YouSaid · the spoken record

Adi Tatarko

lines on the record: 90
first: 2022-05-30
most recent: 2022-05-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Know a house is not walls. A house is a 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 nothing else.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that 90% of it is. And again, some people describe it as luck. Others will say coincidence, being in the right place. The way I see it, I think we all have different opportunities surrounding us every single day. tons. 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 while I can complain to you until tomorrow about I didn't want to live in the suburb. 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, I choose to stop financial planning after investing so much in it. But I feel so fortunate that I did because see what happened.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 and look at all the beauty that comes with each stage. And this is how I see my role as a founder of this company. At any stage, there were many different challenges. And at any stage, 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 65 million homeowners that are using house today. Unbelievable. So it's unbelievable for me to even say it, but I'm still a user. 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 what do you do with it? I just feel very, very...”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that the next phase or level of a company should not be a goal or a mission by itself. Different milestones of rising funds privately, publicly, adding partners, investors are just supporting avenues along the way to make sure that your path is conquered there 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 don't think it's relevant. And just before me in New York, they interviewed someone that about parenthood and have 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?”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 because our mindset about our house completely changed.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And the third was, especially in the US, lots of aging homes that are 40 years old or more that needs massive repairs buildup 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 these three trends accelerated. I think many homeowners wanted and still want to reimagine their home and the functionality of this home now that COVID 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, Alan needed his space and my kids studied from home the whole year. And many homeowners wanted to leverage.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct, and this definitely accelerated big time during and the pandemic. The second one was home equity that was at record high.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so what happened is we indeed face all these challenges at the first few months of the pandemic, but then several months later, when things started 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that there is a difference between in society between mothers and fathers and Alon is an amazing father. But I will say mothers and fathers either by nature or society expectations or both are wired in a different way. And I think at least I can talk about ourselves. It's almost like... Child is born with that potential baggage of guilt, and I'm not doing enough. I'm not there enough. I need to do more. I need to do more. And I think mothers have more in this bag than dads in general. I'm generalizing. And again, not to take a thing from him because he's amazing.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Home and kids and the company. And as Oren once told me, and I really remember that conversation, when I not complained, but I vended. I said, it's such a crazy time, Oren, I don't know what I'm doing, you know, it's so crazy with the kids. The kids were young. And he said, you're very fortunate, Adi, because all the good things that can happen in life are happening to you and you choose to embrace them. So just choose to enjoy them. You can be at the pick of your career when you are 20 and probably not when you are 70 or 80. And you also can't raise your family and your young kids at these two extreme ages. For most people, 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We'll start with the end of it. I would never do it with someone else for sure. This is crazy enough. And I need to have somebody that I. Truly and fully trust 100%. When founders are strangers, that can work as well, but many times what I see is we had different point of view or we were in different stages in life. One wanted to just sell and move on. The other ones felt like can do it forever. We are hearing sometimes founders that are coming from the same background.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's everything. I think day to day, obviously, we're both involved in everything. We don't always agree. And sometimes Alon will convince me that something is better this way versus the other. And sometimes I will convince him. And sometimes we'll let other folks in the company convince both of us that there is another way of doing it and that's better. And it's okay also to make mistakes and then realize that maybe there is a better way of doing it and change things.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is what is gonna be. 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 want to do.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that, first of all, in the first few years, we realized that this is a huge industry. And home is such an important thing for people and the second expand after they pay for the house is to actually customize it and build it and renovate it for themselves. And we realize along the way there is so much more we are barely scratching the surface here in terms of the product we can develop for our community and for both sides of the equation here. But I don't think we ever sat there because we never created these graphs saying”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 65 million homeowners in the community and 2.7 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. They're always going to be others. And the fact that there is interest in this industry and somebody want to copy something from us, it's actually flattering.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not specifically 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 not all the way and too little too late and this initiatives were shut down.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now it was for years until we even started with the paid marketing. We were very fortunate on that front. The expansion kept happening organically by word of mouth. We didn't have to pay for it and we could only focus on bringing the talent, invested a lot of our money and time and energy finding this talent. In fact, Alon and I, for years, spent 50% 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 candidates until we got to 150 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I feel very fortunate because we didn't even, we again, no DAC, no numbers, no imaginary things meeting at the office, showing the website, showing the numbers and tea at local place in downtown Palo Alto. And in that meeting, they looked at each other and they said, we're going to give you an offer”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 Oren said, I'm with you. One thing that Orin did change our opinion about when he invested, we told him that we probably don't want to talk to VCs for a long, long, long time, probably not until the point that we will be ready for monetization. And six months in, Orin changed our mind. said look, 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 top tier VC backing you off. That's my opinion. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. If you do,”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“His first reaction was, I knew it, the 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're gonna do it. I'm sad for myself, but I'm happy for you.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think for many people, including myself, I'm not any different. It's very hard to stop the way you were thinking until now and completely change direction without digesting it all the way, the implication of what you're doing, especially if you are very, very invested. And it's not that I was in a bad place, right? I felt like obligation 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. What did I do? Did I just waste my time all these years doing all this? For what? And I'm going to start all over again. 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He said Adi, I know you have this deal with Phil. I know that you invested a lot of time, energy, effort studying in this. But I think you love doing house more. And I think that you should seriously consider quit your job too, as I'm going to 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. But he said it.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In ascend first time founders that are founding a company in the US like this. But he didn't. And he said, I'm founder friendly. I may take more, but I give you a lot of freedom. And I will sit in the backseat. 