This is great news because hopefully it will allow Thumbtack to become <i>the</i> domestic services platform.<p>Think the funding and valuation is too high? It takes inordinate marketing spend to become a focal point outside of metropolitan areas. I've interviewed with a handful of more focused (e.g. industry specific) services marketplaces, and each one's offices felt like a sales boiler room as hundreds of associates reach out daily to service providers across the country all but begging them to join their platform. Pulling it off across multiple industries will take n as many sales associates, but the payoff is enormous (imagine, an e-bay for all local service providers). Thumbtack caters to the broadest swath of service providers, and winning in k industries makes it that much easier to attract providers from the remaining n-k industries; there are very strong network effects here on top of the obvious economies of scale.<p>On the consumer side, Thumbtack delivers huge benefits.
I spent two hours calling carpet cleaners to schedule a cleaning on my move out day in Seattle. When my carpet cleaner bailed the day of, I tried thumbtack for the first time and someone was at my house within an hour. When I needed a linux box built I reached out to Thumbtack, and within 2 hours I had multiple bids...in Salt Lake City no less. There is, however plenty of room to grow: the number of lead-paint removers on thumbtack in SLC where 90% of the housing stock was built 60 years before lead paint was banned: zero (and I'm still searching for one).<p>Transferring search costs from consumers to providers, providing a reputation system, facilitating coordination... these are all very valuable things to me, that's why I'd participate even at this valuation and that's also why I so desperately want one of these platforms to win, and so should you.