00:10:42 · Nirav Tolia
I was lucky enough to have Jerry Yang, one of the founders there. And he came over to me towards the end of the party and he said, You know, I wish you so much luck. I'm excited for you, but I'm curious, why are you leaving Yahoo? No one is leaving this company right now. And I said, Jerry, when I think about this amazing thing you've built, I wanna do the same thing. And he kinda looked at me with a puzzled look, and I said, You understand that, right Jerry? And he said, Yes, I do understand it. But do you have any idea how hard it is to build a company? And the truth is I didn't. And one of the amazing thing about entrepreneurs, one of the amazing things is, they don't know how difficult it's going to be when they start a company. If they did, they might not begin in the first place. But I went off, I started my own company, lots of highs and lows, ultimately a pretty good outcome. I went on to start multiple other companies. I became an investor, but all of it was because I wanted to be an entrepreneur because I felt that was the best way to have impact. Almost 30% of Americans could not name a single neighbor by name.
00:12:01 · S1, S2, S10, S11
Ad[00:12:01] S1: This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:12:30] S2: With the score tied Afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game. That's when my buddy recommended blinds.com. Ad[00:12:37] S10: With custom window treatments made to fit your style, space, and budget, customers who shop at blinds.com experienced overwhelming Side effects may include a fuller, deeper night's sleep and the sudden urge to host the watch party again. Blinds.com isn't a medication, but it can improve how you feel about your home. Ad[00:12:55] S11: Shop Black Friday all month long at blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week.
00:12:55 · S11, S12, S13
Ad[00:12:55] S11: Shop Black Friday all month long at blinds.com. Don't miss huge deals dropping every week. Ad[00:13:01] S12: This is Blue from the UPS Store with a very special holiday announcement for small business owners. We're open. Let's be real. Your deadlines don't take holidays. So while the other guys are checking out, the UPS Store is here to pack, ship, print, shred, notarize, and check more things off your list all year long. With over 5,500 locations, there's a blue near you at the UPS store. Shredding services are provided by Iron Mountain as is. Visit the upsstore.com/shredding for full details. Most locations are independently owned. Product service prices, and hours of operation may vary. See store for details. Ad[00:13:31] S13: The Vuori core short moves with you. With everyday versatility and classic athletic fit. It's the one short for everything your day brings. Invest in your happiness and get 20% off your first purchase at viore.com/coretwenty. That's vuori.com/kore2zero. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions.
00:14:01 · Nirav Tolia
[00:14:01] S8: So those bonds in the local community, they had been eroding. We found a book called Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, the chair of the sociology department at Harvard. And the book was about the sport bowling and its evolution in America and how the popularity of the sport has not changed, but people no longer bowl in bowling leagues. They bowl alone. And it was a symbol of the decline and erosion of community. So we started to look around in our industry, in our lives, in the world in general, and here's what we noticed. We noticed the emergence of social media services. This was the summer of twenty ten. Facebook was starting to really ascend. LinkedIn was starting to ascend. Twitter, now called X, was starting to ascend. And so there was a social platform connecting you to your friends, connecting you to your business colleagues, connecting you to people that you found interesting. There wasn't a social platform though that was connecting you to the physical world in which you lived, your neighborhood. And so as we moved from what was happening in the industry to what was happening in our own lives, we were getting a little older, we were getting more rooted in our neighborhoods, we were less likely to move away, we were more likely to invest in the place that we'd chosen to live. But technology wasn't helping us make those investments. The same way Facebook was making it seamless for us to communicate with friends that we hadn't seen in years, there was no technology service that was making it easy to speak to the person next door. Now we don't rely on that village of the neighborhood where it does take a village. We don't have it anymore. All of those things compelled us, really inspired us to think, can we create a social media service that's focused on what we believe is one of the most important parts of our lives, and that is our local community. The idea was the neighborhood is one of the most important communities of them all, And ironically, while technology may have caused us to retreat away from our neighborhoods and onto our screens, can we use those same screens to bring us back to our neighborhoods? And that was the original vision. To hear from actual neighbors what they wanted in a technology tool to make their neighborhoods stronger, safer, and happier.
00:16:31 · Nirav Tolia, S0
And so before we wrote a line of code, before we designed a single interface, before we thought about the business model, we simply drew a mock up on a piece of paper and we showed it to neighbors and we let them respond. And very quickly we found out that there were no existing technology tools that were bringing people together locally. We could use technology to speak to people on the other side of the world in real time, but there was no technology tool that would introduce us to the person right across the street. And so instantly we knew there was an opportunity, but the problem is when we started the company, the need for Nextdoor existed because people didn't know their neighbors. So if you don't know your neighbors, how do you invite them to a service? And this was a paradoxical challenge for us from the very beginning. The value we were looking to create was squarely in the way of us being able to build that value in the first place. And so we had to invest in really understanding the manual ways to get the first few people in the neighborhood and make sure they were the right few people. And then we had to invest in offline mechanisms, flyers, postcards. People used to laugh at us and say, let me get this straight. You're using real paper, like dead tree paper to advertise your service? And we would say, well, our service is about the real world. Ad[00:18:01] S0: This episode is brought to
00:18:01 · S0, S1, S14, S15
Ad[00:18:01] S0: This episode is brought to Ad[00:18:03] S1: you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:18:31] S14: When you shop Kroger delivery, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries delivered right to your door. Our refrigerated trucks keep your items fresh while our associates are committed to getting every detail right, carefully selecting and packing your order with care because bringing you fresh, quality groceries is what we do best. And right now, enjoy $30 off your first online order of $75 or more. Restrictions apply. Seasight for details. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Ad[00:19:01] S15: This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like all I want. Right. Okay. We can afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're gonna stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.