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or not really not yet. Not naive because we came from this universe, but we were never in all the rounds this and the ones that came after. We're so not fixated on what's the valuation should be, it was almost not ignoring it, but it was really down in terms of our list of priorities, down the list. 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 built a lot of trust with or enduring that process. It's 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 what he's proposing and he could have go the other way around which many investors do.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“$2 million, that was kind of I remember. And I remember the scenery like it was yesterday because the kids were quite young and they were throwing oranges at each other and I was trying to tell them be quiet, stop throwing this all over the house. And that was such a mess there. But hilarious. And Orin said, yes, I'm interested. 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 $2 million?”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, while most angels at that time were investing small amounts, again, we're talking about the early 2000s, 50, 100, maybe 200K in each startup. We called it a spray and pray approach for angels. He had a very different approach. He invested in very, very And this was just a few days after we met to put such a quick offer on the table.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Through the small network that we had back then, very, very few people Very casual environment, either at our house or a coffee place, very, very casual. And I think Alain was the one who met outside of the house with Orin first.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. So just for you to know about the 2 million, back then we were spending so little and accomplishing so much when Amos asked me how much money I think that we want to raise, I said, well, see how much we do with $2,000 a month. Can you imagine what $1 million will do to the business? Not being naive, just really thinking frugal how much we can, you know, squeeze ourselves for this. And so he said, well, if you think that you want to raise a million, then at least raise two, have some buffer there. I really want you to have cushion to hire top engineers and great people. I recommend that you'll consider two instead of one. Okay, two, but not more, not more. And so we ended up meeting.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's all during the pitch sessions. 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. I like it. I'm behind you. Take the money. Keep doing it.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh no. 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 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 want to put imaginary numbers and business models that we can all tell how people do it. I know I didn't want that at all.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I'm I don't think he needs our little project for the money, but he was, you know, by our side, we met, once we decided that we're going to explore it our way, no decks and presentations on Sandhild Road. That was a big no-no.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, we didn't want to 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. What I told Amos was we 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. And so Amma said I'm happy to help you with that and I can invest too. And I said, no. And that's my second thing. 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They find out about you? So one of the users was working at Google and the ads part and he have there because he was an avid user 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”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At that point We didn't make any money, and we said there are lots of things you can go for and different ways to monetize this. At this point, Google already reached out to us and said, you have.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I called him back and I said, you know, we 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. He actually did, and I didn't want to. So after talking with Alan for a while about this, I got at this point I realized that Amos Wilnie, he is an entrepreneur that built multiple companies, the last one. He took public and then sold for $4 billion to MMC Network. So not exactly the guy from the street just giving me advice, somebody that understands something.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And why aren't you raising money for this? He 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 expanding like this. 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 going to 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. 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We did have a few hundred thousand monthly users at this point and thousands of professionals with portfolios very, very active working with these homeowners. And he said, and how much money did you invest in it? And I said, well, right now we're paying $2,000 for the servers. But, you know, we sponsor it from just our time, which is a lot, but our time said, okay.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know how I got to mention this 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 asks. So obviously someone is in front of me that understands home remodeling very well. Apparently owned multiple homes. And so we decided to talk afterwards. He asked me to send the link to the website. And I said, sure. I 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. His name is Amos. And he said, Are you crazy? How many users you said you haven't? And I”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't think that we're both going to do it. At some point started thinking, maybe at some point Alone will be able to do it 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, chit chatting. And he was a former Israeli too, so was very easy to start a conversation about something, about living in the area and moving and differences and so on.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A lot of it was done nights and weekends. 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 more present on social media sites, which were very, very new at that time. you know, Facebook, Twitter and so on. Another one was a designer and offered along to start working on the design side and potentially A facelift because Alain did a great job, but he's not a designer, right? And so nobody worked full time job, but we started getting very passionate, interested friends and people around us that wanted to help us. And so it was very little, but it helped a ton.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wouldn't say the day moved the needle, but it was a signal that the idea is sinking. So we kept jumping and we started expanding it in different directions.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of course. When I said, well, it's not a business. I'm not monetizing it right now. But I cannot guarantee something that I don't know how this is all going to evolve or what I can say is you have a lot of benefits in it. See all those that already joined. You know, what's happening to them? And they said, well, we'll think about it and get back to you. And I said, okay. And I left the meeting. And I swear, God, 24 hours later, I started seeing some board members that were sitting in that meeting uploading like crazy all their portfolio to house. And I told her something is working here because if I just talk to them and that's the reaction, but then I go back and that's what they do personally for their business.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there were different voices around the table. Some people were very business 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 any monetization attempts. We will build our portfolios But you will never charge us for”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Join, create a profile of all your portfolio and become part of the community. And I went to meet with the board. There were 17 people around the table”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I will not forget that during that year, I got myself a meeting at the Architect Association in San Francisco, the chapter in San Francisco. And I went to pitch the idea to them.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“True, we didn't have money to advertise. But it then got stuck on 20,000. And we were looking at Google Analytics and looking at our data and it didn't go anywhere And we did more of what we did until now, and we kept developing and adding content and enhancing the product, yet it got stuck at 20,000. And I remember that conversation that we had that maybe this is it.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“While at the beginning we didn't have that much traffic, right? It was us as users and our surrounding community. And I will say before it started expanding to the hundreds of thousands, we had a moment, guy at around 20,000 users that we thought that this is it.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Upload And we started getting, we had a little, no, there supported house.com, which Alan and I would check every night what kind of emails and requests and bugs and ideas and 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.”
2022-05-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Houzz: Adi Tatarko · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT