The power of the industry outsider — and how it built a $650M business

Most kids have posters of pop stars and athletes on their walls. But if you had peeked into the childhood bedroom of Shan-Lyn Ma, you would have been in for a surprise. Not Madonna. Not Steffi Graf. The centerpiece on her walls was Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo.

The poster left an impression. In 2013, then 36-year-old Ma was determined to start her own company. Most of the ingredients were already there: she was motivated to the tips of her hair, had gathered plenty of work experience, and had already met who would later become her co-founder, Nobu Nakaguchi. What was missing was the right idea.

An Industry Begging for Innovation

In your thirties, like Ma was back then, your mailbox starts to fill with a certain kind of letter: wedding invitations. “I was going to a wedding every weekend, so I had to buy a lot of presents. But while shopping for my friends, I was stuck on the worst wedding registry e-commerce websites I had ever seen.”

There, finally, her idea was in plain sight: online wedding registries were begging to be modernized at that time. Both couples and gift-givers had to put up with a number of annoyances.

When you encounter a process with so many potholes, you know you’ve found an opportunity to do better — and build a business on top of it. The market potential was there: every year in the United States, approximately 2.5 million weddings take place, making it a $70 billion industry.

Building Zola: A One-Stop Wedding Solution

In 2013, Ma and Nakaguchi founded Zola, a modern, cohesive wedding registry. But they quickly realized that a better registry could only be the first step. To create a larger, more robust business, they needed to go beyond a single use case.

Step by step, they built a comprehensive suite of wedding planning tools. Zola became a one-stop shop for couples planning their weddings — from creating a wedding website and finding local vendors to designing photo albums of their big day.

Then came 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic completely upended the wedding market. Couples started postponing their weddings — and thereby postponing Zola’s revenues.

“We saw two things,” Ma said. “First, obviously, risk to our financial plan. But we also saw a lot of couples reaching out to us for support on how to navigate their wedding in a pandemic.”

Supporting Customers in Tough Times

Despite the challenges, Ma saw an opportunity to support customers in ways Zola hadn’t prepared for. The company invested heavily in growing their customer support team, helped couples send “change-the-date cards,” and even enabled weddings via Zoom.

“Many of those features made no revenue, were costly to do, or were a big investment,” Ma said. “It was certainly not easy.”

But in the end, those investments paid off. Zola came out of the crisis stronger, becoming the fastest-growing wedding company in the U.S. and earning a valuation of over $650 million. In 2024, it was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies.”

———

Shan-Lyn Ma’s story is a perfect example of how industry outsiders can disrupt a market. Neither Ma nor Nakaguchi knew the inner workings of the wedding industry. But their fresh perspective allowed them to spot opportunities that insiders overlooked.

This is a reminder that opportunities for disruption are almost always there if you look closely. For established businesses, it’s a call to action: take the perspective of an outsider to see hidden opportunities.

Another key lesson from Ma’s story is the ability to turn challenges into opportunities. When life gave her lemons — in the form of a pandemic — she made lemonade. Zola’s commitment to serving its customers, even at a cost, paid off in loyalty and long-term growth.

Having a “dream wedding” was impossible for most couples during COVID. But thanks to Zola’s innovative solutions, thousands of couples were able to have memorable weddings despite the challenges.

This is how customer loyalty and word of mouth are built — and how you avoid becoming the dinosaur that an innovative outsider eventually overtakes.

Insights From the Community

Visual Thinking

Stats & Studies

📊80% — In a survey of 400 knowledge workers, 80% said they check their email before going in to the office, and 30% do it before they even get out of bed in the morning. Our "online addiction" cannot be denied…

Food for Thought

Just for Fun

Say Hello!