How Nextdoor Grew to 100M Neighbors + Why Founding CEO Nirav Tolia Returned Six Years Later

Nov 21, 2024

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.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Nirav's CEO Departure and Return

Nirav Tolia left his CEO role at Nextdoor in 2018 due to burnout and not being the best version of himself as a leader.
He moved to Italy, became a visiting professor, and joined a venture capital firm before unexpectedly returning as Nextdoor CEO in 2024.

INSIGHT

Founder's Edge in Innovation

Founders have unique insights when innovating products because they deeply understand the original vision.
Returning as a founder gives fresh perspective to transform a product that has grown stale.

ADVICE

Balancing Leadership and Family

Harmonize work and life by prioritizing what matters most during each life season.
Accept the sacrifices leadership requires and involve your family in major career decisions.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

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.

For full show notes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/d7bcd655-9b2f-47f7-a6e3-fdf3e109c97e

Recommended Podcast:
🎙️Unpack Pricing
Dive into the dark arts of SaaS pricing with Metronome CEO Scott Woody and tech leaders. Learn how strategic pricing drives explosive revenue growth in today's biggest companies like Snowflake, Cockroach Labs, Dropbox and more.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1765716600
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/38DK3W1Fq1xxQalhDSueFg

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

Referenced:
Nextdoor: https://nextdoor.com/
The Founder’s Mentality: https://www.amazon.com/Founders-Mentality-Overcome-Predictable-Crises/dp/1633691160

Follow Nirav:
Twitter: https://x.com/niravtolia
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niravtolia

Follow Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to get new episodes + transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/