Care.com's Dave Krupinski: 5 lessons for marketplaces
Co-founder Krupinski's Lessons Learned at Splash Oakland 2014
Dave Krupinski, Co-founder and CTO of Care.com, joined us at Vator Splash Oakland to share five lessons he's learned about building marketplaces. He should know. Care.com is one of the leading care-giving services in the world, if not the leading. After being founded by Krupinski and Sheila Marcelo, co-founder and CEO, back in 2006, the duo grew the company to 10.7 million members in 16 countries. Care.com went public earlier this year at $17 a share.
Here are Krupinski's lessons:
1) DREAM: you've got to dream big. Care.com's dream was solving a universal need for families. When the company first launched, skeptics thought Care was a nice little babysitting club. Don't listen to the skeptics and keep dreaming.
2) BE DISRUPTIVE BY AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE: Don't just disrupt. Disrupt big.
3) GET THE MODEL RIGHT: Think about which side of the marketplace to charge. Care understood that families had a higher sense of urgency and deeper pockets. So the demand side of the marketplace was charged. Consider frequency of use and degree of loyalty of the demand side.
4) BE OPEN TO THE UNIQUENESS OF YOUR MARKETPLACE
5) LEVERAGE THE PLATFORM: The platform can be a great launch pad for other services. Think about how to leverage the assets. For instance, for Care, since there were four million vetted caregivers, the company made those care-givers available and accessible to employers, that would then offer to their employees.
Thanks to our Vator Splash Oakland video sponsor, Oakland Forward and Bryan Parker.
Sheila Marcelo, co-founder & CEO of Care.com, shared her lessons to entrepreneurs at Splash NY. See below for the articles and videos.
Mitos Suson
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Care.com
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Founded in 2006, Care.com is the largest and fastest growing service used by families to find high-quality caregivers, providing a trusted place to easily connect, share caregiving experiences and get advice. The company addresses the unique lifecycle of care needs that each family goes through-child care, special needs care, tutoring and lessons, senior care, pet care, housekeeping and more. The service helps families find and select the best care available based on detailed profiles, background checks and references for hundreds of thousands of mom-reviewed and pre-screened providers who seek to share their services. Through its Care.com Employer Program, corporations can offer Care.com memberships as a benefit to employees. www.care.com
Dave Krupinski
Joined Vator on
As Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Care.com, Dave oversees all engineering, QA, product management, reporting/analytics, prod ops and IT activities. Dave has over 20 years of experience designing & developing software and online services.