Opinion
Tatarko: Mothers carry more parental guilt about work-life balance than fathers
“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 ourself, it's almost like, this child is born with that potential baggage of guilt. You know, I'm not doing enough. I'm …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: COVID-driven home renovation and space optimization demand is permanent
“So, yeah, it really changed the dynamic, and I think it's here to stay because our mindset about our house completely changed.”
Insight
Tatarko: Investor alignment matters far more than valuation
“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 pers…”
Insight
Tatarko: Private funding and IPOs are operational tools, not company goals
“I think that the next phase or level of a company should not be a goal or a mission by itself. Different milestones of raising funds privately, publicly, adding partners, investors, are just supporting avenues along the way to, you know, make sure that your pa…”
Assertion Partly supported
Tatarko: Alon Cohen built eBay's API from scratch
“Alon was really, he built the API from scratch, you know.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Houzz has over 370M metadata tags on photos
“Today we have Over three and hundred and seventy million metadata tag attached to these millions of photos.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Houzz acquired its domain name for $35
“And it was available for 35 dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Houzz stalled early on at 20,000 users
“Before it started expanding to the hundreds of thousands, we had the moment, Guy, at around 20,000 users that we thought that this is it... 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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: SF Architect Association board members uploaded portfolios within 24 hours of pitch
“I swear to God, 24 hours later, I started seeing some board members that were sitting in that meeting, uploading like crazy all their portfolio to Houzz.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Houzz reached hundreds of thousands of monthly users before raising capital
“We did have a few 100,000, you know, monthly users at this point. And thousands of professionals with portfolios very, very active working with these homeowners.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Oren Zeev concentrated large personal checks in few startups
“He invested in very, very few companies every year, just his own money, but much larger amounts.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Houzz grew purely through word-of-mouth for years before paid marketing
“No, it was for years until we even started with the paid marketing process. We were very fortunate on that front. The expansion kept, you know, happening organically, by word of mouth. We didn't have to pay for it”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Houzz founders spent 50% of early years interviewing candidates
“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 …”
Assertion Supported
Tatarko: Houzz has 65M homeowners and 2.7M professionals in its community
“Today we have sixty-five million homeowners in the community and 2.7 million professionals, and we are very deep.”
Disclosure
Adi Tatarko participated in Israeli Air Force rescue missions for Ethiopian Jews
“I was involved in very interesting plans 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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Alon Cohen underwent 16 interviews before receiving eBay offer
“Well, after 16 interviews and four rounds where they called him to eBay, he finally got the offer.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Houzz was born from a failed, expensive home remodeling effort
“And we had to throw it away after lots of money that we spent 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, Houzz was born because of that.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tatarko: Houzz launched with 20 school parents and local Bay Area designers
“We were just, you know, using it with 20 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 t…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Alon Cohen urged Adi Tatarko to quit her job and lead Houzz
“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 gonna do, come and do it…”
