interests. And when people feel that trust, they feel safe, which allows them to follow your lead. How do leaders effectively build that trust with their team? I think one of the most important ways to build trust and lead effectively is being

authentic. People will sense when you're being fake or not being yourself, and that erodes trust. When you show your authentic self, even including your vulnerability and admitting your mistakes, your team members will feel freer to be their own authentic selves in the workplace as well. You also said that listening is one of the most important skills a leader can have. Let's talk about that. Yes, I think it's common for strong leaders to be really vocal people and do a lot of talking. And so first, it's important to be willing to just step back, say a little bit less, and leave space for the

members of the team to speak up and share their ideas and speak their mind. But that's just the first part. Listening is also about what you do with that information. And as a leader, you have to be willing to consider that the ideas or suggestions from the team might be better, better solutions than the ones you would have come up with yourself. So deciding what to implement when you're listening to your team is a really important part of listening as well. Are there other attributes or traits of effective leaders? Yes, what I've seen is that really effective leaders understand the difference between managing and leading. Managers have a really specific role in directing a team to achieve

a specific goal or an objective or to ensure that a process is running effectively and efficiently. But leaders, on the other hand, they motivate and enable others to grow and develop their skills so they can contribute to an organization in new ways. Leaders have vision and they help inspire people, but that's not necessarily about directing people on exactly what to do. Thank you for sharing these insights about the traits of effective leaders, Karen. Thank you for having me. And now, here is Ayesha Bowe's conversation with Shanlyn Ma. Enjoy. Since launching Zola in 2013, you've become one of the biggest companies in one of the biggest

industries, the wedding industry. You've also led the company through enormous growth and are now expanding beyond weddings into Zola Baby and Zola Home. But before we get into that, let's take it back to the beginning. Where did it start for you? Well, like many successful startups, Zola was really born out of personal need. So the year we started, 2013, that was the year that all my friends were getting married at exactly the same time. I think we all have that year in our lives where it feels like we're going to a different wedding every weekend. And it's expensive.

It's stressful. And that year, I found myself frustrated with the experiences that I as a wedding guest and my friends getting married were going through. It felt like attending and planning a wedding, it was an antiquated process stuck in the 1960s. And frankly, I felt like we all deserved a lot better. I remember buying a gift for my friend from her wedding registry. All I could afford was a single silver spoon. And it wasn't even something she really wanted. It was the worst e-commerce shopping experience I had ever seen. And so I was talking to Nobu, my co-founder, and we just said, we can do a much better job.

Nobu was married and he was talking about all the pain points from the point of the couple getting married. And he agreed. And so we set out to really build something that was innovative, that our friends and couples everywhere deserved. Can you tell me a little bit about where your leadership journey started? I grew up in Australia. My family didn't have much, but what we did have was access to the library where I would read business magazines like Inc. and I would dream about all the companies that were being built. And one day, hopefully being able to build one myself as an entrepreneur. Didn't know quite how to get there.

And the companies that I was reading about at the time, great companies like Yahoo, eBay, Google, they all seemed to start out of Silicon Valley. That seemed to be where the tech revolution was happening. And so I thought that's where I need to be. I was fortunate to be able to move to the US, to Silicon Valley, to go to graduate school. And from there, the opportunity to work at great companies like Yahoo, and then in New York, a great company called Gilt Group and learned a great deal from incredible leaders who knew how to build products that customers love, who knew how to build companies at scale. And that was really where I learned how to be a leader. What was it about business that really captured your heart from an early age? I think it was really the idea that you could

build something out of nothing. Also, pragmatically, it was a way to earn an income, but to be able to do it having fun. And I was always drawn to things that, where you could sell things that you had created yourself, whether it was in school, in high school, we created stress kits, which were different things that we made to relieve stress. And we just made it out of nowhere and we sold it. And what did you know? It did extremely well. So your first business was making and selling stress kits? Yes. I love it. I love it. I might need one of those now.

