Shensi Ding
Co-Founder and CEO, Merge. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestoroperator@shensi ↗LinkedIn ↗merge.dev ↗
In 2020, Ding co-founded Merge, a unified API platform that enables B2B SaaS and AI products to integrate with third-party software. She previously worked at Silver Lake, Credit Suisse, and served as Chief of Staff at cybersecurity company Expanse.
2shows
2appearances
27statements
3resolved
1supported
0contradicted
33%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Shensi Ding said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Ding: Remote 'rockstar' engineers cannot succeed at Merge
“It doesn't matter if you're a rockstar engineer, because you wouldn't be a rockstar engineer at Merge.”
Ding: Delay monetization until your pipeline can reach $1M ARR quickly
“I think you should not collect revenue and not onboard customers until you know that you are going to get a million of revenue as quickly as possible.”
Ding: Software companies must go headless to compete for agent traffic
“I think you have to, because I think a lot of times not for all software, but for some software, like you're not going to have time to make a decision for what vendors you use.
[1925] Shensi Ding: We notice this with packages a lot, also in cloud code, scarily…”
Ding: Enterprise SaaS sales are harder because building in-house is cheap
“I mean, I think enterprise sales for these large companies is much harder because the time to build the same exact product in house is just significantly lower. There's also just less leverage. Like when you're doing a negotiation against the customer for why …”
Ding: Building Integrations In-House Is as Pointless as Self-Hosting Servers
“There have been some situations where we've talked to companies where they're like, no, like our founder believes in like we build this in house and we can be uniquely good at it. And obviously I'm biased, but that is just fundamentally not true. There's no on…”
Ding: Merge evaluates AI adoption as part of employee performance reviews
“Like, our whole team is really encouraged to do it, and if you don't do it does, it is a part of your performance.”
Shensi Ding: Over-intellectualizing startup building prevents founders from enduring necessary hardship
“I think the best way to succeed is to just do things, and I think if you over-intellectualize your company building instead of actually doing anything, you're too high on Maslow's hierarchy, and that means that you're not actually able to suffer later.”
Shensi Ding: Companies over-engineer by training custom models instead of using generic LLMs
“One hot take that I have is that I've noticed a lot of companies, like, kind of over-engineering their, like, ML usage. Like, they'll have, like, They'll build their own custom models. They'll try to train their own models when really, like, you should, you co…”
Ding: Booking competitor sales demos just to snoop is unethical
“So I don't really believe in doing that. I actually think it's unethical, but there's a lot of things online. And if you're a really good stalker, which I am, you can find anything. You really find it. Everything's on YouTube. Everything is on a podcast. You c…”
Ding sent outbound recruiting messages to 50,000 engineers for early Merge
“I don't even remember the exact number of engineers that I outbound, but I think it was like 50,000 or so.”
Ding: Founders unwilling to do awkward outbound outreach will not succeed
“Like, anyone who is too lazy to outbound, you're just not gonna make it. Like, that's just not, you just gotta get over that. Like, you have to be embarrassed. You have to do, like, all these, like, really awkward things.”
Ding: Founders can reach $10M ARR through sheer hard work
“My co-founder and I, we still think like to get to ten million, you just have to work really hard. That's really it. It really, it sucks. And it's like a lot of paid, but you can just work your way to ten million.”
Ding: Merge Accelerated Revenue Significantly Without Adding Much Headcount
“Last year we didn't increase headcount that much, but our revenue accelerated pretty significantly. And so it's had, like, meaningful leverage on our business.”
Ding: AI companies purchase software infrastructure much faster than traditional SaaS buyers
“Also a lot of these AI companies, they purchase much faster like a large financial services, like the deal cycles are definitely just longer. For SaaS platforms, shorter because sometimes we're selling to an existing product that already has product market fit…”
Ding: Benioff will adjust Salesforce through new tech shifts
“One thing that's really remarkable is, is very hard to have a dominant product and company for 30 years through multiple tech shifts, and so I just would not count Benioff out.
[1992] Shensi Ding: I think, like, he's able to adjust really well to whatever mark…”
Ding: Unengaged customer feedback is more useful than polite enthusiasm
“If they're totally unengaged, that means it's not a good fit. And that means that you are not solving the problem that they have. And then you should find out what is the problem? Like, why am I not solving that? What is the gap between, like, what you need an…”
Ding: Treat seed fundraising as a debutante ball to introduce your company
“I really view this seed as the debutante ball and you meet with everyone that you can. So you're introducing yourself to the industry as a new founder, as a new company.”
Ding: Startup fundraising is fundamentally a proxy for founder sales ability
“It's a lot of games and marketing. And I thought I understood that, but it's so, so, so, so true. And it's basically a proxy for how good you are at sales.”
Ding: Merge achieved true product-market fit after hitting $1M ARR
“I felt like it after we hit a million.”
Ding: I work 9-to-9 in the office plus nights and weekends
“So I do nine to nine. I'm in the office, and after I'll, like, hang off my husband, maybe for like an hour, and then I'll, like, code again, like, check my Slack. Weekends, like, I'm definitely online. Some weekends I'm working a lot more, some weekends work a…”
Ding: Palo Alto Networks acquired Expanse for roughly $1B in 2020
“We were acquired by Palo Alto Networks for around one billion dollars in 2020.”
Ding: Merge conducted 100 discovery calls via cold outreach before building
“We had a hundred conversations. So I would cold message random people. I would look for people in products. Design, customer success, founders, I would really reach out to anyone I could try to, literally anyone that had an integrations page and see if they wo…”
The other half of the tape: Shensi Ding's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Statements about Shensi Ding, by other people (1)
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Shensi's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 PRODUCT MARKET FITLEDGER | Co-Founder and CEO, Merge | 1 | 19 | 33% 1/3 | full record on A Product Market Fit Show → |
 SOURCERYLEDGER | Co-Founder and CEO, Merge | 1 | 8 | — | full record on Sourcery → |