Hi everyone I'm Hillary Kerr the co-founder and chief content officer of

who what where and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers.

We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears and what

happens when they embark on their second life.

Today I'm chatting with Shanlin Ma, the co-founder and co-ceo of Wedding Registry site, Zola.

As a kid, Shan Lynn always dreamed of being an entrepreneur.

In fact, her childhood bedroom decor of choice was a poster of her idol, Jerry Yang, the co-founder

of Yahoo.

So, after graduating with her

lifelong dream and took a role at Yahoo, first as an intern and later in

product marketing.

Then in 2008 she moved over to e-commerce company guilt group as their first product lead and

youngest executive on the team.

While there, she founded and ran her own business unit, Gilt Taste, where she got to work closely with her future Zola co-founder, Nobu.

Though Shanlin moved on to a role as Chief Product Officer at Jewelry Company, Chloe and Isabel,

she and Nobu still percolated on an idea for a business.

During that time, Shan Lynn also was spending nearly every weekend at friends' weddings

and was constantly met with clunky wedding registry sites.

Shan brought her frustration to Nobu and he lamented that in planning his own wedding the

registry was a pain point. The two realized this area of

wedding planning needed disrupting and with the skills they both gained working in

e-commerce at guilt they set out to do just that.

...