Shan-Lyn Ma, co-founder and CEO of Zola, discusses how consumer behavior during 2020 lockdowns led Zola to pivot and launch its non-wedding home store.
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“What was interesting was that certainly in the first four, three to four months, there was less wedding gifts being given. But actually, there was, there still was gifting happening, even though the weddings weren't happening, and what Also helped us during that time was that we launched our home store because we saw a lot of people coming to buy from Zola who weren't getting married”
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More from Shan-Lyn Ma
Insight
Ma: Flash sale business models are rarely sustainable or profitable
“I think the, ultimately, the business model of flash sales was one that was very hard to turn into a sustainable, profitable business.”
Ma: Wedding registries had not meaningfully changed since the 1960s
“The problem was that it hadn't changed in decades since the 19 sixties when they were first invented. It was like someone had taken a registry from the 19 sixties and just put it on the internet and hadn't touched it since.”
Ma: Holding warehouse inventory is structurally unprofitable for wedding registries
“And it's even more impractical in a wedding registry setting because By nature of a registry, you want to offer a very broad assortment, so you want as many brands and products as possible, but you need very little inventory depth, and so that kind of model is…”
Ma: Series B is hardest because selling dreams is no longer enough
“You know, at the teenage years where you have enough of a track record where you're making money so you can't just sell the dream of what's going to happen, but you're also not yet at maturity where you can show this is going to, this is already a huge company…”
Ma: VC disconnect from a pain point does not erase the market
“And just because investors didn't feel personally connected to the pain point, did it mean it didn't exist.”
Shan-Lyn MaMar 11, 2021▶ 6:17How I Built Resilience: Shan-Lyn Ma of Zola
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