‘It paralysed me’: How people pleasing held back Linktree founder Alex Zaccaria
When Linktree raised its first capital round in 2020, founder Alex Zaccaria suddenly found himself surrounded by experts — a shift he found overwhelming.
Linktree began as a side hustle while Alex Zaccaria and his co-founders ran a music agency. In just under nine years, the social media tool — serving as a bridge between platforms like Instagram and the wider internet — has grown to over 50 million users. Those users include everyone from the royal family to Playboy, Zaccaria jokes.
Much of the startup’s growth occurred during the pandemic. Fundraising efforts during that period elevated Linktree to unicorn status, introducing the founders to collaborators with significantly more software experience.
Zaccaria, a self-described people pleaser, found this experience “paralysing". In an interview with Capital Brief for In The Arena, he discussed how bringing “adults in the room” was both a blessing and a curse. He also outlined the company’s current e-commerce play, which which it is hoping will soon drive more revenue than premium subscriptions.
The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
You’re pivoting from social media tool to e-commerce. How’s that going?
I’d call it more of an evolution than a pivot.
When we first started, it was about, ‘How do we just get you from where we found you to where you need to go as quickly as possible?’ Our metrics focused on spending less time on the page, so the antithesis of most tech products. The focus on conversion actually evolved into our users wanting that to happen on the page. They cared less about getting you off to a particular site, and more about the transaction happening on the page.
