Exploring Founding Dynamics and Innovative Solutions in Tech

In today’s episode, Jackson Ellis hosts Shensi Ding, the co-founder of Merge, a unified API platform that simplifies B2B integrations across categories like HR, accounting, and CRM. Shensi shares her journey, the playbook behind scaling a developer-first GTM motion, and how the best founders balance product intensity with storytelling. Tune in to hear about: - How Merge built a category-defining product by focusing on the "plumbing" behind software - Why developer empathy and real documentation became their biggest competitive moat - The challenges and wins of fundraising while scaling in a crowded API ecosystem