I've heard that you had a picture of one of the founders of Yahoo on your vision board in Australia. Is it true? I am slightly embarrassed to admit that, yes, it is true. Many people growing up, they have pictures of singers. I had Kylie Minogue. I had McDonough. And I also had Jerry Yang on my bedroom wall, one of the founders of Yahoo. He was someone who essentially helped open up and make the internet accessible to everyone in a friendly, fun way. And I wanted to be just like him.

How did that experience of having that particular founder on your wall influence your decisions down the line when it came to coming to the United States and deciding to pursue a career? Well, you know, Jerry Yang is Asian, so it connected to me in that it felt like, well, if he can do it, maybe I can too. He went to Stanford University and I thought, well, okay, maybe that's where you need to go. You need to be in Silicon Valley to start a tech company. So I focused all my energy on how could I get myself there, even though I didn't know anyone who lived in the US or who had ever been to Stanford or ever been to tech. I've never known anyone who'd ever worked in tech. And then from there, I was very focused on how can I work at a great tech company like Yahoo to learn how it is done for myself so that one day

hopefully I could do it for myself. I love this. And that's a really powerful example. I'm sure that you are also inspiring people all over the world. And you eventually went on and you worked for Yahoo and you worked for Guild Group. Can you share a little bit about those experiences? Sure. I learned so much there. I would say three things that really stick out in my mind. First is the importance of having a senior leadership team that is very closely aligned and all very focused on marching in the same direction. I think when people at different levels in the company start to see that leaders are not aligned,

that is where I saw things could start to fall apart. The second thing is the importance of having a very clear vision of where the company needs to go, fall apart. The second thing is the importance of having a very clear vision of where the company wants and needs to go, what it needs to do in order to win a certain market. And having that vision articulated was, you know, I saw it done well, I saw it done not so well, and it made all the difference. And then the third thing is I had the opportunity to see what does good talent look like in terms of how they work and what is the difference between good and great talent. And that helped me think about, okay, what do I need to do to be great? But also, who are the people that I would want to work with and hire myself in the future?

Well, now I have to ask you, what is the difference between good and great talent? Great people, they go above and beyond what is just in their job description. They work harder and they push themselves to do the very best they think they can do. And then they push themselves beyond that. I think the other thing that they do is they are willing to look at the bigger picture so that they're not just focused on the problems that they need to solve, but start to ask the right questions on what does the company need to do and then how can I help that? And then I think the other thing is they are constant learners. So they learn not just their own discipline, but they learn every other discipline to help the bigger effort of the company.

I'd love to hear more about the early days of Zola. I know when I started my company over a decade ago, I thought that I needed to know all the answers and that my way was the best way. And I quickly found that that was not true. In fact, it was the quickest way for me to fail. Could you share a little bit more about your leadership journey in the early days and how maybe it has evolved since then? I think the adage, you don't know what you don't know is so true in the earliest days of a startup. In the early days, you just need to focus on what are the five things

you really need to nail to reach the next milestone, whether it's I need to raise funding, or I need to launch this product, or I need to hire this key person. And so you sometimes run around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to achieve those things. And, you know, there were some things that we did well and not so well. I would say my focus in the early days was getting the product to launch. And the things that needed to happen were I needed to hire the key team members, whether that was our first founding CTO, chief technical officer, our first two engineers, our first merchandising person. I also needed to convince brands to partner with us to offer their products on Zola. And I needed to set up the infrastructure for

a lot of the rest of the company, whether it was from a finance and accounting perspective or a legal perspective, just so that we could purely operate and be in business. And so I did a lot of that, both my co-founder and I, we kind of decided how do we divide and conquer? And then how do we use what we have in terms of our strengths and our assets to get it done? And what I mean by that is, who do we know? So who do we know who, some were great and we still work with them today. And some were totally inappropriate or, you know, not a great fit. But, you know, what we were able to say, we launched with a certain number of brands and products. And that was the most important thing for the launch at that time. And so in hindsight, it's all about a matter of just getting it done.

