
A colleague’s laptop-at-the-hospital story sent Mahima Chawla into the unlovely machinery of employee leave. Six years, 25,000-plus leaves and one acquisition later, her career offers a quiet lesson in building software for the moments when paperwork feels most personal.
Three former Stripe and Square operators started with one customer, one state and one leave type. Five years later, Cocoon had supported 25,000 leaves, won 400-plus employers and sold to TriNet - a neat lesson in turning regulatory sludge into useful software.