This Entrepreneur Raised $75 Million to Create One Single API For All Integrations Shensi Ding has already raised $75M for her tech startup, Merge, despite getting started in the middle of the COVID crisis. On the Dealmakers Show, Shensi shares her perspective on what makes a good company: covering skills needed in a co-founding team, validating and honing your idea, the benefits of building your company in a crisis, getting your first sales reps hired, starting out in the trenches, the importance of sales and storytelling, and setting a company culture. Listen to all the details from the podcast here. Gaining Invaluable Perspectives On Building A Successful Company Shensi grew up in the suburbs of Boston. Since it was so cold and there wasn’t a ton to do inside during the winters, she took to computers and taught herself how to code at just 12 years old. Her parents were supportive of her love of technology. She started building websites and doing software engineering internships, ultimately attending Columbia University in New York to study computer science. Finding a love for problem-solving beyond coding later took Shensi into investment banking and investing. She chose this direction because she felt like she had a skills gap in understanding how to read financial statements, evaluate a company, and analyze its performance. From that time working in finance, Shensi learned a lot about what makes successful and sustainable companies -- which ones had great moats, which ones had weak returns, etc. This education has carried forward to her own venture today. Learning The Ropes Before Plunging Headlong When it came to building her own venture, Shensi’s passion and willingness to get in the trenches and first work in each role made all the difference, especially when it came to sales, building the team, and fundraising. Shensi and her cofounder, Gil Feig, started Merge by building the product themselves. They wanted to understand their product intimately, and they…
