Marco Zappacosta
Born1985
Stanford, California
Alma materColumbia University (BA)
OccupationBusinessman
Known forCo-founder and CEO of Thumbtack (website)
Parent

Marco Zappacosta (born 1985)[1] is an American businessman. He co-founded Thumbtack and serves as the company's CEO.[2]

Biography

Zappacosta was born in Stanford, California in 1985 and grew up in Atherton, California.[3] His father is Pierluigi Zappacosta, an Italian businessman and electrical engineer who emigrated to the United States in the 1970s and co-founded the Swiss computer hardware manufacturer and software maker Logitech.[1] He is bilingual and speaks Italian.[4] He attended the nearby Saint Joseph’s School or SJS through 1999, a feeder elementary shool and associate to the historic Preparatory Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton, 1999-2003.

Marco enjoyed automobiles growing up, specifically his blue pearl 2003 Subaru WRX STI with gold rims he enjoyed through the summer leading up into his departure for the Ivy League.

Zappacosta attended Columbia University, graduating in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in political science.[5][6] During college, Zappacosta was the director of Students for Saving Social Security (S4) in Washington, D.C., a group representing the student voice in the Social Security debate, with more than 10,000 student members in over 300 campus chapters nationwide.[6][7]

He later came up with the idea of creating an online marketplace matching service providers and their customers. In 2008, he launched Thumbtack with two of his fellow S4 directors Jonathan Swanson and Jeremy Tunnell, as well as Sander Daniels.[8][9][10][4]

In the early years, Zappacosta and his team were scraping Craigslist and built an online directory of verified service providers with their photos, license, and reviews. The idea appealed to angel investor Jason Calacanis, who became the first person to invest in the startup.[8]

Zappacosta led the company to develop and launch an instant matching feature that automates and streamlines the booking process between customers and professionals, a process taking nine years and 25 million requests from Thumbtack's over 1,000 categories of jobs.[8]

As of 2021, Thumbtack has a $3.2 billion valuation and has the highest number of professional listings, followed by Yelp.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b "Thumbtack's Founder Was Born Into Family of Tech Entrepreneurs". Fortune. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  2. ^ Smiley, Lauren (2018-02-19). "How Thumbtack Creates Work By Giving The Yellow Pages An AI Twist". Fast Company. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  3. ^ "Marco Zappacosta". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  4. ^ a b "Marco Zappacosta, il Billion dollar boy che ha fondato il "Tinder per lavoratori"". la Repubblica (in Italian). 2016-03-18. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  5. ^ "AitN: March 12, 2018". Columbia College Today. Retrieved August 21, 2021.
  6. ^ a b "Meet Marco Zappacosta, one of Fast Company's Most Creative People". Fast Company. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  7. ^ "Home - Students for Saving Social Security". www.secureourfuture.org. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  8. ^ a b c "How did Thumbtack win the on-demand services market?". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  9. ^ Dishman, Lydia (January 29, 2020). "Interview with CEO of Thumbtack". US Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  10. ^ Parker, Garrett (2019-06-28). "10 Things You Didn't Know about Thumbtack Founder Sander Daniels". Money Inc. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  11. ^ "Home services platform Thumbtack raises $275M on a $3.2B valuation to double down on home management". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
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