How Nextdoor Grew to 100M Neighbors + Why Founding CEO Nirav Tolia Returned Six Years Later
Nov 21, 2024
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Nirav Tolia, co-founder and two-time CEO of Nextdoor, shares his unique journey from stepping down in 2018 to returning in 2024. He discusses the delicate balance of maintaining a startup culture within a public company and reflects on the challenges of leadership transitions. Tolia reveals insights on cultivating community, privacy, and growth—key elements that contributed to Nextdoor's rise to over 100 million neighbors. Plus, he shares experiences from his time on Shark Tank and lessons learned from navigating the tech landscape.
Nirav Tolia's return to Nextdoor after five years highlights the importance of adapting leadership styles to evolving company needs.
Nextdoor's growth strategy emphasizes comprehensive product innovation to enhance user engagement and meet contemporary social networking demands.
Balancing family commitments with professional responsibilities poses significant challenges for leaders, as demonstrated by Tolia's decision-making process upon his return.
Deep dives
The Journey of Neera Tolio and Nextdoor's Evolution
Neera Tolio's journey with Nextdoor began in 2011, driven by the need for a dedicated social network for neighborhoods. His departure as CEO in 2018 was a reflective decision influenced by a sense of burnout and the realization that leadership required evolving with the company’s growth. After stepping away, he found fulfillment in various roles, including a venture capitalist and educator, but the idea of returning to Nextdoor lingered. The emotional pull was strong, culminating in his return to the CEO role in 2024, motivated by a desire to lead the platform in a transformative phase.
Challenges and Lessons of Leadership
Returning to Nextdoor after five years posed significant challenges, particularly in the realm of leadership dynamics and company growth. Tolio acknowledged that successful leadership must adapt to the evolving demands of a growing company and reflected on his previous struggles with scalability at that stage. The experience of stepping down functioned as a crucial learning phase, allowing him to understand what it meant to nurture a company culture and the traits required of an effective leader. This introspection aimed to prepare him for the renewed responsibility and expectations upon his return.
The Need for Product Innovation
As Nextdoor evolved, the need for significant product innovation became evident, especially given the fast-paced changes in social media and technology. Tolio emphasized the necessity of transforming the platform to appeal to contemporary users, moving beyond incremental adjustments to a comprehensive overhaul. The company's historical reliance on user-generated content and local community-oriented features needed revitalization to meet current societal needs. The aspiration is to create an indispensable local application, reigniting the platform's growth potential and user engagement.
Navigating Family and Professional Life
Tolio's return to Nextdoor was marked by significant personal sacrifices, notably concerning family time. After moving to Texas to be closer to his family, he faced the dilemma of balancing his commitment to Nextdoor with his responsibilities at home. The decision-making process involved open discussions with his wife, acknowledging their shared ambitions and how the company’s future intertwined with their family dynamics. This commitment to both family and career exemplifies the challenges faced by leaders in maintaining a workable balance between personal and professional obligations.
The Future Landscape of Local Networking
Tolio envisions a bright future for Nextdoor within the realm of local networking, driven by a massive consumer opportunity that remains largely untapped. Unlike larger tech giants, Nextdoor's focus on local interactions positions it uniquely in its mission to foster community connections. The challenge lies in forging deeper engagement and developing a product strategy that meets users' needs beyond emergency situations. As the company works towards solidifying its role as a local information hub, Tolio reinforces the idea that the growth of community is both a personal and professional objective, reinforcing Nextdoor's relevancy in users' daily lives.
Nirav Tolia is the co-founder and two-time CEO of Nextdoor. He started the company in 2011, stepped down as CEO in 2018, watched the company go public in 2021, and re-joined as CEO the summer of 2024. He also founded Epinions which IPO’d in 2004, and before that was an early employee at Yahoo.
We go inside the decision to re-join the company after he thought he’d never come back, and how Nextdoor’s trying to act like a startup while running a public company. He also takes us back to the very early days of Nextdoor, the deliberate product decisions that made growth hard but led to 100M+ neighbors on the platform, the lessons learned operating his first company through the Dot Com Bubble, and what it was like being a guest shark on Shark Tank.
Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (02:39) Leaving Nextdoor in 2018 (07:30) Coming back in 2024 (10:31) The importance of family in career decisions (17:37) Why you have to listen to learn (24:47) The Founders Mentality (26:45) “Develop and Deliver” (32:03) Local, the last remaining consumer opportunity (36:58) Why being a founder is so hard (39:21) Going to the high school from Friday Night Lights (42:07) What Nirav learned at Stanford (46:22) Working at Yahoo from $500m to $100B (49:37) Starting Epinions with Naval in 1999 (51:11) Operating through the Dot Com Bubble (56:34) How Bill Gurley’s challenge led to Nextdoor (58:16) Early product experimentation (01:05:19) Why early growth was so hard, and scaling to 100 million neighbors (01:10:10) The opportunity in local news (01:12:14) Being a Shark on Shark Tank
