Houzz: Adi Tatarko

We went on a social event from our little sons pre-school. And then I met this nice grandparent of one of the kids and said I love homes, I love renovation. I did multiples in my life, you know, send me the link. And I sent him the link. And then he calls me afterward and he said Are you crazy? How many users you said you have and why aren't you raising money for this? And said, Well

You know, it's our thing, nobody tells us what to do. And he saw it. You know what? I think that you're making a mistake. I'll just say this. If you're not gonna raise money

Somebody else will realize what you're doing, they will raise money, they will copy you. And you will say goodbye to this initiative. Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. They built.

I'm Guy Roz and on the show today how a frustrating home renovation led Adie Titarko and her husband to build house, an online community for homeowners and remodelers that's grown to 65 million users worldwide. I love stories about accidental entrepreneurs in part Because I'm one of them. This show you're listening to? Started as a side project.

I just really wanted to learn how ordinary people build extraordinary things, and I thought there might be a small group of people who'd also want to hear those stories. But to my surprise It took off in a big way. I was and still am.

Genuinely amazed and delighted that millions of people listen to this show each week. It is mind-blowing to me. But anyway, the point of all this is to explain that I never intended to stop doing the other things I was doing at the time. How I built this was a fun side project. But it soon became clear that this show was, in fact.

The main project And it completely changed everything I do. Now in a much much bigger way, like to the tones of billions of dollars. This is a version of the how's story.

How's if you're not familiar with it is a website. App and an online community for architects, interior designers, and people like you and me who are looking to renovate their homes. It's used by more than sixty-five million people and it's the biggest home renovation community of its kind. Basically, it's a place to get ideas to Buy the materials you want.

And to hire professionals to help you get the work done if you don't want to do it yourself. But this entire venture? Last valued at over four Billion dollars? Started as a hobby up.

Side project a project to renovate a D Titarco's home in Palo Alto, California. At the time, she and her husband alone Thought there should be a simple and inexpensive way to design your own renovation project. Something that could be done online. Back then, Adi was working as a financial planner.

Alone was a software engineer at eBay. And house's first customers were other families at their kids' school. It was a website where they could post photos of their home renovations and also a place where local architects and designers could promote their work. But very quickly and organically. A D and Alone started to get inquiries from designers in cities outside California.

And word started to spread through the community of people involved with the home renovation industry. And some of their friends practically shook a di and alone by the shoulders, trying to convince them. That hows could become even bigger. Maybe. Even huge.

But a D? Held back. She already had a career, and she had two young kids at home. But eventually she was convinced that Howes had too much potential to treat it like a lifestyle business. So she walked away from a promising job in finance to become the CEO of House.

And to help lead it to become the massive site it is today. Adija Tarko was born and raised in Israel. Where her parents work together in the real estate business. Family was close and she lived in a tight knit community. I was actually guys studying with the same thirty eight kids in the same class from first

То ей т край, а нам вери прав то ті. That today I'm in touch with the vast majority of the kids from that class. Amazing. We meet every several years with some of Kids, I still call them kids. Um I still have close relationships today.

Um so it was a very warm, friendly um close environment with lots of fun memories. Um how were you as a student? In school were you a good student? Hm

I was an okay, um I wouldn't say excellent student. I made it through. You know, guy My mom was so liberal and so trusting. And she said to me in high school, look.

I know that many kids just In high school. Don't tell the truth to their parents, so let's have some ground rules here. I don't want you to ever need to lie to me if you don't want to go to school. Or you rather have a fun day once a month or whatever it is with your friends at the beach.

Let it be. Just don't lie to me. And if you tell me the truth, and you promise to never do things behind my back. I will always have your back and always support you. And she did.

She said, That's your your life. I'm ki telling you why you should study, and I know you're capable of doing whatever you want. However, do it your way. Just never lie to me. I know I know that in Israel the s for the vast majority of teenagers the the path is pretty clear. You're gonna do m service, military service for for for men I think it's three years and for women uh two. So so what did you wind up doing, um

for for your military service. I ended up selecting going to the air force. I think that a big part of who I became later on is due to my amazing experience in the few years um I serviced in the air force and what I did there. I'm assuming that given there's been a time lapse between the time you served and today, is it it's it's not probably not classified what you did anymore. Can you can you talk a little bit about about your experience? I was involved in very interesting um plans and and missions, and one that is very well known to the public today. was the rescue of Jewish people from Ethiopia.

at a time that politically it was very, very challenging to do that. Yeah, this is the the the sort of the late eighties when Israel was airlifting uh Ethiopian Jews out of out of Ethiopia. And I think also Eritrea. These sort of midnight.

Uh missions. Correct. So I think I had a very, very meaningful service, and I think I learned a lot. At a very young age, how to emphasize what's important, how to juggle gazillion things and still, you know, catch all the balls. And and again Be sure that what

The most important is being catched first. Hm. So as I understand it, once you you finish your service, um you went to do a bachelor's degree at at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And I read that uh while you were there, you uh I guess you and some friends went on a uh uh trip to Thailand, like a backpacking trip. And and it's it was actually on that trip where you would meet the man who'd become your husband and eventually your your business partner alone.

Um, so how how exactly did you did the two of you meet? Yeah in Bangkok we had to travel with very very limited budget. And and uh You know, in order to get to the islands. We had to take a fifteen um hour bus.

And I was traveling with two girlfriends, the three вас sat in front y know. Ne front of the bus, and the bas driver came to me. at the beginning of the journey and and he said I'm sorry you cannot sit here. More people need to come in next station. You have to move to the back. And then he literally took my hand Walked me to the back of the bus, pointed to an empty seat next to a lawn, and said you sit here.

So we ended up um Sitting next to each other for 15 hours. Um and we talked the entire time. Or if you ask Alone, he will say I talked 14 and a half hours and and he said a few things. No, I I don't think so. But we did talk a lot. And um It was just Very, very magical. You connected right away.

Yes. Um Books. Life outside of earth, if possible or not. What do we know, what we don't, philosophy. All kinds of things that you can't even imagine. It's just try to squeeze first. five, six dates with someone into one ride of fifteen hours, right? And you're trapped. You can go anywhere. Yeah. And when we arrived to the area of the islands, I was supposed to go with

my girlfriends and you know, just stay all the time with them and I ended up spending all the time with M. And I always say our life started in a honeymoon. And I thought, well, from here, it's only gonna go down, right? You know, how can you keep things, you know, at that level of the islands in Thailand the rest of your life?

