The long view
When we started Thumbtack eight years ago, I never imagined we’d still be building it today.
Knowing the startup odds, I assumed we’d have failed long ago. And in the unlikely case we hadn’t failed, I naively assumed life would be easy. That we’d have cracked the nut, already built to the completion of our vision. After all, I thought, no vision — no matter how expansive — could possibly take more than eight years to build. Right?
There are many reasons Thumbtack is still alive today. Not just alive, but thriving beyond anyone’s early dreams or expectations.
Right decision-making. Scrappiness, risk-taking. An idea that matters whose time has come. Team. Technical innovation. Luck, chance, and good fortune (lots).
Of all the ingredients in this unlikely recipe, however, turns out that one of the most potent is one I understood least when we started: the long view.
The long view is compromising on small disagreements in service of keeping the team together, because you need each other to build towards the greater vision.
The long view is dreaming decades ahead and reasoning backwards to steps you can take today to bring that dream to life.
The long view is choosing to work on something that matters if you’re in a position to do so, because it’s your responsibility and life is too short to do otherwise.
The long view is knowing that your role and mood and identity and circumstances will change for better and worse over time and nevertheless you hang onto the rocket ship no matter what because that’s the only thing that matters in the end.
The long view is identifying your weaknesses and improving them and identifying your strengths and leveraging them even though it can be disorienting and is always hard work.
The long view is letting go, allowing the team to make mistakes over weeks months even years so the foundation is stronger once mistakes are finally identified and corrected, which they will be.
The long view is minimizing attention to competitors and reasoning from first principles even though it’s scary and uncertain and difficult.
The long view is investing in people above all else because success depends on them above all else.
The long view is wandering in the wilderness for years without help or fanfare fueled by nothing but a vision and a chip on your shoulder knowing that one day if you get lucky and do it right then it will all come together as something greater than its parts.
The long view is the confidence that comes with dedicating yourself single-mindedly for hours and days and weeks and months and years during mornings and afternoons and evenings and nights to a problem that obsesses you because it’s real and achievable and nobody else is solving it correctly and it’s the opportunity of a lifetime and you see a path from here to there and with only a little more hard work you will take the next step towards bringing the dream to life and if you succeed it will make a small dent in the world for generations and if you fail you will let down yourself and everyone who has joined you on this journey.
Building relationships. Getting educated. Providing for yourself and your family. Improving yourself.
Life’s most enduring satisfactions come from hard work and commitment over long periods of time that sometimes seem interminable. The stretches between frontier outposts are great.
The long view is an approach that makes the little things round to meaninglessness, the hard work a small price to pay for the greater end, the uncertainty a natural state to be embraced instead of feared.
This is the approach we have taken over years at Thumbtack. I am lucky to have partners in Marco and Jonathan who approach this project similarly. Our outlooks and behavior are shaped by the expectation that this is a multi-decade project, that the journey’s first day is today, and that working on this project over years with a team far greater than ourselves is worthy and meaningful.
In 2007 I never imagined I would be working on Thumbtack in 2017. But here we are, bigger and sharper and shipping faster and getting to the right answers more quickly than ever before. And behind it all, an enduring belief that the idea is right and that the fits and starts are bumps on the road of progress and that with a little more hard work we will discover the next unlock around the corner and that this is not about us but instead is about our friends and family and colleagues who are on this journey with us, making us and one another and our product better all the time.
Behind it all, the long view.
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About Sander Daniels:
I’m a dad and husband. I’m also a founder at Thumbtack. Thumbtack is a local services marketplace that connects customers who need to get things done with the right professionals who can help in over 1,000 different categories. Among other things I’ve helped build and lead Thumbtack’s growth strategy and operations over many years. I used to be a lawyer.
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