Steps to Create a Marketplace Similar to Thumbtack

Owing to the growing influence of technology in our daily lives, people are relying more on technology. Instead of interacting with multiple people and then choosing the right person, they now prefer using online marketplaces to find a freelancer or handyman for their tasks. These online service marketplaces provide you with a curated list of available service providers.

Hence, the on-demand service marketplace industry is witnessing huge growth. One of the top on-demand service marketplaces is Thumbtack, which is gaining a lot of popularity.

Thumbtack is a US based home services marketplace that was founded in the year 2008 by Marco Zappacosta, Jeremy Tunnell, Jonathan Swanson, and Sander Daniels as a directory for on-demand service providers. In 2021, Thumbtack received funding of $275 million at a valuation of $3.2 billion.

Presently, Thumbtack is among the leading home services companies in the USA. It has instigated around 70 million jobs and has more than 5 million active users on its platform.

Business Model of Thumbtack

The business model of Thumbtack involves a robust matching process that provides a list of on-demand service providers based on the information entered by the customer. Let us discuss how this works:-

• The customer posts the job along with the necessary details.
• After posting the job, Thumbtack searches for the service providers that have the required skillset. It then creates a list of the available service providers and displays it to the customer.
• The customer now has the option to look at the profiles of these service providers and check their ratings and previous tasks. Then the customer can choose the right service provider according to their requirements and budget constraints.
• The service provider then connects with the customer and starts the job.
• After successful job completion, the customer makes the payment to the service provider.

Revenue Model of Thumbtack Marketplace

In order to build a marketplace like Thumbtack, you need to understand the different revenue streams that it has incorporated into its platform:-

Selling Credits - The major income stream of Thumbtack is to sell credits to service providers. The service providers need these credits in order to apply for the jobs posted on the platform.

Subscriptions - Thumbtack sells monthly as well as annual subscription packages to its service providers to access some extra features.

Featured Listings - Apart from the subscriptions, Thumbtack also has a paid featured listing section which service providers can use to promote themselves. This can be a recurring source of revenue like subscriptions.

How to Build a Marketplace Like Thumbtack

Since now we know about the the revenue streams and the business model of Thumbtack, let us now have a look at the steps that you can follow to create a successful marketplace like Thumbtack:-

1. Select A Development Approach

Before beginning the development process, you need to select an approach that you want to follow to build your marketplace. There are two types of development approaches:-

a. Custom Development - In this strategy, you hire a development team and create the whole software from scratch. You can also outsource this job to a professional software development company.

Advantages of this approach include:-

• Independence of choosing a framework and tech stack
• Complete control over the codebase

This approach also has its disadvantages, including

• Expensive development process
• Time-consuming
• Not tried and tested

b. Using a No-code Solution - This approach involves using readymade software as a base for building your on-demand services marketplace. In this approach, you already have the base code ready, so you just have to customize the marketplace as per your business requirements.

The advantages of following this approach are:-

• Cost-efficient development process
• Reduced time to market
• Tried and tested solution
• Feature-rich solution

This approach also comes with its own set of disadvantages, including:-

• No choice of framework or tech stack
• Migration and platform dependency

2. Deploy the software

Your marketplace software is now ready. You can now choose to deploy it on your server and personalize the major landing pages. These landing pages can include Home, About Us, Contact us, and other important web pages.

3. Launch and Market

After your software is deployed on the server, you can launch your marketplace and initiate your marketing strategy. You can rely on paid marketing to get initial customers. You can also start onboarding service providers on your platform.

How YoGigs Can Help?

YoGigs is a fully customizable on-demand services marketplace software that has multiple in-built functionalities to assist you in launching and managing your services marketplace. You can also choose to add or remove functionalities as per your requirements. It is completely scalable and supports an unlimited number of listings and financial transactions. Yo!Gigs is a completely white-labeled solution that can be purchased at a one-time cost.

• Fully Customizable
• Feature Loaded
• White-labeled software
• Completely scalable
• One time cost
• Free installation and technical support

Conclusion

The online services marketplace is rapidly growing due to the changing lifestyle of customers, and growing need of convenience. Thumbtack is one such marketplace that has grown significantly in recent years. However, creating a successful on-demand services marketplace is not easy. You need a lot of money and resources to develop your marketplace platform. This is where YoGigs can help you. It is a feature-loaded solution that you can use to build your services platform.