Recording of the Everything Marketplaces Group Chat #157 (4/23) with Sara Mauskopf, who’s the Co-founder & CEO of Winnie. Winnie is a marketplace that makes it easy for parents to discover trusted childcare providers nearby. Winnie is used millions of parent across the US and is also backed by top investors like Homebrew. Before starting Winnie, Sara led product at Postmates, so has some really great marketplace experience.
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0:06 Intro
‍1:13 Sara's background
‍2:19 Key learnings from Postmates
‍4:45 The founding story & first steps for starting Winnie
‍6:56 Pivoting into a childcare marketplace
‍10:12 How Winnie took the initial approach of going broad across markets
‍11:54 An overview of Winnie as a leading childcare marketplace
‍13:19 The playbook Winnie uses for category expansion
‍15:46 Qualifying leads & demonstrating a positive ROI to providers
‍17:55 Challenges with building technology & innovating in the childcare space
‍19:15 Recent challenges as Winnie has scaled
‍20:20 The fundraising journey
‍23:37 Group Q&A on marketplace trust & safety
‍26:03 Group Q&A on tips for hiring & team building
‍27:36 Group Q&A on how Winnie uses sponsored search
‍30:10 Group Q&A on how Winnie acquired their first 10 customers
‍33:27 Group Q&A on marketplace SEO
‍35:56 Parting marketplace advice
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Sara on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/sm
Winnie: https://www.winnie.com
Mike (Yoroomie) on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/yoroomie
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You can also find this group chat in audio format as an episode on our new Everything Marketplaces podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also connect with marketplace founders & leaders from our group chats in the Everything Marketplaces community.