Buhrdorf referenced LegalZoom as a competitor and noted that ZenBusiness has hired employees from LegalZoom, HomeAway, and Expedia. He described the business formation market as highly competitive, with the market having moved back to zero-cost formation offerings.
Buhrdorf compared ZenBusiness's platform ambition to Shopify, stating that what Shopify does for e-commerce, ZenBusiness does for the service sector. He noted that Shopify was trading at a 9x revenue multiple at the time of the interview and that Shopify's net revenue retention is above 100 percent. These figures were stated by Buhrdorf as his characterization of a competitor and are not Shopify-confirmed figures. Airbnb was cited as a benchmark, with Buhrdorf noting its valuation at the time of the interview was $100 billion, in the context of discussing whether HomeAway was sold too early.