And when we ended up being together, I said, I'm gonna hold you up to these standards. You know, that's what I like. Hm. All right. So all right, so both of you presumably you go b back home to to Israel and and and you stay together and and Yes. And and from from what I understand, alone Uh was still doing his military service um and getting a degree in computer science. And I think I guess at some point he starts sort of like a like a small business

developing software and I guess you're uh planning to go into like international trade or f or finance or or something like that, is that right? Correct. But Alon said I have a better idea.

I'm about to Um finish my Service in the army. And I got a few clients that want me to build these systems for them, program for them.

And Why don't you come and partner with me and you'll deal with everything related to the business side. He already had um IBM and other big tech companies asking him to develop systems. And so I I learned a lot about it when we Again, we live together. We were already together for for a while now. Right. And I guess I mean

N not too long after, right? one of one of from what I understand, one of your clients came to you and a and and proposed a merger. uh with them and and they had a similar kind of company and they wanted the two of you to run it out of The United States is is that right? Yes. And now we are

Married, no kids, and an offer comes our way to legally Merge our business into a startup that just raised a few million dollars, move to New York. We the thinking, by the way, that we'll do it for a few years. And and go back. That's what we thought.

So this is I think you moved there what in in ninety nine or two thousand, something like that? Two thousand. Alright, so you move there. And Uh but from what I understand this arrangement doesn't doesn't really last very long. I think l like less than a year. Uh and and the two of you, uh you and Alon decided to

uh to leave this company or to move on or s something like that. Which Find it s like another job pretty fast, right? Yeah, so you're absolutely right for two reasons. One

We had some savings, but there were not enough to stop working. Small savings. And and we абсолютні. And two The the clock was sticking with with the working visa because We're pretty nerdy on that front. We're people that will never spend one minute in a place without the appropriate um approval. Yeah.

But we knew that when This deal will end. Both my salary and the working visa will end and we can no longer stay in the US. And so we knew we have a few months, and then we had to make a decision. What is it we're gonna do the day after this will end. Are we gonna go back to Israel? А ви гона Три толок форсом тинс і Ню Йорк.

Or Are we gonna move like Alon wanted to the Silicon Valley? Right. На Юргай із Two thousand and one now and The end of the

Dot com you know the bubble burst pretty much. And and everybody is getting out of the silicon valley. Lots of jobs are being cut, lots of startups are shutting door their doors. And everybody's telling us that we're crazy. Um Alone, however, had a very different idea in his mind. He he wanted to move to the Silicon Valley. And and I'm assuming like part of you probably want to go home to see your fa to be with your family.

But he was a a software engineer. I mean, this is what he had studied, and so In two thousand one, even though the bubbled burst Silicon Valley s was still the Mecca. It was still the place to go to. If you wanted to get into tech.

He was very drawn here, and he thought it's gonna be amazing. But I was actually So not into it. Area the Silicon Valley. And I said over my dead body, I meant it.

This is the suburb, you know. I need a city, I need Tel Aviv, I need New York. I can't live in a place like this. We're young, we don't have kids. What am I gonna do there? And he looked at me. And she said, I think you should really, really just give it a chance for me. He so presumably he starts looking for jobs

out there and he got a job at eBay, right? That was the the job that the offer he got. Which enabled it. You make it sound easy. I can tell you that that period of our life is something that I Always tell you.

to other entrepreneurs and to my kids and and remind ourselves where we were when we got to the silicon valley because we didn't know a soul in the silicon valley And We came, we didn't have money. I was still on that visa. Yeah. We had zero knowledge what's gonna happen and the clock was ticking on the visa and our savings. So you didn't go out there with a job in hand. You he you he said let's go out there and figure it out. Well

After sixteen Interviews and and four rounds where they called him to a but he finally got the offer. So it must have been like a month and a half at least where we are renewing our hotel, you know, every single week until he got the offer. But we had moments there. That I always remind myself how we set one day

At these Small hotel and I told him. What are we doing in this place, you know? I want my friends, I want my family, I want the city. What are we doing? It's not gonna happen. We're wasting time and money and energy. And then he said Do you know the story about these two frogs?

I said. What? And he said, The two frogs that fell to the bucket full of milk. And I said, No, I don't. And he and and he said A D. Two frogs. Fell to a bucket.

Full of milk. They were jumping, jumping, jumping. One of them got very tired. So what she did, she stopped jumping, drowned, died. The other one.

Until the milk turned to butter. she climbed on it and got out of the bucket. If you'll continue jumping with me, we'll find what we want. But you have to continue jumping and you have to believe that it will happen. It will turn to bother, you will see. And Alon is so not that person. Um so it was striking to me that hi usually it's the opposite, and it was so inspiring say okay, I'll jump with you. I came all the way here, I'll jump with you.

Okay, I should mention that A lot is happening around this time, right? I'm I'm sort of fast forwarding this a little bit here, but The two of you decide to start a family. Uh and then you also go back to school to to study financial planning. And then you pursue a job in

In finance, right? Yes. I studied, I started the internship. Halfway through school And my boss, Phil.

had a branch of Commonwealth Financials, it's a very big financial planning firm, but he had his own brand for forty years in the Silicon Valley. And what was interesting about his branch was He served lots of DTEC executives. in the valley. So the exposure through financial planning was really striking to me, um, learning and coming it to it from this direction. Right. And

feel at some point um Realize that I'm not his I think typical uh worker. In which way? What do you mean?

