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Shan-Lyn Ma. She\\u2019s the CEO and co-founder of Zola. Launched in October 2013, Zola is an online wedding registry for millennials. In just three years, it has become the fastest growing wedding registry in the country, seeing 10x revenue growth year-over-year and 3x growth in 2017. Over seven million guests have attended a Zola wedding and 350 million in gifts have been added by Zola couples.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 How to Create Products Customers Love
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Sheryl Sandberg
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Headspace
• How many hours of sleep do you get?\\u2014 8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cThat stressing out about things do not make them better\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:47 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Shan-Lyn to the show
• 02:32 \\u2013 In Q4 of 2016, Zola reached $120M in GMV runway
  • 03:30 \\u2013 GMV is reflective of the number of wedding gifts that are given to couples when using Zola as a wedding registry
• 03:56 \\u2013 Zola is an ecommerce business, it\\u2019s a typical retailer
• 04:40 \\u2013 Most of the items offered in Zola are what the couples want as wedding gifts
  • 04:50 \\u2013 Zola has added Airbnb as this was requested by couples
  • 05:20 \\u2013 Zola takes a percentage from an Airbnb gift card purchased on Zola
• 06:14 \\u2013 Zola goes after the brands that are usually requested by couples and some brands have reached out to Zola for their products to be on Zola\\u2019s website
• 06:54 \\u2013 Since 2013, 300K couples have registered with Zola
• 07:25 \\u2013 The number of new couples signed-up in 2016
• 08:10 \\u2013 Over time, more and more couples are using Zola as their ONLY wedding registry
• 09:40 \\u2013 More guests will buy from Zola if the couples are using Zola exclusively as their wedding registry
• 10:02 \\u2013 Zola incentivizes couples by adding the gifts that they want
  • 10:24 \\u2013 There\\u2019s an additional feature where couples can bring any product to Zola
• 11:12 \\u2013 First year revenue
• 11:38 \\u2013 Zola had a seed round of funding of $500K in a convertible note
• 12:17 \\u2013 Zola has raised additional capital with a total of $40M in VC funding
• 12:36 \\u2013 Zola has passed through the typical startup life-cycle
• 14:14 \\u2013 Paid ads spend is more than $100K
• 14:41 \\u2013 The hot KPI that investors are looking for is the LTV:CAC ratio
• 15:51 \\u2013 CAC depends on the channel and historical data of the channel\\u2019s performance
• 17:42 \\u2013 \\u201cWe are not trying to create more lifetime value\\u201d
• 18:30 \\u2013 The challenge for Zola is getting newly engaged couples to find out about their services and sign-up for them
• 19:49 \\u2013 Zola currently has over 50K products
• 20:22 \\u2013 Zola just launched their new product, Zola Weddings, a free website for couples to manage their whole wedding
• 23:25 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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• Key Points:

1. Listen to your customers desires and needs and respond accordingly.
2. LTV:CAC ratio is what investors are usually looking for in a company.
3. Create more products that could be an extension of your existing products\\u2014this will encourage your clients to use your products more.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Simplero \\u2013 The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
• The Top Inbox \\u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
• Klipfolio \\u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar \\u2013 Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you\\u2019re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling \\u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible\\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives