EP11: Sander Daniels, co-founder of Thumbtack, on idea exploration, key phases in building a marketplace, and his secret to effective cofounder relationships

Paradigm Shift

In this conversation we chat about so many key moments in Sanders journey cofounding, building and scaling Thumbtack into a $3.2b business with 900+ employees over 13 years.

We start with the founding story and weekly brainstorm calls that led to the company. We then talk about the four key phases of building a successful marketplace startup, from finding product-market fit to hyper-scaling. And finally, we talk about how Sander and his co-founders built incredible long term relationships, working together for 13+ years.

We hope you enjoy this amazing episode!
Episode Highlights

1. Growing up in DC and going to Law School
2. Two big levers to make a difference— Politics and Technology
3. Thumbtack founding— weekly phone calls brainstorming ideas for a year
4. Thumbtack today 13 years later— 900+ employees, over $500m raised, $3.2b valuation
5. How to come up with good ideas, and innovation as a deliberate process
6. Alternate ideas and names explored (like “TimeStrapped!”)
7. Marketplace liquidity as most important thing in early days
8. Early days: solved supply first, then focussed on demand for 18mos
9. Key moment in unlocking demand: early SEO insight and strategy
10. Key to growing fast: one big channel where you go super deep
11. Barriers to entry for more founders that prevent taking risk
12. How Sander overcame those barriers and how it shaped his thinking on risk
13. Challenges raising early VC based on user growth alone— 45 A-round passes
14. Four key phases: building supply, building demand, finding the right revenue model, hyper scaling
15. Challenges and frustrations during the hyper scaling phase
16. Reflection on power of focus, and also narrative/PR
17. Power of hiring exec coaches to scale as founders and a team
18. Building strong co-founder relationships: structured approach, and long term focus
19. Advice for founders and building successful long term working relationships
20. Putting on blinders and focussing on what you can control
21. Scaling as a founder and building out multiple different areas
22. Operating in your zone of genius to stay energized for 13+ years
23. Thumbtack’s culture and how they built and shaped it
24. Framework for giving/recieving feedback and turning it into an action plan for growth
25. Reflections on Thumbtacks superpowers and shadows of those strengths
26. Book recommendation: Design Your Life
27. New projects: (1) Scaled- bringing innovation to recruiting (2) New mobile dog grooming business that can train and up level anyone to earn $100k+
28. Sander’s super power, lucky breaks, and book recommendations

Links

• Start using Thumbtack to find local professionals for pretty much anything
• Hire People, Finance, Legal talent with Scaled
• Follow Sander @sanderdaniels

Hit subscribe to keep up with new episodes!

Follow Ashish and Zane on Twitter for summaries

Click here to give feedback — it only takes a minute.