I'm curious, how has your leadership style evolved over the years? I know that I feel like right now I'm in the role of chief enabler. I've taken a lot from the early days and I've applied it to more relaxed structure in terms of my leadership, trying to make sure that I cultivate the best possible team. What have you learned or what may you now do differently? One of the things I've tried to do over the years is to study great leaders and understand what do they do? What are the things that is very consistent across great leaders? And there's two things that have stood out to me that I've been trying to work on. One is to consistently set clear expectations. Now, this is hard because sometimes you think, well, if I communicated a vision and a strategy, then everyone should just know what they need to do. But that's not always the case. I think different people at different levels from

different backgrounds need different amounts of detail on exactly what you expect. People aren't mind readers. And so the more I lead, the more I work on what's the right level of expectations I should be sharing with the team or with the person? And then how can I be really clear to make sure that they are able to digest it? The second thing is giving and receiving direct feedback. And I think this is also extremely hard to do. It's uncomfortable. And yet it is, I think, one of the most important things any leader can do. It's the ability to,

in real time, say, you know, I noticed you did this or you said this or this project that you work on, you know, it had this impact and here's a suggestion of something that you could improve on that you can or cannot, you know, consider for next time. And then ask that, you know, for my own work. And I think that process is how anyone grows and learns. And it's the responsibility of leaders to help their team do that. But it's also extremely hard. And so work in progress. I hope that I'm better now at those things than I was 10 years ago. And hopefully in 10 years from now, I'll be even better.

I think both things are powerful takeaways, but I especially have learned to appreciate the first one. When I first started leading, I thought, well, if I provide direction, you've heard it, and I do not need to repeat it. But I had someone say to me, someone who was a little bit more seasoned, well, how often have you learned things perfectly the first time?

You probably need to hear them two or three times before you pick it up. And I said, okay, why don't I take a more relaxed approach and understand that I'm not necessarily repeating myself. I am reinforcing the direction that I provided. And if I can do that in a supportive way, people can actually pick up the thing that I meant for them to learn or for them to hear. So I think that's so powerful. Things have changed so much for me since the beginning days when I used to joke that if I was to wear a hat that symbolized my job, it would be a sombrero

because I was doing pretty much everything. These days, I brought in a COO who I describe as unicorn and glitter because she frees me up to do what I love, which is working on the business and not so much in the business. In your early days, did you have a similar experience? Did you take on a lot of roles only to maybe shift it later on? Yes, absolutely. What you described sounds very familiar. I was two years into leading Zola. The business was scaling very rapidly and almost every function was reporting to me. Many of these functions I had very little experience in working in. And so when I asked myself the question, is there someone out there who might be better at leading these functions? The obvious answer was yes. GM, a general manager there, Rachel, who took me under her wing, taught me a great deal, was very generous with her time. And so she was the first person

that I called. Very lucky that she took that call and she came in and it changed the trajectory of the company. And I think as a leader, there's many decisions you make in the life of the company, but very few decisions that really changed the course of the business. And this was one of them. Could you share a couple tips for how you pitch Zola and how you may have been able to bring investors around to see your vision for the company? I really had a very big learning journey

through the course of fundraising for Zola over a number of years. In the early days, I used to take it very personally. You know, every conversation, every rejection, I felt like it was a big judgment on my ability and the company's likelihood to succeed. And what I learned over time is that it's never personal, that investors can, for many different reasons,

not invest in your company that are unrelated to you or the business performance. And over time, what I've learned is that what I need to be pitching is an answer to the three questions that VCs are asking themselves, and that actually you should also ask yourself if you are going to invest your time in a business, which is first, why you? Why are you the right person to start this business? Why now? So why is now the time for this business to emerge where it may not have before? And how

much money is this going to make me? So why is this such a compelling business that it is going to generate a great return for both you, the founder and the investor? And if you can answer that for yourself in a compelling way, you'll be able to pitch it in a compelling way. And your chances for success in fundraising will be so much greater. No matter who you're pitching to, everyone is asking themselves the same question. Why you, why now, and how much money? I love it. Let's talk hiring. I heard that there's magic in your process. You may be looking for more than what's on the resume. Can you share a little bit about that? Well, of course, we are looking for smart, talented people with the right experience.

