Tim is the founder and CEO of Airtasker (founded in 2011), an online and mobile marketplace that allows people and businesses to outsource any task they need done to trusted, reliable people in their local community.
Tim is also a founder and director of Tank Stream Labs – a co-working space and entrepreneurial community located in the heart of Sydney CBD.
Prior to starting Airtasker, Tim was a founding team member and investor in mobile startup amaysim, playing a key role in strategy and capital raising. He is a founder and director of several web startups, including online custom shirt design business Joe Button, and motorsport event management group Circuit Club.
Tim has worked as a consulting talent agent at Chic Management and before this, spent five years as an investment banking executive at Macquarie Bank. Tim has a B.Commerce (marketing) from The University of New South Wales.
Highlights
When you are starting a company, it’s really good to start with a problem that you’ve experienced, and you want to fix.
It’s good to start with a problem that you have yourself because it holds you accountable to making sure there’s real value in the company that you are creating.
I think starting a company is the manifestation of solving a problem and having an impact on the world; it’s one way to do that.
We reoriented the whole business around our new mission statement to empower people to realise the full value of their skills.
Literally every single person has unique skills, and we want to be there to help them monetise their skills and be able to make an income from them.
The main thing is that, and I mean this in the deepest possible way, it’s important to be building something that you believe is valuable or impactful to the community or to other peoples’ lives.
I think it requires a fair bit of conviction in what you’re doing - it’s just important to be building something that you truly do believe in.
Along the journey you definitely have moments of self-doubt, and you definitely consider whether this is this the right job for me.
I definitely teetered between full conviction and having self-doubt - but I think that over the years, what I have found is, the most important thing is to be able to be adaptable and reflective of the situation.
One of the privileges that you get as being a founder of a company or the CEO, is that you can surround yourself with people to do the stuff that you’re not so good at, so long as you can hold them accountable and support them to do their jobs well.