Thread by @swaaanson

1/ We recently celebrated a decade (!) of building Thumbtack so I’m sharing a few of the lessons we’ve learned along the way.

Zero to $1B - 8 Lessons Scaling a Startup: medium.com/@swaaanson/zer…

And for the lazy web, here's some highlights:

2/ A decade ago: I was sleeping in a closet at Thumbtack’s first house, which we pretended was an office. We had no customers, no product, no money (thus the closet).

3/ Fast forward to today: Thumbtack has raised a quarter billion $, has an amazing team of 1000, and most importantly helps hundreds of thousands of small businesses earn $1B+/year.

4/ In between those two data points was lots of 😀and 🤔and 😱. What follows are my key takeaways for current or aspiring entrepreneurs, as well as some personal news at the end.

5/ Lesson #1: If confidence + humility is a spectrum, you don't want to live in the middle; you need to live on the extremes of both ends

6/ Lesson #2: You must co-found a series of companies (not just one)

7/ Lesson #3: Your happiness may have a .64 correlation with your startup success

8/ Lesson #4: The best companies win on product innovation AND business model innovation

9/ Lesson #5: Culture is a self-fulfilling story designed to help you win

10/ Lesson #6: It’s helpful to have an irrational motivation

11/ Lesson #7: The unsung secret of scaling is a high tolerance for boredom

12/ Lesson #8: Scaling a company requires scaling yourself (hire an EA early)

13/ My personal news: I've moved to Exec Chairman at Thumbtack. Thumbtack will remain a top priority for me in the decade ahead (we’re just getting started!), but I’m excited (and very lucky) to be able to tackle some new projects as well. A few things I’m interested in:

Fin/ THANK YOU to the Thumbtack team, past and present, who have grinded with me early in the morning, late at night, on weekends, & everything in between. You've got my love and loyalty for life. In the first decade we built the foundation; let's make the 2nd decade 10x bigger!