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[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get you through your Friday.
Nathan Bush: Today's checkout features Tim Fung, CEO and founder of Airtasker. Airtasker is a community platform that connects people who need jobs done to with the people who want to work. Started In Australia in 2012, Airtasker now operates in New Zealand, Singapore, the UK, Ireland and the US and was recently listed on the ASX.
[Ad]: Tim, welcome to the Checkout. We've loved your episode around Airtasker and we're going to ask you five questions to learn a little bit more about yourself. Number one, what is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Tim Fung: Oh, wow. I buy lots of weird things. I'm kind of obsessed with outdoor stuff. I think last week what I could remember, I bought some spikes that you can attach to the bottom of your shoes for when you go hiking.
[Ad]: Nice. Are you hiking anywhere? Crazy lately.
Tim Fung: I'm just going to spend some time in Queenstown in New Zealand. So excited about that.
[Ad]: Borders are open. Let's go nuts. All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Tim Fung: Oh, that is a really good question. Other than Airtasker, I would have to say. I would have to. I'm loving the product experience on Airbnb at the moment. The UX and the UI is just so intuitive and it's a really beautiful product. So I'd say Airbnb.
[Ad]: Yeah, they've done an incredible job to get through Covid too, haven't they?
Tim Fung: Oh, incredible. And you know, you can really see that Brian Chesky, one of the co founders there is. He's just tough, you know. He can get through a lot of pain.
[Ad]: Yeah, absolutely. Number three, which retail fad do you wish was history?
Tim Fung: Well, one thing that does bug me about online retail is that you can't get the whole price surfaced on the front page. And one of the things I'm always thinking about because I'm still a price sensitive shopper. I can't find out what it's going to cost me to buy an item. So I would love to see that there's a way to bring that to the front of the page and understand actually what are the costs, depending on the shipping, what else you're buying and et cetera, what that cost could be.
[Ad]: Absolutely. That's a really great one. Hasn't come up before, but it's been a problem for a long time. So well put. Number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Tim Fung: So I would put three books together which I think were really transformative for my business. Those three books are Thinking Fast and Slow, which is Daniel Kahneman, and then a book called Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke, which it's all about taking learnings from poker and taking that into how you construct decision making. And then the third is Super Forecasting. So this is all about. We have a tendency to want to forecast about the future and say, well, the future is certain and what we know is that it almost certainly isn't. And so how do you take that concept and do the best job that you can in your business?
[Ad]: They're brilliant tips. Thank you. I've read the first one. I've read Thinking Fast and Slow, but not the second two. And I don't mind a bit of poker, so that definitely appeals.
Tim Fung: That's fun.
[Ad]: All right, last one I've got for you. Finish this sentence. The future of retail is going to
Tim Fung: go back to physical experiences because people are craving physical and face to face experiences and you know, the world is feeling very isolated and separate. So I think buying stuff is a hobby as much as it is a practical thing that people need items. So it'd be great to combine those two things together.
[Ad]: Beautiful. Tim, thank you for joining us on the checkout.
Tim Fung: Thanks for having me.
Nathan Bush: What an amazing story. It's one of those moments where I pinch myself and think, how lucky am I to have conversations with some of the best business and entrepreneurial minds in Australia. When I started this podcast, I started certainly wasn't thinking that I would be sitting down with the likes of Tim Funk to have conversations around their business. When I was first talking to Tim and the Airtasker team about coming onto the podcast, I was a little hesitant because I didn't know if it fit the E commerce mold. However, as you can see here, Airtasker is actually one of the most significant two sided marketplaces in Australia just for services, not products. And what I really like about the model is that it fills those serviceable moments that often fall between the gaps and the ideas and services that might not be big enough to make an entire business out of, but together create a really strong community and a fantastic offering. I think that's an idea we can all think about. Are there experts or specialists in our field that we can bring into our business to add value in small increments to give our customers value that we wouldn't be able to? As Tim showed, it's not an easy model to get right, but when it clicks, it can be so powerful.
[Ad]: Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