I think I was very honest with him. About Um less um sugarcoating of different things that I wanted to say about the approach, about where I thought that he's too conservative, then I would

Mm. dare to say it what other people didn't say and I had nothing to lose at this point. I wanted to learn and grow. And when I saw something that may like, what? How can you do it like this? You know, this is so old school. I would say it. And did did that annoy him, or did he like that? Did he like that?

was something new and and compelling to him. And he wanted me to talk like this all day long. So so he was um um ready for his retirement, uh which I didn't know at this point. He was getting close to seventy at this point. And he at some point came to me and said, I wanna offer you a full time job and a deal and I said, What's the deal? He said I want you in a few years to take over the practice from me. Wow. It's a pretty great offer. I mean for somebody who n who knew nobody in in in the area who did just like previously coup year year or two before learned how to do financial planning, the fact that he's really kinda taking you under his wing. And saying I think I want you to run this place. That's pretty great. It it was very flattering, and and I talked with Alon a lot about it, uh which for a moment sounds very compelling to him as well. He said, Well, if you do that, I'll be able to

Leave And start my own thing. Right,'cause he'd already done it once. It was obvious. It was if there was something obvious in our life. It was that Alan

Yeah. Entrepreneur born to be in tech. He at some point will start his own company. I had no doubts. It was me that experienced stack for years, both in Tel Aviv and and later on, you know, for another year in New York, that said

It's too intense for me. It's it's not something that I can imagine alongside with having a family, and it wasn't an option for me not having a family. was alone coming home and talking were you talking through ideas? I mean this is so we're talking about the period of like Two thousand two. to two thousand sort of

Six seven. Was he was he constantly coming up with ideas or or or were you not really talking about specific ideas? I I think the first few years were all dedicated to our new careers. Yeah. Um Alon was really he built the API from scratch, you know, connecting. For eBay. So it's for eBay. Wow. And so so he was very, very busy, um, doing what what he did there. At the beginning they didn't have it, then he built it, and then all of a sudden it became a meaningful part of their business. And at this point we are already, you know Having a second

Child. We were so busy. Alright, so Alone has his career at eBay. clearly with an eye to starting something down the road. You have a great career. and are starting to earn, you know, decent money, you're mainly on a salary, but you could see

a future where you could actually make a lot of money Running this. Business. Um when when Phil, your boss and mentor, retires. Meantime.

You're living in Palo Alto and I think you you uh you Around the time of the birth of your second son. You bought a house in Palo Alto, right? Yes. Mm-hmm. And this house is gonna play a role in what's gonna happen,'cause I guess this was a kind of old fashioned house. Uh when you bought it. It was s sort of dated, like eighties or right decor and things like that.

Fifties decor, okay. Untouched from the fifties too. So was not just building the fifties, nobody updated it from the fifties. And when you bought it presumably like most people who buy houses or a lot of people are like, Oh we can fix it up, we can do some things here and there. Yes, of course. And but we knew that we had to save money first in order to do that. And I remember Alan telling me, Oh gosh, you know, we're gonna put all our savings into this down payment.

Price is so high here. If it will go down, we're broke. And I think that you guys were so busy, you have two kids. You've got Busy jobs like

Yeah, okay, we can you can live with a an ugly ceiling or a You know, a linoleum whatever, like fifty you can live with that, it's fine. And and I'm assuming you did live with it. We had no choice. We had no money. When we finished paying for the house, we had very little left. Uh, we knew we're gonna live with it for a while and we'll need to save again.

in order to start s you know slowly updating different parts of the house. That was the deal, we knew it. Yes, it was livable, but but livable in a way that Our tiny master bath was so tiny and so small, and Aloni's six foot three and He he had to stand on his knees when he brushed his teeth in the morning and evening, right? You know, it was that little. Did you ever start to actually

Look for somebody to help you or a contractor or or anything like that. Oh yeah. So first we save the money. So it was possible to do something, not everything, but something. And we started looking for um professionals, um, architects and builders and and people to help us. And this is where we started facing some challenges.

First Finding good professionals that would be relevant for us was extremely hard. Our network was very, very limited to the people that we knew. And We ended up hiring someone that worked with us for almost a year on plans. and that process was so tedious and and problematic because

We were Us to run to the bookstore. On University Avenue. And buy blocks. And and showing the books what we like and what we don't like. And then just to hear from

the architect or people, you know, yeah, that's very nice that you like this, but that's gonna cost ten X from what you have. So it's not an option. Um, so frustrating took a long, long time to get plans in our hands. For the first part of the remodel. And when we looked at it We realised two things. One We just don't like this plan.

At all. None of us like the plan. And two. We can't afford it. We're so far between what we have in the bank right now and what this is gonna cost us. And we had to throw it away after lots of money that we spent too.

to get these plans and start all over again. And we wasted more than a year on that. So That's on the bad side, on the good side. House was born because of that.

When we come back in just a moment. How a D and alone channel their frustration into a side hustle until an expert tells them they're crazy for not turning it into something bigger. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening. to how I built this.

Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around two thousand eight and Adee and Alone are having one of those classic entrepreneurial moments where They realize that the problem they have is also a problem that lots of other people have. Finding good ideas for a home renovation. And

Getting them to fit your budget. So during that um year We try to look for solutions for it. First there was the problem of getting to good professionals. Um that would really understand. Our style

be able to accommodate our budget and do what we want, right? And so we looked a lot. And The more we look, the more we realize it's problematic. It's many of the professionals in the industry did not even have websites. They had a listing in a yellow book or some directory or legion sites, but you couldn't tell what it's all about, what are their expertise, what they're good at, what's their style. We we couldn't get what what we wanted online, and the more we tried.

The more frustrated we became. How come you we can't do it efficiently? So that was it. That's that's how we started. And and Alon kept saying, It it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense that it does that it works like this. There must be a better s way of doing it, must be a better way of doing it. I I I'm trying to figure out at what point do you remember You are alone saying You know, maybe there maybe we should just

Like build a website. to m to make this easier. The the idea that There must be a better way for us doing it for people doing it. was already, you know, forming itself in in two thousand and eight. When we struggled with with our own process.

Um But not in a way of thinking, oh and now we're gonna build a huge company out of it. Or a business or even a business. It it was it was just like let's just do this thing and see if we can make it. There was a need. And and the need was very clear. The more we talk to People in the community. Uh we have a neighbor that is an architect. We have friends from our kids' school that uh experienced the same thing when they try to remodel. Uh we met some some professionals during our process and we started asking questions. And the more we talk to people, the more we realize there are lots of frictions in in this. Yeah. And this frustration about the process was something that professionals in the industry shared as well, because they were pointing fingers

To us and they said, Hey guys, you know, you understand that you're asking us to do something impossible. You are pointing your fingers to a picture that that costs so much more than what you can afford. So educate yourself before you ask thing and don't blame us that you can do it. Right, because if you look at a picture in a magazine and and by the way, This has not changed,'cause I I follow a bunch of design things on Instagram just to keep just to keep my head out of the craziness of the world. And I'll see like uh you know, oh we just did a simple renovation project, you know, in in the middle of Sweden. And and it looks great, but then you realize that it was probably like two, three, four million dollars. Uh, but you wouldn't know that from just looking at the picture, right? And certainly not not sort of looking at a magazine. Correct. And so when we started building house, it was very clear to us that one, it needs to be very, very visual.

