Her Story
About Katherine
I come from advertising and marketing. I used to work for Guess, and I actually used to be, a long time ago, the assistant to Paul Marciano, the founder of Guess. From there, I got kind of inspired by him and how he always used to talk about building a brand, and how important that was. I always wanted to build my own brand, so that's kind of what I'm doing with Zona. I had my own agency, Unknown Behavior, and I worked with different clients, mainly with boutiques in Miami Beach, like fashion boutiques and Nikki's Beach House. I used all my connections that I had with Unknown Behavior to continue to build Zona. When I started Zona, I didn't know anything about tech - front-end, back-end, I didn't know anything. I actually designed the app on Figma myself. I learned Figma, I designed the app, every page, every button, everything, every flow that you see on the app was designed by me without having any tech background. I did a lot of research, I talked to a lot of developers on LinkedIn, and I figured out how I wanted to build it. I learned how to code because I felt like I needed to be more involved in things that I needed to get done quicker, and also to create other features. I ended up becoming kind of like the product owner. I've been involved in every aspect of Zona. Right now, it's just building relationships. We're getting emails from venues, bars, and clubs that want to be a part of it. I've had a club from Dubai ask in our DMs if we were gonna be launching in Dubai. Our social media has been helpful, and building relationships is really what holds the app.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Katherine
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think as long as I kept it light and fun, and just remembered how and why it started, that's been key. Obviously, there's days that I want to cry - there's always those days, right? But for the most part, I always wanted to keep it light and fun. I learned a lot along the way. In the beginning, the problem was that we just got a lot of users, and we didn't know how to retain them. That was probably initially our biggest issue. I was focusing on the wrong things - I was focused on features and adding more features, and I think that was a big distraction for me. Once we had the product built and I said, okay, let's stop adding features, I was able to focus on the marketing and the sales part of it. I think I also learned a lot from being inspired by Paul Marciano, the founder of Guess, and how he always used to talk about building a brand and how important that was. I've been involved in every aspect of Zona, and I think that's been important too.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I wish more women would execute on their ideas, you know? We have so many great ideas. Even if they're dumb, try it, and like, you know, who knows, maybe something else comes out of that idea. You learn from that, you know? I learned a lot from Zona, and I'm actually building something else. I think as well as you just keep trying and not just talk about it. Just execute.
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