Meet Sunny Zhang
“Houston is the most diverse city in the world and that provides a tremendous opportunity to force underrepresented and underserved groups into the startup and innovation limelight. My mission is to make Houston a Global Innovation City.”
After reading that inspiring quote, you may think Dr. Sunny Zhang has lofty goals, but she’ll tell you herself she can always be doing more. Sunny is a natural born connector that has an innate ability to seamlessly integrate different people, groups, industries, and ideas to make things happen – and that’s really why she founded Z LAB. This full-service innovation company helps Link Academia to Business – which is what LAB stands for. She focuses on those usually left behind and newly arrived, the underrepresented and underserved, the “Z’s” of the innovation world.
Hence, through her daily work, Sunny enjoys solving the chicken versus egg problem. Under-resourced groups may have innovative perspectives to identify and solve problems, but they don’t have the resources and connections to start a company, and they also don’t have access to funding given venture capital [almost] always requires demonstrated value, revenue or profitability.
Sunny’s process is simple and very effective. Z LAB becomes a co-founder. They invest early and provide necessary support in four crucial areas to launch successfully.
Financial Capital – They provide the money needed to get started.
Intellectual Capital – They leverage and nourish what the founders know.
Human Capital – They form the team that collaborates to make it happen.
Social Capital – They connect the idea to a vast network of industry advisors and partners.
Combining these four areas of investment gives aspiring entrepreneurs all they need to take flight. In layman's terms: Z LAB gives them a fighting chance. And this is as HOUnited as you can get. Sunny believe that this concept works very well in Houston because of its diverse population. The vast range of minority groups and immigrant communities that dream of launching the next big thing can easily work with Z LAB to get started – and they do this everyday!