And two, it needs to bridge these gaps between what the professionals know in the industry. And what the homeowners don't know but should know. Yeah. And all these data need to come attached to the photos, which is the uniqueness of how it's today we have. over three and hundred and seventy million metadata tag attacks So when you're looking at a photo You don't just look at something you say, I like it. You know what is that style, which materials, product, layout were used, what was the budget, uh, who created it, who are the professionals that worked on it. You can ask them questions. And that helped from the get go to bridge some of these gaps.

All right, so just some nuts and bolts questions. So so for example, in in two thousand eight, when when you start talking about what maybe we can kind of Yeah. you could pick up architectural digest, which you can still do today, right? And you can open a page and see a beautiful renovated room, but you can't obviously tap on the magazine and know what you know what the paint is or the color is or the brand is.

Your the the what you guys were trying to do is to essentially What That view of that room. on a web page, but that every part of it Had a tag.

where you would know that oh th that that's a uh a a towel hole what's I don't know what towel holder's called, or there's a uh you know, that fixture. I don't even know the name of that fixture. It's it's more than that. It's even a layer before that. Even the fact Тамені тамсьюа пікче. And the person that is being interviewed is the homeowner. You know, a celeb that build a beautiful home and they're interviewing about the home.

You don't know. Who was the builder? Who was the designer? Is it too expensive that I should be even if they mentioned the name, that it makes sense for me to call them or they're gonna laugh in my face because my project is way too small for them. And for us to make sure that these professionals can stand behind their work and say, That's my job. Let me explain to you what I did, how I did it. And and that wasn't possible. In two thousand eight.

You and Alon. are talking about How to solve this? How does it what What was the

Next step. Did he start to build a website? Um like sort of on on the side and and at night? Yes, so it started with a website and he started programming. But When you program a website, you need somebody

to use the website besides us in order to know if it's useful. When he started to build the website. Right, you had to get photos up and and the idea was presumably to get photos of completed renovation project, so where did you go? Who did you ask? For photos from the

So By that time, after working a year. with um multiple professionals and also meeting different Homeowners that been through Rmodeling projects in our area.

А we had the first you know people to go to and say Hey, we are trying to build this platform that we can all use when we connect the dots. Would you participate and people said, Oh yeah, sure, why not? And and Just for

Context here. You are still going to your job. You're still working in the as a financial planner. Alone is still going to his job at eBay. Correct. The name How's was w did it have a name already at at that point? So so we needed a website, right? To put everything in. It started with a website, not with the app. And Money was limited, right? And so we went and looked for domains and obviously um more common house names like house were Not available. Uh house was

The closest we could get to house, which was a combination back then, the word buzz. was heavily used uh with lots of consumer website um It was a buzz to do this, a buzz to do that. So so we said mm. House with two Z Z at the end, it's kind of People can think it's it's a combination of house and buzz, it sounds good, it's

You know Just five letters. And it was available. And it was available for thirty five dollars.'Cause it's a made up'cause a made up word. Yes. So Thirty five dollars. We did have two bucks. Yeah, so so we said okay, you know, we can afford thirty five bucks and and and we got it. Um it was not yet open to the outside world. We were just You know.

Using it with twenty parents from our kids school that were the first users that provided feedback about it, with the first set of professionals mainly on the design side, architects and interior designers from Palo Alto and the Bay Area. that we knew and when we did it, we worked in the morning, came home. spend time with the kids, put them to bed, and then our second shift started at night, uh when the kids were sleeping. But I'm I'm assuming once you got to that head space where you're like

I'm gonna work during the day and then I'm gonna work at night on this thing. I mean you knew that your husband had this dream of starting a business. But but it sounds like I mean this is the first thing in like Seven years. That got you excited too.

To help him. Start it so clearly. you must have started to think in your head. Maybe there's something here. Maybe there is a business here. Not for me.

No, for me. I was so On my way, you know, to take over the business from Fi. And I kept doing everything I had to do in terms of licenses and tests and studying and taking over and meeting with clients. Um in order to fulfill my agreement to him, you know, that at some point he can retire and I'll take over. And actually in my head, I when we started seeing, you know, the ramp up of this, I thought

Well Maybe that's gonna be Alon's thing, you know. Maybe right. So he Potentially. may be able to continue with this en with our plan That I will

be the main supporter and nobody thought about You know, money, big business, you know, pr th that was too big for us to think about these things at this point. Right. But in when when you'cause I know you he sort of launched this in two thousand nine. The two of you launched it in two thousand nine. And you started out really there were photos from local architects you knew and and and designers and then you asked parents at your kids' school, to g get on the site and start using it.

Um, which is, you know, w how most of us start. We ask people we know. But Then what do you do? Like where does it go from there? It started growing by word of mouth. The minute that we opened it. To the outside world, and people could refer each other.

The referral started happening. It took life of its own, really. And when you could refer other people once they were in, they could upload pictures without your they could just upload it and fill in the data themselves. Correct. And and we started getting we had a little No, they're support at house dot com, which Alana and I would check every night.

Um what kind of emails and requests and bugs and ideas and you know, somebody from New York that would say we see what you do in San Francisco, would you consider opening it in New York as well? Professionals told their homeowners they worked with to use it to tell them what they like. Homeowners told their professionals to use it to show what they like. And it started spreading this way. And then we started being more proactive, inviting Different groups from different locations. And and I guess what would motivate an architectural firm or an interior designer to put their stuff up on your site was it was Free advertising for them. Correct.

Brand building, purely brand building in a way it right that didn't exist before. So here's here's my question. I mean You know You've got a website and, you know, both of you have a uh steady incomes and stuff, but As

people were using it, did it cost did it cost a whole lot of money? I mean I guess it was like not that expensive to actually keep this up. Well, at the beginning we didn't have that much traffic, right? It was us as users and and our surrounding community. And I will say before it start expanding to the hundreds of thousands. We had a moment, guy. At at at around twenty thousand

users that we thought that this is it. Right. And that was what, two or three months in? Uh. Probably several months in, um pretty great, twenty thousand users and you were not advertising. True. We didn't have money to advertise. But but it then got stuck. on twenty thousand, and we were looking at Google Analytics and looking at our data, and it didn't go anywhere.

