CEO, Thumbtack
Marco Zappacosta is a co-Founder & CEO of Thumbtack, a startup that lets people find local professionals for “pretty much anything”. Thumbtack has raised over $400 million and is valued at well over $1 billion. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Cyan Banister, Jason Calcanis and brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi. Marco has been recognized by Forbes as top “30 under 30” entrepreneur, and Thumbtack is recognized as one of GlassDoor’s “best places to work”.
In this episode, Marco discusses how he built Thumbtack, and what it’s like to transition from overseeing a small team, to hundreds of people. He talks about how Thumbtack is succeeding where others failed – getting liquidity in local markets.
We also discuss how Thumbtack enables local ‘entrepreneurs’ to build their business on its platform, and find a market for their traditional or unique service. Finally we cover what structural changes are needed in the US economy to enable ‘gig’ workers, and why he’s been interested in the state of Social Security since college.
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