Before Fresha was a company with a billion-dollar valuation, William Zeqiri was a student in Auckland who was already being paid to write software.
From 1999 to 2002 he studied Information Systems at the University of Auckland, and during those years he worked as a contracted software engineer for several companies. That is the sort of detail that never reaches a funding announcement, but it explains the founder: someone who learned the trade by being useful to paying customers before he had a degree.
What almost nobody remembers is that Fresha did not begin under that name.
When he graduated, he did not rush off to a big firm. He co-founded MacroWeb, a web development and hosting company, and became its chief technology officer. In between he consulted on IT for large organisations including Air New Zealand and Auckland Hospital. He also earned the Project Management Professional credential in 2014, a quiet sign that he cared about how things get delivered as well as built.
What almost nobody remembers is that Fresha did not begin under that name. Zeqiri started the company in April 2015 with Nick Miller, who became chief of product, and it traded as Shedul until it rebranded as Fresha in 2020. The business was aimed at the least glamorous customers in tech: independent hairdressers, barbers, nail bars and spas who ran their diaries on paper.
The model was bold. The software was free. Fresha made its money from payments and from a consumer marketplace, so a salon owner could start without a contract or a card. It is a model that depends on volume, and volume depended on being better than the incumbents' paid tools.
By the time of its latest reported raise, in May 2026, a KKR-led investment valued Fresha at roughly $1bn and brought reported total capital to about $285m. The company has said it is profitable, with a revenue run-rate above $140m, and by earlier counts it hosted over 50,000 businesses and handled over 20 million bookings a month, headquartered in London.
For a founder the lesson sits in how Zeqiri's early years prepared him. He was a builder who worked for clients before graduation, ran a service business before a product one, and picked a customer base that bigger software firms had underserved.