And we did more, you know, of what we did until now and we kept you know, developing and adding content and enhancing the product, yet it got stuck at twenty thousand. And I remember that conversation that we had that maybe this is it. Yeah. But I will not forget

That During that year. I got myself a meeting. Ет діархітек асоціаційн ін сан франциско, де чаптер ін сан франсиско. And

I went to pitch the idea to them. Wha what were you pitching for them to contribute to the stuff? Join create a profile of all your portfolio and Become part of the community.

And I went to meet with a board. There were seventeen people around the p the table. And There were different voices around the table, um Some people were very business, um oriented so they said, Well, we'll encourage all our members to upload portfolio if you'll sign up an agreement that if you ever try to monetize it, we'll be excluded from from any monet monetization attempts. We will build our m portfolios, but um

But you will never charge us for it. They didn't want you to make any money off of it. Correct. And obviously that would make zero sense. I mean. Well, I said, Well, it's not the business, I'm not monetizing it right now. But I cannot guarantee something that I don't know how this is all gonna evolve. Oh, what I can say is you have a lot. of benefits in it. See all those that already joined, you know, what's what's happening to them. And they said, Well we'll think about it and get back to you. Okay.

And I left the meeting and I swear God, twenty four hours later, I started seeing Some board members that were sitting in that meeting uploading like crazy. Олдер портфоліо то газ. Wow. And I tell them something is working here because if I just talk to them and that's their reaction, but then I go back and that's what they do.

I knew you had to. So that was a good signal. They did it. And did that begin then a surge of new New users. I I wouldn't say that they moved the needle, uh, but it was a signal that The idea is sinking.

So we kept jumping and we started expanding it in different directions. Okay, here here's a question for you. How are you doing that and also keeping a full time job. Um

A lot of it was done. Nights and weekends, um Literally nights and weekends, we started getting some folks from our community and friends that wanted to be involved. Beyond Just being users, right? And offer their help on different fronts.

one offer to help build um more present on social media sites which were very, very new at that time, like You know, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. Another one um was a designer and offered a lawn to

um start working on the design side and and and potentially um Give a facelift because Alan did a great job, but he's not a designer, right? And and so nobody worked full time job, but we started getting very passionate, interested friends and people around us that um wanted um to help us. And and so it was very little, but it helped a ton. So

Two thousand nine, by late two thousand nine. Because you you're working at the financial firm planning firm and then coming home and answering like s emails from support and Trying I mean, this is like I can't even imagine the number of emails that you were facing.

On a day to day basis now. Yes. And and and so at this point were were either of you, were you or alone Even starting to think about quitting your jobs to work on this full time? I didn't think that

We're both gonna do it. I at some point started thinking. Mm. Maybe at some point alone we'll be able to do it, uh, full time if it will continue evolving like this. And then we went on a social event from our little son's preschool. And I was chatting with different people, and then I met this nice grandparent of one of the kids, and you know, she chatted. And

He was a former Israeli too, so it was very easy to m start a conversation about something, about living in the area and moving and differences and so on. I don't know how I got to mention this um side little project too, which keeps me also very busy at night. And then I tell him all about it and The more I say things about it, the more questions he asked. So obviously someone That understands home remodeling very well. Apparently he owned multiple homes.

And so we decided to um talk afterwards. He asked me to send the link to the website and I said sure. He said I love homes, I love renovation, I did multiples in my life, you know, send me the link. And I sent him the link. And then he calls me afterward. He his name is Amos and and he said Mm. I are you crazy? How many users you said you have and and I tell him, you know And how many we did have a few hundred thousand, you know, monthly users at this point and and and thousands of of of uh professionals with portfolios very, very active working with these homeowners. And and he said

And how much money did you invest in it? I said. Well, right now we're paying two thousand dollars for the servers, but you know, we sponsor it from our time. Yeah. Our time. Which is a lot, but our time Okay. And why aren't you raising money for this? I said, Well

You know, it's kind of really fun that It's our thing. Nobody tells us what to do. We don't want any investor to come and ruin this fund. And we really don't need it. It's expanded like this and And he said. You know what? I think that you're making a mistake. I'll just say this.

If you got to this point with no money from investors, without tons of engineers helping a lot to program, or to you to build this community, or all these things happen. If you're not gonna raise money somebody else will realize what you're doing what you're doing, they will raise money, they will copy you and you will say goodbye to this initiative. So my recommendation to you, think carefully if you don't want to raise money. And if you do, I'm happy to help you to do so. And did he have money to to give you? This this guy his name Amos.

Yes. Um he actually did and I didn't want to. So after talking with Alon for a while about this, um What I I got back at this point I realized that uh Amos Amos Willnae he is an entrepreneur that built multiple companies. The last one he took public and then sold for

uh four billion to MMC network. So not exactly the guy from the street just giving me advice. Somebody that understands something. And I I called him back and I said, you know We may may consider it, but Two things. One, we don't want to find VCs or investors that will tell us what to do. We are really on a path here, and we want to invest in the product and user experience. And expand this community significantly before we even think about the business here and how to make money. It was just getting people into it. We didn't make any money. And and we said

There are lots of things you can You know, go for and and um different ways to monetize this. At this point Google already reached out to us and said you have How did they find out about you? So so one of the users um was working at Google

And you know, the ad sport and and he you know, saw how much activity we have there because he was an avid user. And and then they reached out from Google and they said, Why aren't you putting some Google ads there and monetizing it? And we didn't want to. So you didn't want to put ads.

No. А видит вона clutter the experience, we didn't want to. tilt our focus at this early stage from product development and user experience and our mission to how do we make a few dollars out of it right now. So w what I told Amos was we'll need to bring investors that do it at our pace our way Not

put pressure on us now to monetize it right away, doesn't matter what else we care about. Um and so Amma said I I'm happy to To help you with that, and I can invest too. And I said no, and that's my second thing, almost. Not just I need to meet the right investors that will agree to do it our way. I want you to stay on our side as a mentor.

