#StartupsEverywhere: Remy Meraz, Co-Founder and CEO, Zella Life
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.
Building a Better Workspace with AI
Executive coaching should be accessible to anyone who is interested, but oftentimes scaling the education is not practical. With her company Zella Life, co-founder Remy Meraz is democratizing professional development using AI. We sat down with her to discuss AI, independent contractors, and more.
Tell us about your background. What led you to Zella Life?
Zella Life is rooted in my lived experiences as a manager in corporate America, where I was identified as having high potential but still faced a glass ceiling. Several factors contributed to this. First, I lacked leaders who looked like me, which meant I wasn’t receiving the same mentorship as my colleagues, particularly in male-dominated industries. Second, I didn’t have the psychological safety to discuss the challenges I faced as a woman and a person of color. Lastly, the training and development being offered was very cookie cutter and didn't address my individual needs and challenges.
I asked about executive coaching and was told, "It’s only for executives." That’s a big elephant in the room within organizations—they can’t offer coaching at scale. The same small group of executives continues to get access to coaching, while those who really need it are left out. So, I took it upon myself to invest in coaching on my own. Through that experience, I discovered my blind spots and gained insight into how my lived experiences were affecting my role in the workplace.
The investment in coaching was transformational for my career. I started getting promoted and earning more money. Conversations I had with leaders and clients stood out to me during this time. They all said the same thing: people were their biggest challenge. Employees did great work, but many lacked the leadership and soft skills needed for promotion. As a result, they became bored or frustrated and eventually left. This was a recurring theme, whether I was working in large enterprise environments or with startups and small businesses.
What is the work you all are doing at Zella Life?
Zella Life offers an AI-powered executive coaching platform with a mix of service and technology. The technology we offer provides deep insights into the talent pain points as well as organizational pain points within a company through analytics. We built an AI tool that sits on top of a larger language model and trained it to identify these pain points.
In today’s hypersensitive climate, many employees aren’t honest in surveys or with their leaders, fearing repercussions like being canceled, called out, or fired. This has widened the development and advancement gap, particularly for underserved talent, and we’re addressing these issues head-on and proud to share that 46 percent of the talent we’ve coached to date has gone on to receive advancement opportunities or performance pay increases.
Middle managers, diverse, and young talent are underserved workforce groups starving for coaching but companies just can't offer it. At the enterprise level, 55 percent of issues stem from middle management. Similarly, startup founders and small business owners benefit from coaching. For example, Many middle managers in organizations reach a point where they think, "I can do this better" or "I want to work for myself." In essence, the persona of a middle manager often mirrors that of a small business owner or startup founder.
However, the ecosystem is structured in a way that the focus is almost entirely on building the business—accessing capital and securing funding. People often forget to invest in the founder, which is why 65% of small businesses and startups fail due to people-related issues. We want to help solve the people problem part, which will lead to a paradigm shift within the ecosystem.
What challenges have you encountered as an AI startup?
As a startup using AI, there are a few key areas that we believe should receive more attention. There's more need for streamline guidance around AI regulation and compliance. We often face challenges in navigating the complex regulatory landscape, especially as it relates to data privacy and the ethical use of AI.
We need more clear, accessible guidelines and resources that would help us innovate responsibly without being overwhelmed by the compliance costs or confusion. Similarly, more support should be given to startups working to develop and deploy AI technologies for positive impact. That could look like access to grants, more non-dilutive funding, or R&D tax credits.
How does open access to LLMs and building off of existing AI models impact your company?
Openness helps us tremendously. First and foremost, it creates a level field where we can actually compete with the bigger players. We are competing on a business front with the Goliaths of the coaching industry, and we're winning business.
Building off of existing LLMs creates that opportunity for us to be in the marketplace faster. If it wasn't there, from a cost perspective, then it all ties back to access to capital and the funding piece of it. How do you build something really scrappy to demonstrate so you can get funding?
We see AI as a powerful tool to democratize access to high quality coaching and that soft skill development piece that's missing within organizations, no matter what size enterprise down to small business. By building on and fine-tuning existing LLM models, we’re able to pursue our mission of supporting underserved workforce communities.
Criticism against independent contractors continues to shape policy conversations. How does your company utilize independent contractors and what thoughts do you have?
In California there's a lot of stringent policy now around independent contractors and as a small business, we are very mindful of those laws and not getting in trouble. It's important for lawmakers to understand that the gig economy is real.
I just had a conversation with one of my independent contractors about this recently. They discussed how they have their family to take care of as well as their parents, and having flexibility is key to their success.
It’s important to realize that independent contractors and the gig economy are not going away. They are here, so how do we create policy that both protects the gig worker and supports small businesses. Especially in California, where it's very expensive to employ folks, independent contractors give us an opportunity to create and develop our workforce in the U.S. instead of offshore.
What are your goals for Zella Life moving forward?
It’s all about scaling at this point, trying to help as many people as possible and expanding the market reach. We are also working to position Zella Life as a resource, and demonstrate how AI is being used for good to solve critical issues.
Right now, with everything going on, conversations regarding AI are rooted in fear. Policymakers cannot make decisions rooted in fear, and have to take into consideration the startup community.
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.
