#StartupsEverywhere Profile: Lauren Marturano, Founder & CEO, Zinnia
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Impactful Corporate Event Planning in Just a Few Clicks
Zinnia Founder & CEO Lauren Marturano founded her company with the goal of making offsite corporate planning a seamless process by simplifying travel and agenda planning for groups. We spoke with her about her experiences as a woman founder fundraising and building a product, the importance of startup accelerators, and how it’s been navigating data privacy issues.
Tell us about your background. What led you to Zinnia?
I’m originally from Nebraska. I started my career at Microsoft, then spent a couple years at Salesforce. I learned a lot during my time there and loved it, but always wanted more for myself. Before founding Zinnia, I co-founded another company in the web3 space, and through that, ended up meeting my current investors. For me, building Zinnia was about recognizing that there’s rarely a seat at the table for women in tech—so I set out to build my own.
What does Zinnia do?
Zinnia is a software platform for corporate events. Anyone who’s planned large events that require bringing teams from different locations together knows that the process is extremely time consuming and difficult. Zinnia makes the planning process easier for organizers. We have a flight aggregator that analyzes and organizes travel arrangements based on what is most efficient for the attendees. Instead of our customers going to a marketplace and having to search through a bunch of metrics, we offer up options through our portal that are within our customers’ budget, desires, and availability. We do the same thing with restaurants and activities, as we help clients strategically build their agendas. So if we have a customer getting people together, spending $100,000 for a three day event, we want to ensure that there's a good ROI for them through their group’s logistics planning and agendas.
What’s been your experience raising capital for your company?
Accessing capital is a complex issue for women founders. We are less likely to take risks in the first place, and when you factor in the pay gap, the lack of women in this space thanks to historical discrimination, and the limited amount of available educational resources around fundraising, that makes roadblocks we face very high.
With Zinnia, I've been very lucky that raising capital hasn't been as much of an issue for me as previously. But that's because I met my current investors through my last company and they connected me to a lot of other people and groups in their network—some of those being diversity-focused funds. I love the mission of diversity funds, but at the end of the day, I don't want to be given capital because I'm a token female. I want to be given capital because I'm a great leader and investors know that my company is going to keep growing. That said, anytime I talk to a fund, I ask about founder diversity in their portfolio of companies along with the diversity of their Limited Partners (LPs), because I think it's important to understand how they prioritize that. That's a big thing—some diversity funds claim to focus on underrepresented founders, but then when you look at their LPs, they're all straight white men. That means that, though they may support diverse founders, the money is actually going back to LPs that are not.
As a second-time founder, what skills did you bring from your last company that helped you build Zinnia?
My last company was a great transition for me to go from corporate to the startup world. I joined from ground zero and made the first sale at the company. I had no background with startups before that and I didn’t know anyone that had been through the early-stage process before. So the first time we were fundraising, I had no idea what I was doing. As I went through that process, I gained so much knowledge about what fundraising looks like. If not for that opportunity, I don’t know how I would've learned what a pitch deck needs to look like or how we’re supposed to have a data room. Eventually, I started speaking on stage at venture events and received multiple term sheets in a day after months and months of trying.
What has been your experience navigating data privacy issues at Zinnia?
We’re currently going through the preferred vendor process with a few larger companies, and they need us to be compliant with the various privacy regulations for payments and customer data. We know we have to outsource to different companies that will help us manage all of that data and achieve SOC 2 certification. That’s expensive and takes a lot of time and focus. I wish there was an easier way to be compliant—it would make my life easier as we continue to develop.
What’s been your experience with accelerators and incubators, and how can policymakers better support these organizations that go on to support founders?
We joined Atlanta Ventures a while back, and our experience has been amazing. They have a core team of awesome people that support the different studio companies they work with. They help with my HR, banking, marketing, accounting, and finance. Basically, they take all of the back end work off my plate so that I can actually focus on building an awesome product and getting customers. Having something like that is vital, especially for first-time founders. Without connections, it's really difficult to get funding, but with them supporting my company’s operations, it takes off the lift of having to raise money to fill those roles early on.
What are your goals for Zinnia moving forward?
We just hired our first technical lead. I think one of my takeaways from that process is that policymakers must understand that finding a diverse talent network is a significant challenge. Despite trying to post in places like diversity and Black tech job boards, I discovered that there are very few reliable resources available to find qualified candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. We aim to build a culture of inclusivity and diversity, which includes looking beyond traditional talent pools. In the long term, I aspire to build a company that can be an inspiration to other women leading in tech and build a team that is reflective of our core values.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email advocacy@engine.is.
