Episode Details

Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions.

Marco Zappacosta, co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack, joins NEW ECONOMIES to explain why Google search volume has reaccelerated to an all-time high post-ChatGPT, why the customers now converting through AI chat are more qualified and further into their decision than any channel Thumbtack has seen before, and why marketplaces for hiring humans, unlike commodity marketplaces such as Uber or food delivery, are mediated by certainty and confidence rather than speed and price.

About Thumbtack

Thumbtack is a technology company helping millions of people confidently care for and improve their homes. Every day in every county of the U.S., people turn to Thumbtack to complete small fixes, routine maintenance, and major improvements. With over 12 million 5-star projects and counting, they help homeowners and home professionals accomplish more.

Watch Now: Marco Zappacosta - co-founder of Thumbtack

We also cover why word of mouth, not a competitor, is Thumbtack’s biggest threat, capturing 80% of home-services demand through calls to neighbors and posts in group chats, and how LLMs are finally solving a personalization problem Thumbtack couldn’t crack in 20 years, replacing one generic question set per category with fully bespoke, project-specific questioning, using Marco’s own Murphy bed installation as the test case. We get into why almost no startup has survived in a marketplace category with close to a trillion dollars of spend, and what half the Thumbtack product team is now rebuilding around AI.

We close on the interface shift Marco almost missed, voice, not text, the board seat he still wants to fill, and where he expects human-capital marketplaces to go over the next 20 years.

This was a fascinating episode! Available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Watch or listen now across YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and X

Download the transcript 👇

Timestamps

(0:00) Meet Marco Zappacosta(1:57) Thumbtack Turns Nearly 20(3:00) Why Marketplaces Are Challenging(6:30) Thumbtack's First 12 Months(8:57) How Thumbtack Uses AI Today(17:34) The Ideal Customer Profile(19:18) How Homeownership Is Changing(24:09) Why Experts Have High Expectations(26:55) Building Trust With Users in Today's Environment(29:03) Experts Communicating Offline(