# From Software Engineer to startup Co-Founder: How I Overcame My Fears and Launched a $1.7 Billion Company
I always had an entrepreneurial spirit, but I never really thought about going off and starting my own business.
At the University of Texas at Austin, I studied computer engineering, starting with hardware design before pivoting to software engineering. I truly love technology, and especially software engineering, because you’re coding to solve problems – I still love solving problems.
My husband’s an entrepreneur who’s always had his own businesses.He’d encourage me to start my own business, but I was too concerned. Sometimes women can think too hard about doing something; that’s what held me back from becoming an entrepreneur.
For women in male-dominated fields, it’s crucial to seek out mentors who can help you from their experience, even if their journey looked different from yours. you can bounce ideas off them and ask them questions. Mentorship pushes you, but it also gives you assurance and confidence.
Over the course of my career,I learned so much,wich helped me when I made the leap to founder.
> “Small businesses are what keep the economy growing.”
I first met my ZenBusiness co-founder Ross Buhrdorf when we worked at Excite.com, a web portal company founded in 1994. Several years later, I joined HomeAway, a vacation rental marketplace, where I stayed for 11 years until the company was acquired by Expedia.
Later on, Ross and I met up for coffee, and he started talking about this idea of building something to help entrepreneurs and peopel who are starting small businesses. I was intrigued and excited. I’d always been passionate about that category in the market: Small businesses are what keep the economy growing and going.So Ross and I founded ZenBusiness in 2017.
When it comes to a fast-growing company like ours, we have so many things on our to-do list, but we don’t always have the resources to get them done at the same time, so we have to prioritize.
AI has been one of those priorities. Everybody in business should be using it these days.It’s a great tool that saves time once you get employees on board and using it based on their role and function. Our personalized AI assistant, ZenBusiness Velo, is included with every LLC formation.
Image Credit: Courtesy of ZenBusiness. Co-founder and COO Shanaz Hemmati.