How Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta Parses Through Mountains of Advice as a First-Time Founder

Today’s episode is with Marco Zappacosta, co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack. He’s spent the last 13 years building the company into a billion-dollar business  — and it’s his first and only job after graduating college.

In today’s conversation, Marco dives into the company milestones that require a return to first principles versus pulling from a tested playbook, and the mental models he leans on when parsing through the mountains of advice he gets as a first-time founder and CEO. He connects these dots to how he manages Thumbtack’s board so those quarterly meetings are a critical resource, not just a time suck — and why he shares the board deck with the entire company.

He also candidly reflects on Thumbtack’s COVID-related layoff last year, and what he specifically did as CEO to make sure the folks that remained still had confidence in the company and his leadership moving forward. 

Finally, he opens up his playbook for choosing what to spend his time on as a busy CEO with only so many hours in the day — and perhaps more importantly, how he stays accountable for these priorities.

Today’s conversation is a must-listen for company-builders across all industries and growth stages, as well as folks that have hopes to someday occupy these same seats. 

To learn more about how Marco and Thumbtack approach executive hiring, check out the article on First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/assembling-an-executive-leadership-team-is-daunting-let-thumbtacks-ceo-help

You can follow Marco on Twitter at @mlz.

You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/firstround and twitter.com/brettberson