51-year-old introvert overcame her 'worst nightmare' to construct her $1.2 billion firm

Earlier than she constructed what would develop into a billion-dollar firm, Angie Hicks needed to conquer one in all her greatest fears: speaking to strangers. 

Hicks — one of many two co-founders of Angi, previously often called Angie’s Record — is a self-described introvert.

But she’s additionally the namesake behind Angi, a well-liked on-line residence companies information with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. In the present day, the corporate is price $1.2 billion. 

Hicks is Angi’s chief buyer officer, a job she’s had since 2017. However when the enterprise launched in 1995, she wore many hats — usually actually strolling door-to-door to recruit Angi’s first prospects. It was a frightening process for somebody who shied away from socializing with strangers. 

“I am very shy,” Hicks, 51, tells CNBC Make It. “Going door to door like that was my worst nightmare.” 

Changing into an entrepreneur wasn’t Hicks’ first alternative of a profession or a childhood dream realized. Earlier than beginning Angi, she was on monitor to develop into a marketing consultant. 

Weeks earlier than graduating from DePauw College, she acquired a proposal from a boutique consulting agency in Washington, D.C. with a beginning wage of $40,000. 

However then her former boss, Invoice Oesterle, known as with a distinct proposition. Hicks had met Oesterle, a enterprise capitalist, throughout an internship at CID Companions, an Indianapolis-based personal fairness agency. 

Oesterle was dwelling in Columbus, Ohio, and making an attempt to revive an outdated home, a mission that will have been a lot simpler when he lived in Indianapolis due to an organization known as Unified Neighbors, which helped folks discover dependable contractors and different residence service suppliers. 

Columbus did not have an analogous service, however Oesterle thought one might be priceless there. 

So he collected a 12 months’s price of seed cash — about $50,000 — and requested Hicks if she would transfer to Columbus and assist him launch the startup, then known as Columbus Neighbors, as a co-founder. 

He supplied Hicks an annual wage of $20,000 to assist run the corporate — half of what she would’ve made within the consulting job.

“I hated it,” Hicks admits. “I am introverted, and I all the time considered an entrepreneur as somebody charismatic and outgoing … I advised Invoice, ‘That is not me.'” 

However Oesterle did not hand over. “He stated, ‘If it does not work out, the worst factor that occurs is you will have a fantastic essay for what you are promoting faculty utility,'” Hicks provides. 

Not sure of what to do, Hicks consulted her grandfather, who in the end satisfied her to affix the startup. 

His recommendation was easy: “What is the distinction between being 22 and searching for a job, and being 23 and searching for a job?” 

That remark resonated with Hicks. “It helped me notice that if I wished to take a threat, that was the time to do it — once I was younger and had so few tasks,” she says. 

The morning after she graduated, Hicks moved to Columbus and began working from a 100-square-foot workplace down the road from the studio residence she was renting.

Oesterle had a full-time job in finance, so she usually labored alone. 

“The opposite of us within the workplace constructing thought my mother and father had rented the house for me to do homework in since I used to be so younger,” Hicks says, laughing. “The one window confronted a cinderblock wall.”

Members have been gradual to affix, however Hicks hustled to get the phrase out, from borrowing Oesterle’s neighbor’s vacation card mailing checklist to marching in native parades to advertise the fledgling enterprise.

Though Angi’s medium has modified all through the years — it began as a call-in service and month-to-month publication earlier than pivoting on-line — the core of its enterprise mannequin has remained the identical.

Angi connects householders with native service professionals for numerous duties like residence repairs, cleansing, and renovations. Customers can browse service suppliers, learn critiques, request quotes and ebook appointments straight by means of the platform.

As an introvert, Hicks says socializing and advertising the enterprise did not come naturally. However she developed methods to develop into a extra assured chief like working towards her script earlier than a frightening presentation or gross sales pitch and setting small, lifelike targets to rejoice. 

“If I bought one membership in a day, I used to be thrilled,” she says. “I additionally realized to sort out the toughest duties first, and save the enjoyable duties for later within the day, which helped me keep motivated and be extra productive.” 

Hicks’ perseverance paid off: Inside a 12 months, membership grew to about 1,000, sufficient to show the idea’s potential to traders. 

In 1996, the corporate rebranded to Angie’s Record after prospects started associating Hicks personally with the suggestions. 

“On the time, it simply appeared like a kind of inconsequential choices you make once you’re 22,” Hicks says of the title change.

In 1998, Oesterle stop his job to work full-time with Hicks, and that very same 12 months, the corporate moved its headquarters to Indianapolis, Indiana. Angi now has workplaces in Indianapolis, New York Metropolis and Denver, Colorado. Oesterle, the longtime chief government, left the corporate in 2015. He died in 2023 at 57 years outdated.

Since 2016, the fundamental service of Angie’s Record has been free-to-use for all. The platform earns its income primarily from contractors, who pay to promote on Angi, and from paid memberships, which offer reductions on further companies for an annual price.

The corporate, which went public in 2011, has persistently introduced in over one billion {dollars} yearly since 2018.

And in 2021, Angie’s Record turned Angi. In the present day, Angi is a dominant participant within the $90 billion U.S. residence companies market. In 2023 alone, Angi acquired greater than 23 million service requests from householders and generated about $1.3 billion in income. 

For the total story of how Hicks helped flip Angie’s Record right into a billion-dollar enterprise, try the most recent episode of CNBC Make It is Founder Impact. 

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