That's, I think, a given. That's what many people are looking for. And there's always many candidates that fit that bill. But on top of that, the things that are really important to us that we try to and glean from the interview process is finding people who are humble, who are kind, who have emotional intelligence, and are very team-oriented people. And what we found is that when we have that combination, that they are going to be the future leaders of Zola. And so we're very fortunate that on our leadership team, the majority of people have been here for eight or more years, which is very rare in the startup world. But it's, I think, something that we really attribute to.

We love working together. And if we can keep the bar high in terms of not just raw intelligence, but emotional intelligence, then we will build a team that people are excited to continue working with. I love that because in my organization, I have sort of this 80-20, where I'm hiring you for about 80% of what's resume, meaning skills, qualifications, and things of that nature. But it's the 20% that how you talk to people, how you engage with the team, how you show up in the world that really leads to whether or not we have a great team dynamic and whether or not the company is able to exceed with you being part of it. And so I love that you highlighted it because it's more than just the skills on the resume.

It's who you are and how you show up in your working environment as well. Which values do you find important as you look to shape the future leaders of your company? The values that are really important to us are transparency. So we try to share as much as we can with the entire team about the business and what we're thinking and planning, inclusivity, and real-time feedback. I think we talked a little bit about this, but can we be a place where you can learn and also help other people to learn and get better and grow together? And I think the more that people are open to have direct conversations rather than go behind people's backs, I think the better it is for everyone. As the leader of a technical organization, while I love feedback, there have been times

when I had to coach my team how to provide feedback to each other in a constructive manner, let's say not so prickly. I'm wondering, as a leader, are there things that you've done to set an example so that when you encourage this direct feedback that it's done so in a manner that is, let's just say, friendly and supportive? Well, I always think that feedback is only worth giving and is only effective if the other person receiving it can actually hear it and understand what is being said. And so, you know, some teams, some cultures, you know, team cultures, they might have a team norm of being able to deliver very direct feedback in very succinct ways that might sound harsh to others. But if the recipient is able to hear it and make a change and feels okay about hearing it, then great. In other instances, for example, where some members of my team have had to have

tough feedback conversations, what I've tried to do is coach them through the conversation. Now let's role play. Why don't you share with me what you're thinking of saying? I might provide suggestions on how you might rephrase things so that the other person can actually digest and hear it. And I think in those instances, hopefully it's been better received by that person because I think the kindest thing you can do is give feedback in a way where the other person can go away, think about it, and then make a change that they feel good about. Sometimes initially it's hard to hear, but ultimately if you can recognize it and then make a change that they feel good about. Sometimes initially it's hard to hear, but ultimately if you can recognize it and make a change, it's all the better for the

individual. And I personally have grown the most when I've received tough feedback. We all have conflict and challenges at work. I know I went through a corporate divorce where a partner and I separated. And during that time, I learned that I was not a very effective leader and I needed to allow other people to step up and fill the space. And in doing so, I learned that they had a lot of gifts that I was not allowing them to bring to the table because I was doing so much. And I really enjoy how the company is, you know, today. Could you share a little bit more about a time that you may have experienced some crisis and how you have dealt with it? Sure.

Well, I think the important thing that I like to share with any founder is that every company goes through a crisis at least once, if not multiple times, whether it's an external crisis or an internal crisis. Even in the recent years, we've had market recession, supply chain shortages. Zola has lived through many crises from external factors that have impacted us. And what we've really done is consistently each time followed three key steps. So first is don't panic. I think the worst thing that you could do is panic because it then freezes you up and it makes it very difficult to make clear decisions, which you need to do very quickly in a crisis. I think the second thing we start with is understanding the different scenarios that

could come out of a crisis. So we will often map out what's a bad scenario, a worse scenario, and a worst case scenario. And what are the various impacts on our P&L? What would it mean for our customers, for our vendors in each of these scenarios? We then start to plan lastly around what would we do in each of these scenarios? What are actions we need to take now in any scenario, but then what are the different set of actions we would take depending on how things play out. And I think when you have a clear roadmap to change based on what is happening both externally or internally, it becomes much easier, less emotional. You just can follow your guide because you've already spent a lot of time thinking through