I don't want you to be on the other side as investor. You told him he couldn't invest in it. That was my immediate ask, yes, that he will not invest. So that he can advise us. You know. Could do both. But I got you. I hear you. I'm I mean I'm I'm pr poor almost. Although he already sold a company for four billion. But he was, you know, by our side. We met once we decided that we're gonna explore it our way. No decks and presentations on Sand Hill Road. That was a big no no. You didn't want to go down you didn't want to go to Sequoia Capital and Benchmark and all you don't want to you don't want to sit in front of a bunch of VCs with a deck and answer questions. Not just that, I didn't want to put imaginary numbers on a deck where all what I wanted to put on the deck is how much fun it is to grow a community that is adopting it and and sharing it with others by word of mouth and our product roadmap and how big that can be given what we're seeing now. I didn't wanna put

you know, imaginary numbers and and and business models that we can all tell how people do it. I no, I didn't want that at all. Right,'cause it's all fake numbers. It's all uh during the pitch session's all fake. It's all invented numbers. I didn't want that. I wanted somebody that will see it, fall in love with it Say I love it just the way it is. Yep. I like it. I'm behind you. Take the money. Keep doing it. I mean that that's great. I mean great position to be in, right? Because it actually reduces the the pressure in a sense that you're not Like

desperately looking for money. Um but um but at the same time, you know, that that if you were going to make this into something full time, like a real company, you would need some some investment capital, right? And and and eventually you did. Like you did an initi and I think what, like two million dollars you raised to start this thing. So

D h how did all of all of that come about? Yeah, so so just for you to know about the two million, back then we were spending so little and accomplishing so much. When Amos asked me how much money I think that we wanna raise I said, Well

See how much we do with two thousand dollars a month. Uh Can you imagine w you know what one million dollar will do to the business? Yeah. Not being naive, just really thinking frugal how much we can, you know, squee ourselves, you know, and and get out of ourselves, you know, for this. And so he said, Well If you think that you want to raise a million, then at least raise two.

uh have some buffer there. I really want you to have cushion to hire top engineers and and great people. I recommend that you'll you'll consider two instead of one. Okay, two, but not more. Not more. And so we ended up meeting through the n small network that we had back then. very, very few people. Right. Um very casual environments, either at our house or or a coffee place. Very, very casual. And I think Alan was the one who met outside of the house with Orin first. And I should mention this is uh Orin Sev who I guess who who

becomes an important inv uh investor in in house. And he's a he's a an angel I don't know him, but I I know b uh about him th through reading about you. He's he's an he was an angel investor in Silicon Valley. Well Well, most angels at that time were investing small amounts. Again, we're talking about the ear two thousand, uh, fifty, one hundred, maybe two hundred K in each. startup uh we call it uh spray and pray, you know, uh approach for angels. He had a very different approach. He invested in very, very few companies er every year. Just his own money, but

much larger amounts. And so that was Oren and not the typical angel, but we met him and After that, a few days later, I was I was on the phone with him and Delon was on the you know, connecting And We were talking business with Orin, and Orin said that he wants to invest and he can give us the money.

by the end of the week. And this was, you know, it just a few days after we met to put you know such a quick offer on the table of two million dollars. That was kind of I remember and I remember the scenery like like it was yesterday because the kids were quite young and they were throwing oranges at each other and I was trying to tell him, be quiet, stop throwing this over the house. And and that was such a mess there, but hilarious. And Orange said, yes, I'm interested. I'm I'm I'm behind you and I'm telling myself. Does he even know what's going on in the house right now when he's giving us a proposal to give us two million dollars. And had you, by the way. I and had you and and and alone

put a value on the company? Did you say yeah, you know, we think it's worth ten million dollars or or not really not yet. So not naive because we came from this universe, but we were never in all the rounds that this than the ones that came after Yeah. We're so not fixated on what devaluation should be. It was almost Not ignoring it, but it was

really down in terms of our um list of priorities down the list. And and the reason was I was so certain that we have to bring the right investor that would really let us do it our way, that it doesn't matter what's the valuation or how much we need to give that person. If it's the wrong person, it will kill everything. And if it's the right person, it can change everything. And so I I built a lot of trust with Oren during that process. It's was almost hard to believe what he did for us because he was so. Honest with us walking us through a term sheet and showing us

Line by line Вот із пропози. And he could have go the other way around, which many investors do to in a sense first time founders that are founding a company in the US like this. Um but he didn't.

And he said, I'm founder friendly, I may take more. But I I give you a lot of freedom and I will sit in the back seat and that's your right he said all the right things, gave us all the right terms and the valuation didn't matter at all. So July two thousand ten You raise that two million dollars. Uh they get the

uh Zev uh Orin Zev and a a small group of investors take thirty five percent stake in the company. At that point Were you ready to quit your job? So just before we close that round with uh um with Oren. Alone and I had that conversation.

He said, I need you to run this thing with me. Is that what he said? He said A date. I know you have this deal with feel.

I know that you invest Алатов там, енержі, ефорт, стадії. In this. But I think you love doing house. Yeah.

And I think That you should seriously consider. Quit your job too. As I'm gonna do. Come and do it with me.

And I also think that you should be the CEO. So that was a launch bill to me. And it's not an easy thing to consume. Um But he said it. And and did you immediately s think, okay. No. No.

I think For many people, including myself, I'm not any different. It's very hard. to Стоп

the way you were thinking until now, and completely changed direction without digesting it all the way, the implication of what you're doing, especially if you're very, very invested. And it's not that I was in a bad place, right? I felt like obligation to to feel to the business. I invested a lot in it, and I had very different thinking during that path about how I see my life. Many times you have expectations from people around you, from family, from yourself. And you're what did I do? Did I just waste my time all these years doing all this? For what? And now I'm gonna start all over again. Um, but the honest truth was when I asked myself what would I be more excited to do when I wake up in the morning.

It was definitely that. When you told Phil. uh your boss at at Commonwealth Financial that you were Leaving that you were gonna do this thing full time. Uh I mean presumably he he knew you were working on this, because right because I mean you'd you'd already told him about it, so Uh what was his response? Was he like disappointed in you or did he kinda let you go in peace?

His first reaction was I knew it. This spark. In your eyes, when you talk about this. I can't replicate it for you in the business here.

I just can't. I knew you I knew you were gonna do it. I'm sad for myself, but I'm happy for you. When we come back in just a moment, how a D and Alone continue to grow hows without.

paying to market it and have a pandemic. totally changes the trajectory. of the business. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.

Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2010, and Adie Titarko has just quit her job in finance to be the full-time CEO of House. An investor Oren Zev has just put in the first Big chunk of money. And of course, at some point down the road

House will monetize through commissions on its marketplace and a subscription service for home builders and designers. But at this point. Alone and Adi are not really thinking a whole lot. About the business model. We felt it's so early, and there is so much to do. In terms of building the product and user experience.

that it would be wrong to tilt our attention to monetization at this stage. And we actually told that to Oren before he invested. And Orin said, I'm with you. Деванти да Оренди чан, опіння ба. Венгій

We told him that we probably don't want to talk to VCs for a long, long, long time. Пробільнотизаційн. And six months in or and changed our mind. She Sed lock.

