#61: Startup Historian & Marketplace Guru, Ty Wolfe Jones, on The Beating Ops Heart of Kickass Startups & The “Uber Everywhere” Mantra (Part 1)

didhedieyet

4 years ago

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Welcome back!

This is Ty Wolfe-Jones & I’s new, special season of The Daily Marketer, where we’ve spoken with over a dozen marketplace leaders & pioneers from Uber, Convoy, Bellhop, Doordash, Rover, as well as rising stars, so to gather proven blueprints, hacks & tactics to growing a marketplace. Enjoy!

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Ty Wolfe Jones is a marketplace leader, guru, operator spending most of his career in the startup, tech industry.

Ty comes from an entrepreneurial family, spending his childhood & teens in the cotton fields of Tulare (TO-LARRY), California, patching tires of 40 foot tall tractors, 2 miles deep in a field cresting @ sunset.

Fast forward to “young, reckless cowboy Ty” and we find him operating in the enhanced drink industry, becoming 1 of the 1st founding members of Zipfizz, Cha Dao Tea, PHIX, and Nuun.

After a stint here, he entered the world of startups and worked at well-known names like Tango Card, Uber, & Doordash.

A lover of the northwest, a fine scotch whisky & cigar, over the course of 10 years Ty’s scaled early-stage marketplaces as “The Operations Guy”, expanded into new markets @ Uber & Doordash, and forged teams, pioneered relationships, & pushed boundaries

This conversation was a hoot, Ty is a truthsayer, direct as nails, and a fountain of marketplace stories, making him a delight as a partner on this turbine journey into marketplace pandemonium.

Did you know Ty has a personal cigar room? Think of a sauna, but just for smoking the Earth’s most magnificent stogies

This episode is particularly valuable for anyone who’s an Operations Manager or works in any level of Support @ a marketplace or fledgling tech startup. Ty has the answers, if you have the questions!

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Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Without further ado, enjoy this colorful conversation with Ty Wolfe Jones!

Show Notes

Why are we doing this (Marketplace Mayhem)? [3:36]
What you’re getting by listening to Marketplace Mayhem? [8:19]
What does a tire buster do? [9:33]
Were you a tire buster? [10:28]
Why did you get into marketplaces? [13:09]
What did you find from the experiment of testing Uber outside of major metros? [17:00]
What does an “Ops Guy” do exactly? [18:20]
How Ty developed his niche, by being a generalist, within marketplaces [20:34]
How Ty was original member of many startups [22:17]
The chicken or the egg problem. Which came 1st at Wrench or DoorDash? [23:02]
How Uber was an example of “magic” through smartphones [25:32]
At DoorDash, there’s 2 sources of Supply: drivers & restaurants [28:13]
Where does DoorDash become “magical”? [29:32]
How ghost kitchen restaurants/meals were more “advanced magical moments” [31:02]

Links from Episode

What was your favorite ‘lesson learned’ from Ty? Comment below!