all the things you need to do. Don't panic. Don't panic. Very important. We're going to take a quick break and be back with more from Ayesha and Shanlyn. Here's a little tip for growing your business. Get the VentureX Business Card from Capital One

and earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. Plus, the VentureX Business Card from Capital One and earn unlimited double miles on every purchase. Plus, the VentureX Business Card has no preset spending limit, so your purchasing power can adapt to meet your business needs. And when you travel, you'll have access to over 1,300 airport lounges. Just imagine where the VentureX Business Card from Capital One can take your business. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureXBusiness. It is my understanding that you also have experienced navigating a rather challenging

personal crisis. Could you share a little bit about that? Well, in 2016, which was just over two years after we had started Zola, I was in a really bad car accident. It left me unable to move for a while. I couldn't think clearly. And I certainly couldn't work, unfortunately, for many months. Of course, it happened out of the blue. And so no plans were set in place for what would happen in this scenario, which in retrospect, they should have been. But the work that we did in the lead up to this to put the leadership team in place, to have Rachel join as my partner in the company, that was what got us through this tough time. Almost immediately, Rachel was able to take on much of what I was running temporarily,

and the company was able to move forward. And it's one of the things that I am most proud of. One of my mentors has always told me, your goal as a CEO is to make yourself irrelevant. And when I first heard that, I thought, well, a CEO is a pretty important job. What do you mean make myself irrelevant? But after thinking about it and after going through this experience, it made me realize, yes, actually, that is the best thing you can do for your company. Because what it means is that you've built something that is bigger than just yourself. This company is bigger than one person, which means

it is here for the long run, no matter who is running it. And that is the best possible thing we could do for our couples, vendors, guests, team members, and investors. May I ask if you could share a little more about how this experience changed you and your outlook as a person? You know, the funny thing about being in a car accident is I still remember the exact moment that I was hit. I was in excruciating pain and I thought what flashed through my brain was, this is it. I'm dying. And then the next thought that flashed through my brain was, this is it. I'm dying. And then the next thought that flashed through my brain is, there's things that I haven't done yet that I have to do.

I cannot go yet. And one of those things was, I really want to be a mother. And so a few years later, I was able to have my daughter. And then the next thing that flashed through my mind is, there's so many things that I want to do with Zola that we haven't done yet. It's not there yet. I can't go yet. I can't leave it. And so thank goodness that wasn't the end. I was able to come back to keep working in the business as soon as I was able to. But what it did was it gave me an understanding of why I'm working. It gave me an understanding of I'm here because I want to be here. And I have a very clear vision that we should be the company, the go-to place that every

person kind of plans their wedding, that serves couples going through this life stage. And there's a lot that we have to do in order to earn that. But I want to do it as quickly as possible. And I'm not done until we do this. And so it was a clarifying moment in the things that matter to me most and why. Having gone through this experience, I'm wondering how did it change how you approached, how you viewed the things that you wanted to accomplish in life? Is there a framework that you would suggest that other founders potentially think about? One of the big learnings in retrospect from this experience is the importance of having a succession plan in place well ahead of time and thinking about not just for myself, but for all the leaders or the different functions

or the people in a company, are they the only person that can do this job today? And if so, what happens to the company if that person gets hit by a car, which of course we hope does not happen, or someone in their family gets sick and they have to go away, or things happen. And so we now try to think about for each person who is a key contributor, what is the backup plan and additionally are the systems in place that that allow the company to keep running for someone else to step in if that person you know has to leave for some reason so you know for example there are some people who are great talents but they have built an organization or team all around themselves and so there's no system in place or infrastructure to do the work in a scalable way. And so we think a lot about how do we build that support system? How do we make sure that we have a succession plan in place in the company,

not just for the CEOs, but for any single person? This conversation is a powerful reminder to founders and entrepreneurs out there that they also need to make time to live and to invest in themselves. Are there things that you might suggest that they do or think differently about? I know I'm kind of stuck on work all the time, but now I'm like, you know, there are other things I want to accomplish. But how do you find time for that? How do you think about scheduling that in your day?