If you want To bring top Talent, top engineers, compete with companies with a lot of money. It would be very helpful for you if you have a top. Tier VC backing you off. That's my opinion. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. If you do, I'm happy to make some intro. And you ended up getting

m money from Sequoia Capital, which is one of the Top. Venture firms. In the world. Yeah, I feel very fortunate because we didn't even we again no deck, no numbers, no imaginary things.

Uh, meeting at the office, showing the website, showing the numbers, and tea at uh local, you know, place in downtown Palo Alto. And in that meeting they looked at each other and they said, We're gonna give you an offer. Wow. A D when you after that round, I think it was al almost twelve million dollars You had money. This is December of two thousand eleven. You had real money to hire really, presumably the really great

engineers and designers. And I think by twenty twelve you had about twenty six people. uh working for you. But how are you I mean, w h how are you growing the site? Was it still growing organically?'Cause it it is a tribe, right? I mean designers, architects, They're I'm assuming that people heard about it.

Through them. But you also needed who are not designers and architects, people like us. to go to the site to to start using it for their home renovation. So was it was it word of mouth

growth or did that money also allow allow you to start to do paid marketing. No, it it it was for years until we even started with the paid marketing. Uh we were very fortunate on that front. Um the expansion kept You know happening organically. by word of mouth. We didn't have to pay for it and and we could only focus on

bringing the talent invested a lot of our money and time and energy finding this talent. Інфект Алана і на фоніс. Spend fifty percent of the time. Interviewing people. That's what we did in the first few years. And we did it across the board when we decided to build a sales team. Then I interviewed All candidate until we got to one hundred and fifty solid salespeople on the ground. And when we decided to expand internationally, every engineer, every product manager, every designer, we interviewed them all. And it took a while until we said, Okay, we have a solid foundation here.

I I'm wondering, A D, I mean, yes, you have Sequoia behind you, which is a giant, right? And that that sends a signal to Pretty much everyone else that this is uh forced to be reckoned with when they back a company. But still You know, I wonder I mean Yeah. You know, wonder why like

Facebook. Didn't just be a little bit more. I mean Were there other companies or or any of the giants out there trying to

To compete with you? Early on. Um not specifically um Facebook that you mentioned, but there were definitely attempts by different players with much more money and recognition and well known in the industry. Lucky us it was um

Not all the way and too little too late and um these initiatives were shut down. Did you get nervous by I mean, um did any of them ever make you nervous that you g we gotta hurry up and get ahead of these guys. They're coming after us. I I think that the mindset was always We are very unique because we have that robust enormous global. community that has both the homeowners and professionals, right? Today we have sixty five million homeowners in the community and two point seven million professionals. And we are very deep, we're the only ones who can First of all, introduce them to each other, and this is like a flywheel. One is bringing the other. And that is a huge differentiation when you are the technology platform and you're providing tools to both sides and both sides come to you.

There are always going to be others, and the fact that there is interest in this industry and somebody wanna copy something from us. It's actually flattering. I D who helped you and Alone see this as a really big thing? Because you even up until the middle of two thousand ten, You it sounds like the two of you were not sure what this could be, but like you raise money

In two thousand ten, two million dollars. By two thousand fourteen. The company's has done a r a a funding raise at a two point three billion dollar valuation, like three and a half years in. I mean that is

Crazy if you think and y d did you y I think admittedly you didn't see that in two thousand ten. You didn't see that it I I think that first of all in the first few years we realised That this is a huge industry. Okay and home is such an important thing for people.

And you know, the second Expand after Dave. pay for the house is to actually customize it and build it and renovate it for for themselves. And we realized along the way there is so much more we are barely scratching the surface yet in terms of the product we can develop for our community and and for both sides of the equation here. Um But I don't think we ever sat there.

Because we never created this this craft saying And this is what is gonna be Yeah. It's always very down to earth. That's what we deal with right now. Yes, there are lots of different opportunities down the road, there can be expansions in so many different directions, but right now what we're dealing with is so big and so changing the industry that this is what we wanna do. A D, I'm curious about working with your husband, and I and I say this I should say in all Uh. being candid here, I work with my wife. She she she runs m our production company

How do you How do you kinda divide and conquer? I mean do you both have your sort of areas of interest and focus? And Or do you also And this is not an I mean, it wouldn't be surprising, but you also have w areas where you just really disagree and just and and have like arguments over.

So it's everything. I I think day to day obviously We're both involved in everything, um We don't always agree and sometimes Alon will convince me um that something is better, you know, this way versus the other. And sometimes I will convince him. And sometimes we'll let, you know, other folks in the company convince both of us that there is a another way of doing it, and that's better.

And it's okay also to make mistakes and and then realize that maybe there is a better way of doing it and change things. What is it about? Alone. that makes it work. That that where the two of you actually not only have created this business, but but seem to really

Like Two. I will start with the end of it. I would never do it with someone else. Ah, this is crazy enough. And um I need to have somebody that I

truly and fully trust one hundred percent When founders are strangers, that can work as well. But many times what I see is we had different point of view or we we were in different stages in life. One wanted to just sell and move on. The other ones felt like can do it forever. Uh we're hearing sometimes founders that are coming from the same background. So there is a lot of ego of who's gonna dictate um what. I we just don't have these things. And while it comes with other challenges like balance of Home and kids and The company

Енс Орен онс твое мі, а й вилі ремемер конверсін. Um when I not complain, but I vent it. I said It's such a crazy time, Oren. I don't know what I'm doing, you know. It's so crazy with with the kids. The kids were young and And he said You're very fortunate, A D.

Биз огін і А хапане тою And you choose to embrace them. So just choose to enjoy them. You can be at the peak of your career when you are twenty, and probably not when you are seventy or eighty. And you also can't raise your family and and your young kids at these two extreme ages. For most people, it it happens at around the same time at your age. And you decided which is a choice that you want to have both. And you are juggling between so embrace the fact that you are fortunate to do it, enjoy it.

