The Inside Story of Nextdoor with Sarah Friar

The NFX Podcast

In this episode, Pete Flint converses with Sarah Friar about her career and the COVID impact on Nextdoor. They discuss crisis leadership, the power of storytelling, the evolving landscape of social networks, and building network effects in localized businesses. The conversation also touches on balancing growth, community engagement, new technologies' potential consequences, and different ways for a company to go public.

Nextdoor, the social media app for neighborhoods, which is actively used in 1 in 3 households in the U.S., was recently valued at $4.3B and listed on the NYSE last week (November 8, 2021) under the ticker symbol "KIND."

Today’s episode is a glimpse into the thoughtful, humanist view of Sarah Friar, the CEO of Nextdoor, former CFO of Square, and board member of Slack. She cautions us not to disappear into the metaverse, and also encourages today’s and tomorrow’s Founders to cure gaps in the world — and do it with eyes wide open to consequences at scale.

There’s more tension than there is harmony between “offline vs. online,” and yet one company is uniquely positioned to bridge the two for the benefit of us all.

(0:00) Introduction and Sarah Friar's career journey (7:33) The impact of the COVID pandemic on Nextdoor and crisis leadership (15:13) Nextdoor as a purpose-driven company and the power of storytelling (22:32) Sponsor message (23:27) The changing landscape of social networks: the metaverse and community (29:09) Building network effects in localized businesses and overcoming the cold start problem (37:44) Balancing growth and community engagement, and the potential consequences of new technologies (41:50) Different ways a company can go public and understanding the business before IPO (47:41) Closing remarks and thanks to Sarah Friar