From Imaginary Company to Real Success: LSU Students' Zenith Software Empowers Small Businesses

In 2021, sophomore computer science majors Darrin Lea, Blake Bollinger, John Bajor and Trevor Baughman wanted to attend CES. The problem? The country’s biggest tech show was only open to business professionals.

So, they created a website for what was then a fictitious company, Zenith Software.

“But something important happened in the process. We realized that we actually enjoyed making websites. We started talking to people locally, to find out where we could make an impact,” said Bajor, Zenith’s chief operating officer. “It took about a year for us to land our first paying customer.”

Fast forward to the present. Zenith, with offices in LSU Innovation Park, now creates custom apps and websites for small businesses who want more than they can get from Squarespace or other budget website builders. Zenith’s services also include technical consultations and project roadmapping.

The Zenith team is also adding other skills through free consulting and training offered at the business incubator, including performing customer discovery and sales and marketing. “By building these business skills, Zenith’s team is better prepared to meet client needs and grow their company,” said Jason Boudreaux, interim director of the park.

Zenith is no longer exclusively local – one of its recent customers is based in New York – and has grown to seven full- and part-time employees.

“One of our biggest advantages is our size,” Bajor said. “We’re big enough to where we can tackle a big project, but we’re small enough where we can pivot quickly if the project changes or the client wants something different.”

Flexibility is important, especially if you’re working with a startup. With a website or an app, a startup’s plans can change rapidly. Every week the client may need to tweak its website or app.

“There’s been more than one occasion where we get a call from a client at 8 p.m., saying, ‘Hey, we need to change some stuff,” CEO Tre Landaiche said. “We have the versatility to work through that almost immediately.”

It’s a big advantage for clients, especially local ones. For Zenith’s competitors, such as low-cost offshore developers, that emergency call may come in the middle of the night. A delay of several hours can be crucial for a startup.

“If you’re a startup and if you have to save as much money as you can, you may want to go with an offshore website developer,” Bajor said. “But there is definitely a huge benefit to having local developers, people you can talk to face to face, and people you may have even chatted with at a pitch competition or a business roundtable.”

For more about Zenith, click here.