Make Week 2019: Where Ideas Lead to Innovation
By: Peter Yeung and Joe Tsay
Peter Yeung and Joe Tsay were co-chairs of this year’s Make Week. Based in San Francisco, Joe is a senior engineering manager on our pro-focused team and Peter is an engineering manager on our customer-focused team.
Creating an inclusive and supportive environment where good ideas are always welcome is a huge part of the culture at Thumbtack. One of the ways we do this is by giving employees creative outlets for new ideas to emerge — like this year’s Make Week.
Over the course of a week, our team worked intensively on projects that would create a positive impact for our users or internal teams. Everyone was encouraged to take on ambitious ideas and work with cross-functional teams.
This concentrated time gave folks at Thumbtack the chance to go down paths that don’t normally fit into our planning process. At the end of the week, 30+ projects were presented at the Make Week Fair — all of them inspiring, many of them game-changing, and three of them award-winning.
Below are Thumbtack’s 2019 Make Week award winners:
- Most Native: Spotlight Search Integration
When customers use Spotlight on their iOS devices to search for a specific service, Thumbtack could pop up in the results. - People’s Choice: Payments Product
This project has opened the door for a payments integration. Stay tuned! - Most Impactful: Has Hired Before Badge
Similar to our current “Exact Match” and “Only Picked You” badges, the “Has Hired Badge” could designate repeat customers.
Below are some of our personal favorites from the group of 30+ projects:
- In-Store Upsells
We explored the value of in-store marketing for Thumbtack at some of our favorite neighborhood stores in San Francisco. - Intent Classification
Layering machine learning capabilities into messenger let us test how Thumbtack could provide help contextually for both customers and pros. - Invoices & Receipts
It may sound simple, but providing branded invoices and receipts would not only create a better customer experience but could also make life easier for our pros.
While there were three official awards given, there was something to be learned from every project presented — some will even be picked up by internal teams in the next quarter. For those who won’t move forward into our 2020 plans, there’s still value in what was learned and it’s this knowledge that will help to shape initiatives down the road.
So, what’s next for Make Week? With all the excitement, participation, and energy around this incredible event, we look forward to Make Week being back in full force next year — dates and details to come.