I think about this question a lot because there is no right answer. What I've come down to for myself is identifying the things that give me a lot of energy and making sure that I carve out time to do those things, whether it's cooking or exercising or watching Netflix. Those are the things that I end up saying, you know, I could sleep an extra hour,

but I'm going to maybe watch this Netflix show. But on a more serious note, the topic that you raise, I think is so important. In the years that I've been working on Zola, unfortunately, I've had many friends who are founders who have either passed away because of mental health struggles, or they have suffered huge health incidents. And this is, I think, a growing trend because it is tough to be a founder. And so what I wish I could say to one founder friend who unfortunately we have lost is you can work on your business 24-7, do everything you can. But if it means that you have to leave it too early, then what is it all for? And I wish I could go back in time and tell

him. But hopefully by sharing this here, someone else will hear it. You got to take some time for yourself. This year, I had a small victory. I actually scheduled lunch. So every day I have lunch. Now, whether I eat the lunch or not, that's a separate question. But I find a little bit of joy in taking time and knowing that I'm going to get 45 to 60 minutes that are dedicated to myself each day. Oh, well, I'm very glad to hear that. Lunch is my top priority, as anyone at Zola will tell you. I'd love to learn a little bit more about your co-CEO. How did you get to the point where you felt as though you wanted to bring somebody in to help you run the business?

Well, if we rewind back to two years after we launched the business, I had nearly every function in the company reporting to me. Many of these functions were things that I had little experience in. And so when I stood back and asked myself, am I the best possible person to be leading all of these functions? the answer was obviously no. Is there someone out there in the world who could possibly be better? Yes. And so when I then started to think about who have I worked with in the past, who is what great looks like in all of these disciplines,

the first person that came to mind was Rachel and we worked together at Gill Group where I was a newly minted GM or general manager and she was an experienced GM and I would go to her and ask her for advice on how do you run a business and what are the things that you think about she was extremely generous in her time in walking me through how she might think about things. And I learned so much from her that when I thought about who would I love to learn from, who would be great at leading these functions at Zola and kind of being my partner, she was the first person I called and I was lucky that she took the call. So she joined in 2016 as president and COO and has been here for the last eight years. As Zola continues to grow and evolve, how do you see your role changing?

Well, over the last 10 years of Zola, I think my role has changed probably every year, at least once. And it's hard to predict how it will continue to evolve. But what I've always tried to focus on is what are the things that the business needs me to be most focused on at this point in time? And then what are the things that other people can take on? And how can I make sure that I delegate to them and give them space to run while also taking on things that are important to the business? In having this conversation, I feel very comfortable saying that you are where I hope my business goes. And so I'm wondering, what do you see for yourself as the legacy that you would like to leave?

When I look back one day, I hope that I can say we have built a great team, that many of which went off to then work and do amazing things in their work after Zola, and were successful because of many of the things that they learned here, as well as we built an incredible game-changing product that changed the lives of many people and made them fundamentally happier and that we really are leading the industry and therefore did it in a way where we were still nice people. And we showed that good people and good women can win big.

Sitting here, I'm listening to you and you're inspiring. You're inspiring to me. I know you're inspiring to many out there who may never have a chance to meet you. Have you thought about a book or other ways that, and then I just put that in there because I would love to read your book, so I just had to, let me throw that out there. But have you thought about other ways in which you may like to leave a legacy outside of Zola? Honestly, I feel like we still have so much to do and prove at Zola that every day I feel like I need to come here, leave it all in the field,

and show people that Zola can become what I think in my head it can become. It can become an industry-defining company. And once we do that, maybe I'll think about some of the things you mentioned. What's your next move when it comes to leading Zola in the future? Well, recently at Zola, we expanded from being very focused on weddings to launching a baby registry. And so our goal is to continue to serve couples as they progress through different life stages. We want to be that place that holds your hand through the happiest moments of your life. And so anything that that could encompass,

we want to be there. That's all for this episode of Your Next Move. Our producer is Matt Toder. Editing and sound design by Nick Torres. Executive producer is Josh Christensen. If you haven't already, subscribe to Your Next Move on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Your Next Move is a production of Inc. and Capital One Business.