Door-to-door neighbors are like family! Yes, an app brought neighborhoods back in style!

The global phenomenon that is Facebook got some fierce competitionー NextDoor! This socially-interactive app was founded in 2008 with the purpose of forming meaningful connections between neighborhoods.

If you turn to social media for daily advice on the best places to eat at or the latest gossip on town shenanigans, NextDoor will give you that and more!

No more sifting through multiple social media platforms when you can have it all in one place. From place recommendations and tasty recipes to pet rescue missions, you can finally gather your community in one place, united and in it together, as it should be.

The idea behind NextDoor was contemplated by the minds of 6 young people, Adam, David, Madison, Nirav, Prakash, and Sarah.

Stick around and read all the deets about the social media platform that made neighborly hanging around trendy again.

Who’s Behind NextDoor?

There are 6 geniuses that made NextDoor what it is today. Their names are Adam Ginsburg, David Wiesen, Madison Bell, Nirav Tolia, Prakash Janakiraman, and Sarah Leary. Like many others in this world, the youngsters started rolling the ball with a simple idea that grew into something huge.

Did they get lucky? Well, if working hard for years only to finally implement the learned skills to build a brand is considered lucky, then yes.

Let’s take a look at how each of these people, once 20-year-old students and now successful entrepreneurs, managed to garner such huge success.

Before we dive into their educational and professional backgrounds, we thought Nextdoor’s origin story is something worth sharing! In fact, it was Sarah and Nirav that realized one day that there was no good way to discuss topics and issues within their community. In a world where getting to know your neighbors is ancient history, they thought that by digitizing this part of our daily interactions, they could finally get people to warm up to the person living next door.

Adam, David, Madison, and Prakash were great addition to the team and contributed valuable ideas to transform Fanbase into Nextdoor.

Once one looks into Adam’s educational background, it’s clear as day he worked hard to get to where he’s at today. Adam has graduated twice: once from Harvard University, earning himself a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, and once from Stanford University, graduating as a Master of Science in Computer Science.

Adam’s educational process concluded in 2007. Eager and willing to put his knowledge to good use, Adam moved on to become a Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, from 1997 to 1999. And being a jack of all trades, naturally, Adam took up a lot of projects following this one.

Adam’s involvement in NextDoor started back in 2008, when he and the rest of the inventors founded Fanbase, rebranding it to NextDoor, later on. Fast forward to today, Adam holds the Advisor role, which means he takes care of anything money-related!

David, just like Adam, completed his education at Stanford University, graduating with a degree in Computer Science. David’s hunger for success led him to become a Lead Software Engineer at Homestead Technologies, this being his first serious endeavor.

David’s triumph as a software engineer acquainted him and got him involved with many different projects, including Nextdoor. Just like the rest, David too planted his roots in the company before its rebrand and has stuck with it through thick and thin, building it up into an empire. Today, David is a proud co-founder and Software Engineer at Nextdoor.

Sadly, Madison left the clique and spread her wings towards other projects, currently working full-time at Reddit Inc. Nonetheless, Nextdoor wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for her involvement. Madison started off as an intern at Fanbase, but her skill set was so refined, she helped develop Nextdoor and served as a co-founder and Product Manager for years.

Nirav probably had other plans for the future when he graduated from Stanford with a bachelor’s in English. Still, young Nirav became one of the co-founders and served as a Chief Executive Officer at Nextdoor until 2008. Nirav’s thrill-seeking attitude led him to explore and develop other plans and ideas. Even so, Nextdoor remains Nirav’s baby and one of his most successful inventions!

Prakash prides himself in being a co-founder and Chief Architect at Nextdoor. While studying hard to attain a higher education degree, Prakash was an outstanding student at the University of California. Young Prakash began his career when he obtained the role of a Software Engineer at Excite@Home in 1996.

Sarah is the last piece of the puzzle and co-founder of Fanbase, the original label of today’s NextDoor. Sarah has a stellar educational background, with her bachelor’s in Economics aiding her in the marketing operations she led at Nextdoor.

