Before she built what would become a billion-dollar company, Angie Hicks had to conquer one of her biggest fears: talking to strangers. 

Hicks — one of the two co-founders of Angi, formerly known as Angie's List — is a self-described introvert.

Yet she's also the namesake behind Angi, a popular online home services guide with millions of subscribers. Today, the company is worth $1.2 billion. 

Hicks is Angi's chief customer officer, a role she's had since 2017. But when the business launched in 1995, she wore many hats — often literally walking door-to-door to recruit Angi's first customers. It was a daunting task for someone who shied away from socializing with strangers. 

"I'm very shy," Hicks, 51, tells CNBC Make It. "Going door to door like that was my worst nightmare." 

Earning $20,000 as a startup founder

Becoming an entrepreneur wasn't Hicks' first choice of a career or a childhood dream realized. Before starting Angi, she was on track to become a consultant. 

Weeks before graduating from DePauw University, she received an offer from a boutique consulting firm in Washington, D.C. with a starting salary of $40,000. 

But then her former boss, Bill Oesterle, called with a different proposition. Hicks had met Oesterle, a venture capitalist, during an internship at CID Partners, an Indianapolis-based private equity firm. 

Oesterle was living in Columbus, Ohio, and trying to restore an old house, a project that would have been much easier when he lived in Indianapolis thanks to a company called Unified Neighbors, which helped people find reliable contractors and other home service providers. 

Columbus didn't have a similar service, but Oesterle thought one could be valuable there. 

So he collected a year's worth of seed money — about $50,000 — and asked Hicks if she would move to Columbus and help him launch the startup, then called Columbus Neighbors, as a co-founder. 

He offered Hicks an annual salary of $20,000 to help run the company — half of what she would've made in the consulting job.

"I hated it," Hicks admits. "I'm introverted, and I always viewed an entrepreneur as someone charismatic and outgoing … I told Bill, 'That's not me.'" 

But Oesterle didn't give up. "He said, 'If it doesn't work out, the worst thing that happens is you have a great essay for your business school application,'" Hicks adds. 

Unsure of what to do, Hicks consulted her grandfather, who ultimately convinced her to join the startup. 

His advice was simple: "What's the difference between being 22 and looking for a job, and being 23 and looking for a job?" 

That comment resonated with Hicks. "It helped me realize that if I wanted to take a risk, that was the time to do it — when I was young and had so few responsibilities," she says. 

An 'inconsequential decision' that paid off

The morning after she graduated, Hicks moved to Columbus and started working from a 100-square-foot office down the street from the studio apartment she was renting.

Oesterle had a full-time job in finance, so she often worked alone. 

"The other folks in the office building thought my parents had rented the space for me to do homework in since I was so young," Hicks says, laughing. "The only window faced a cinderblock wall."

Members were slow to join, but Hicks hustled to get the word out, from borrowing Oesterle's neighbor's holiday card mailing list to marching in local parades to promote the fledgling business.

Although Angi's medium has changed throughout the years — it started as a call-in service and monthly newsletter before pivoting online — the core of its business model has remained the same.

Angi connects homeowners with local service professionals for various tasks like home repairs, cleaning, and renovations. Users can browse service providers, read reviews, request quotes and book appointments directly through the platform.

As an introvert, Hicks says socializing and marketing the business didn't come naturally. But she developed strategies to become a more confident leader like practicing her script before a daunting presentation or sales pitch and setting small, realistic goals to celebrate. 

"If I sold one membership in a day, I was thrilled," she says. "I also learned to tackle the hardest tasks first, and save the fun tasks for later in the day, which helped me stay motivated and be more productive." 

Hicks' perseverance paid off: Within a year, membership grew to about 1,000, enough to prove the concept's potential to investors. 

In 1996, the company rebranded to Angie's List after customers began associating Hicks personally with the recommendations. 

"At the time, it just seemed like one of those inconsequential decisions you make when you're 22," Hicks says of the name change.

Building a billion-dollar brand

In 1998, Oesterle quit his job to work full-time with Hicks, and that same year, the company moved its headquarters to Indianapolis, Indiana. Angi now has offices in Indianapolis, New York City and Denver, Colorado. Oesterle, the longtime chief executive, left the company in 2015. He died in 2023 at 57 years old.

Since 2016, the basic service of Angie's List has been free-to-use for all. The platform earns its revenue primarily from contractors, who pay to advertise on Angi, and from paid memberships, which provide discounts on additional services for an annual fee.

The company, which went public in 2011, has consistently brought in over one billion dollars every year since 2018.

And in 2021, Angie's List became Angi. Today, Angi is a dominant player in the $90 billion U.S. home services market. In 2023 alone, Angi received more than 23 million service requests from homeowners and generated about $1.3 billion in revenue. 

For the full story of how Hicks helped turn Angie's List into a billion-dollar business, check out the latest episode of CNBC Make It's Founder Effect. 

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