Hardware Podcasts

Nirav Tolia: Nextdoor. How neighborhood chatter went global

How I Built This · 15 Sept 2025 · 1h 08m

What this episode covers

Nirav Tolia, co-founder and CEO of Nextdoor, recounts the company's journey from a manual, postcard-based verification process to a global network of 100 million users. He details his previous ventures, including the failed startup Fanbase and the dot-com era company ePinions, explaining how those experiences shaped Nextdoor's strategy of prioritizing community trust over rapid scaling. Tolia discusses his departure as CEO in 2018 due to burnout, his return six years later to lead a rebrand, and the challenges of monetizing a platform that historically avoided direct advertising.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Yahoo, U.S. Bank, Benchmark Capital, Expedia, Zillow, Yelp, Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Open AI, Angie's List, Thumbtack
Products
Nextdoor, ePinions, Fanbase

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