Opening Many Doors

Nextdoor is all about one primary goal: to bring back a sense of community within neighborhoods.

As time goes on, technology continues to modify our daily interactions, resulting in a progressive decrease in eye-to-eye contact. Thankfully, people can now get to know their neighbors beyond the hellos and goodbyes they exchange from across the street, all thanks to Nextdoor.

The app is also devoted to helping neighborhoods discover hidden talents within the community. Interestingly enough, the app is doing more to allow its users to shine a light on good local businesses by sharing their services with the rest of the neighborhood.

Nextdoor acts as a multi-dimensional platform, and one can find a little bit of everything. Some of the neighbors can showcase their talents in babysitting, others can display their handyman work, and there are those who are in need of such services. NextDoor’s users can get in touch with other users for any assistance, instead of venturing into uncharted territory.

Neighbors can also help each other when one is in a dire situation, namely, a missing family pet or firefighting intervention.

Basically, Nextdoor is a hyperlocal social networking app that conjoins a community by bringing them closer together and strengthening their neighborly bond.

Reaching Out to the Community

Nextdoor is backed up by a rather eventful and rich history. Remember that prior to claiming its iconic brand name, the company was actually called Fanbase? Fanbase was a user-generated sports almanac that was reimagined into Nextdoor in 2008.

The company headquarters are in San Francisco, California, but NextDoor is knocking on many doors worldwide.

In addition, the brand works at full capacity, where 450 employees do the heavy lifting and keep the brand afloat and on top of its competitors. Right now, Nextdoor is competing against evergreens like Facebook and Twitter, along with newer industry names such as MrOwl Technologies and Linq.

Currently, Nextdoor is a private business connecting neighbors in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, and Canada. The Nextdoor app is available for iOS and Android users to enjoy it.

The business faced skyrocketing user engagement (an 80% increase) in March 2020.

Wanting to do more for the benefit of society as a whole, NextDoor took a turn towards offering a helping hand.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, the company stepped up its game and partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and American Red Cross. NextDoor acted as a catalyst, hoping to provide local communities with the latest facts and happenings related to the adversities that upfronted humanity.

NextDoor proved to be more than just a social platform, adding a humanitarian trait to its portfolio. The company made a partnership with Walmart, helping vulnerable persons easily shop for groceries from the safety of their homes, making the app a big hit.

Preserving the Brand

Just like any other company, NextDoor has had its ups and downs. Although the app is still in high demand, in 2015, its popularity began to fluctuate and certain users of the app started to give it a bad name.

As anyone within a neighborhood is allowed to join, the app has invited many racist and prejudiced neighbors that have targeted their neighbors of color.

But that’s not what NextDoor stands for! Once the NextDoor team was made aware of this problem, the company took measures into its own hands. NextDoor warned users to leave out a person’s skin color when describing them for purposes such as thefts or any other community misconduct.

In June of 2020, NextDoor also discontinued its ‘‘Forward to police’ feature mainly because of any future racist mishaps, all in the effort to get rid of NextDoor being seen as a ‘‘Karen app’’.

Will NextDoor Go Public?

Throughout the years, NextDoor has had exponential growth and went from being worth $1.5 billion in 2017 to having an estimated value of $4-5 billion today. The company works on the idea of going public in 2021 and selling shares to willing participants.

And, as the company has reported that one in four American neighborhoods is connected through the app, it sure seems like a NextDoor stock could be worth your investment and have a good rate of return. More info on when the company will go public this year isn’t yet available.

Many More Doors to Open for NextDoor

So, what does Nextdoor have in store for the future? For starters, the company plans on going public through a $4.3 billion SPAC merger, which will help fund the company and help it further grow and develop. Following the merger, the company is to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company is funded by 24 investors, including Bond and Walid Alharbi as the latest ones. So far, Nextdoor has a total of $447.9M in funding spread out in 10 rounds, with a post-money valuation of $10B+.

With such amazing revenue growth and immediate call-to-action on any app-related issues, NextDoor is surely predestined to become as big as some of the current leading social media platforms ─ and we can’t wait to see it!