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.