And he was so right, so right about it. You've been quoted talking about quote you know, the sort of quote work life balance thing in in previous articles, but I wonder and you've talked a little bit about You know, some of those experiences that you had around just like You know, the the kind of this pressure that you felt, uh but d did alone also feel that pressure as a as a father?

I think that um There is a difference between um In in society. between um Моз и фатр, аланіс, амезен фар, байвилса.

Um Mothers and fathers. Ider by nature or society expectations or both. A wired in a different way, and I think. Атлістка кін так оборот.

It is Charlie's born with that potential baggage of guilt. And I I'm not doing enough. I'm not there enough. I need to do more. I need to do more. And I I think mothers have more in this bag than than dads in general. I'm generalizing. And again, not to take a thing from him, because he's amazing. And and meanwhile I mean, how is was just on this this growth tear. I mean, fr from the time that you launched until, you know J just just every year was growing and and new products are being created and and it Spread internationally.

And then The pandemic hit. And like a lot of companies, you guys struggled at first. You I I think you even had to do some layoffs. But then pretty quickly things started to turn around, right? People were starting to to use their homes, uh w uh working from home to r and and they were starting to renovate their homes because of that. You actually had like crazy record growth in I think in late twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. I is that right?

Yeah, so so what happened is uh we indeed face all these challenges at the first few months of the pandemic, but then several months later when things started, you know, opening up. Some trends that we saw prior to the pandemic started accelerating. Big time. Right. So there were three trends, big ones that we saw in the industry prior to Covid, especially in the US, but some of them were very relevant in other markets too. And what were they? Uh the first one was the baby boomers. That's the generation that is heavily remodeling and preparing their homes, you know, for

The next phase. For retirement. Correct. And this definitely accelerated big time um during and and you know um the pandemic. The the second one uh was h home equity that was at record high. People think it'd home equity loans. Yes. And and the third was um спешили інди у вас

Лоц адін хоз да форті єр. or more that needs massive repairs, build up and renovation, like our house when we got it. And so these trends were there Prior to the pandemic. And the reality was not just the dist three trends accelerated. I think many homeowners

um wanted and still want to reimagine their home and and the functionality of this home. Um, now that COVID um created a different reality. We used to work from the office. I didn't have a home office at home, guy. I didn't because I didn't need one. But all of a sudden, not just that I needed one, Alon needed his space, and my kids studied from home the whole year. And many homeowners wanted to leverage. Every single inch of their home. And they wanted it now because they needed it now. And professionals need to keep up with this space. So yeah, it really changed the dynamic. And I think it's here to stay. Um because our mindset about our house completely changed. Yeah. A D, you've been at this now for

Twelve years. And it's it's it's pretty clear there's been talk about an IPO and it'll probably happen at some point. maybe even this year. You are young, I mean you're not yet fifty. Uh you have You could do another company, you could

You could run a foundation, there's lots of things you could do. You could do it pretty much wherever you want. Do you Do you do you are you excited about the idea of running a public company and doing quarterly calls with investors and reporters, is that something that appeals to you? I think

That the Next phase or level of a company. Should not The a goal or a mission by itself.

Different milestones of raising funds privately, publicly and Edding partners investors are just supporting Avenues along the way to You know, make sure that your path is is is conquered there and and you are getting to the place you need to get. So then when I put myself in all this, I say, am I excited about it? I'm not excited, I I don't think it's relevant, you know. I once

Was interviewed by a reporter, and just before me. En і New York. They interviewed someone that um about parenthood and of research that was done among many, many parents. What are the ages of your kids that makes you more excited about and which ages you're kind of not excited about or prefer to forget? And I take the whole package and whatever is needed in order to provide what I need to my kids at every age, including the less compelling ages.

And I take the and and look at all the beauty that comes with each stage, and this is how I see my role. Um, as a founder of this company. At any stage, there were many different challenges. And at any stage, there was in every stage there were so many great things to be inspired by, to look forward to. to be happy about. You know, we grew from being the first two homeowners to sixty five million homeowners that are using house today. So it's unbelievable for me to even say it, but I'm still a user. And and I feel very grateful and fortunate, but I'm not the story. The story is, you know, how do you take this fortune and and and what do you do with it? I just feel very, very lucky on that front.

Yeah, I mean Let's talk about luck. Uh because You know, there's always an I th I believe There's always an element of luck, but I'm wondering how much of that you think is a factor. You know, you you you met Alan on on a bus, you were it was a seat next to him and and that's that that was just a seat you took.

Um, you know, you met this guy almost uh on a kid field trips or school trips and that led you to a group of investors. Um How much of of the journey of housing you what you guys built do you think has to do with

With those lucky breaks and how much do you think has to do with just your the work that you guys put into it and and your intelligence and and hard work. I think that ninety percent of it is and again, some people describe it as luck.

Other will say coincidence, being in the right place I the way I see it, I think we all have different opportunities surrounding us every single day. We just need to open our eyes and look and be fair with ourselves because many times we think that we walk in a certain path. And I'm saying it because I

Well, I can complain to you until tomorrow about I didn't want to live in the suburb. I I feel that we were very fortunate that we moved here because lots of amazing things happened in the Silicon Valley for us that I'm very grateful for. And I could tell you that, you know. Oh my goodness. Um I I choose to stop financial planning after investing so much in it, but I I feel so fortunate.

That I did because See what happened. That's Adarko, co-founder and CEO of Um, by the way, did you ever did you ever finish renovating that house or did you just did you just like give up on it and move to a new house? We're still in the same house, guy. Exact same house. Still in the same house. Still in the same house.

Renovated now? Renovate it now. Got it done. Yes. You know a house? is not walls. A house is place to create memories with the people you love the most. And this is how I see this house. It brought so many great moments to our lives and to our kids' lives. And that's what it's all about. It's it's nothing else.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. By the way, if you want to hear every episode one week early, check out Amazon Music and if you want to listen one week early and ad free Subscribe to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or on the Wondery app. And please do follow us on your podcast app so you always have the latest episode downloaded. And another way to support our show is by filling out a survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you want to contact our team, our email address is hibtid.wondery.com. If you want to follow us on Twitter or Instagram, our account is at how I built this, and mine is at guy on Twitter and on Instagram at guy.Roz.

This episode was produced by Josh Lash with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Margaret Sorino. Our production staff also includes JC Howard, Liz Metzger, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Cypher, Elaine Coates, John Isabella, Chris Massini, and Carla Esteves. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. To how I built this.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.