Welcoming Everett Butler, our new VP of Marketing

By: Marco Zappacosta, Thumbtack’s Co-founder & CEO

Everett Butler recently joined our team as our new VP of Marketing where he will lead Thumbtack’s Product, Lifecycle, and Integrated Marketing teams. Everett previously held leadership roles at Affirm, Uber, Postmates and Tesla and has over a decade of experience building and leading high-performing marketing teams.

By bringing Everett on board, we’re excited to bring more senior marketing talent into the team and deepen our focus on experience and engagement marketing in particular. Everett’s deep background across the entire customer lifecycle makes him a great fit to scale our team and ensure all of our marketing functions are working hand-in-hand to create the best possible experience for customers on Thumbtack.

I chatted with Everett about his new role at Thumbtack and what excites him most about starting the next chapter in his career.

Marco: What initially got you interested in joining Thumbtack?

Everett: The culture at Thumbtack was what initially drew me to the company. Joining an organization with a strong culture was a non-negotiable for me and throughout my career, I’ve realized that you can’t sacrifice culture for growth — they need to be synonymous. Culture starts at the top and when I met you [Marco], I could tell that you truly live and breathe the Thumbtack mission and values and it shows in the type of environment you’ve fostered and the leaders you hire. All of the people I’ve interacted with at Thumbtack are world-class in their craft, but they’re also genuine, collaborative and kind. That’s the type of environment I was looking for.

I’m also really excited about the Thumbtack mission to be a true partner to homeowners and home pros alike. We’re solving so many tough challenges that new homeowners face, and the opportunity to be a partner for all of your home care needs is something truly unique.

Marco: As you went through the interview process, I’m sure it became clear that Thumbtack’s valuesMarco: At a high level, how would you describe your role? are critical to the company and impact everything we do. Which Thumbtack value resonates with you the most? Marco: What aspects from your most recent role at Affirm and roles at previous tech companies prepared you for this role at Thumbtack?

Everett: Honestly, all of them struck a chord with me, which was a good sign that Thumbtack was the place for me. If I had to choose which reflects my own personal values the best, it would have to be “own it,” “choose teamwork,” and “say what you mean.” Distilled down, these basically translate to providing autonomy to your team and empowering them to own goals while collaborating effectively across the organization to get bigger mission-critical work done. It also means being completely transparent and genuine in how you communicate and share feedback.

Everett: As I hit the ground running, my first priority will be to bring all of the deep craft and capabilities of the Product, Lifecycle and Integrated Marketing teams together to build a more compelling and seamless experience that not only creates moments of delight for our millions of customers but also helps them along their journey as homeowners. Ultimately, what’s good for our customers is also good for our business, and applying my background in growth marketing towards understanding the impact and value of what we’re doing, both from a customer point of view and from a business impact and product experience standpoint, will be key to success.

Everett: When I started previous roles, the companies and marketing organizations were at a similar stage to Thumbtack and I was able to successfully scale those teams and show the impact that marketing organizations can have on the bottom line and on customer loyalty. Thumbtack has a great marketing foundation and I’m excited to take it to the next level.

Marco: What was your favorite marketing campaign you’ve worked on throughout your career?

Through my experience working with dual-sided marketplaces, I understand the importance of creating a consumer-friendly tech solution that has value to both sides of the business, particularly in an industry that has been slow to digitize.

Marco: What is the last project you hired someone to complete on Thumbtack?

Finally, I have experience leading and growing a virtual-first team. I joined Affirm a few weeks before the COVID lockdown and we subsequently moved to a remote-first model. I scaled the team from a handful of people to about 45, all virtually. By the time I left, the vast majority of my team was distributed across the U.S. so I had to foster a strong balance of blending the flexibility of virtual-first work with the camaraderie and team building that often accompanies in-person connection. I’m excited to bring my learnings to Thumbtack’s virtual-first culture!

Everett: Sometimes it’s the campaign ideas that come to life in the 11th hour that make you laugh and stick with you the most. During my time at Postmates, we were trying to ride the wave of Amazon Prime Day and draft off the e-commerce shopping bonanza that occurs during that short seasonal window. The day before it hit, we dropped everything and jumped into a room as a marketing team to bounce ideas off each other. Maybe it was the late-night delirium or the 6th cup of coffee, but for better or for worse we ended up creating a spoof spot called “ Postmates Prawn Day,” which celebrated our little crustacean friends and had some tongue-in-cheek creative across multiple channels and in-product experiences highlighting shellfish facts and offering promos for any Postmates order during the busy online shopping period. Needless to say, it was quirky, memorable and a whole lot of fun to bring to life.

Everett: I hired a window cleaner on Thumbtack and had an amazing experience. I live in the Bay Area and since our exterior windows were particularly tricky to access, many of them were still caked in smut from the recent forest fires. Tired of looking through those dirty windows, we hired someone to clean them and it was such a seamless and pleasant experience that reinforced for me how magical this product can be.

Interested in joining the Thumbtack team? Visit thumbtack.com/careers to see our open roles.

Originally published at https://blog.thumbtack.com on March 6, 2023.