We're Thinkbox, A Startup
Studio
We build, work with, and invest in startups at the earliest stages (usually marketplaces).
We're not your normal startup studio. We're completely bootstrap and have reinvested our profits into 15+ startups. We're operators ourselves, love working with startups, and playing our small part in backing incredible founders and companies.
"Mike and the Thinkbox team are experts at building online marketplaces. Their work has been extremely valuable to Sharetribe and our users."
Juho Makkonen, CEO Sharetribe
"The Thinkbox team is always a huge help to our portfolio companies and founders. They're someone you want to work with."
Milan Koch, Partner Base Ventures
We're known for sharing everything about what we're working on (like with Studiotime), learning, and insights. Subscribe to our newsletter and be the first to know when we share.
About Thinkbox
Thinkbox was founded in 2016 by Mike Williams (Yoroomie), a serial entrepreneur. Prior to this, Yoroomie founded Codeity, which was a hiring marketplace platform that quickly grew to being used by 500+ companies to source and hire developers before it was acquired in 2015 by Angelhack (press release).
Post Codeity acquisition, Mike and the original core team stuck together and began to offer their services to other startups. Instead of building a development agency, Thinkbox not only continued to build revenue from projects, but also began to internally prototype ideas and launch products.
The first startup that was launched from Thinkbox was Studiotime, which has been called the "Airbnb of music studios" and has been featured in VICE, Forbes, BBC, and other press. It's the largest online community of music studios in the world (in 35+ countries) and Thinkbox continues to operate Studiotime as a highly profitable startup.
Shortly after Studiotime was launched, Thinkbox also built and launched Yoroomie App, which was acquired in an all-cash deal within six months (in 2016). This was the first acquisition for a Thinkbox startup.
Thinkbox has raised $0 from investors and has reinvested profits from it's first acquisition, profits, and project revenue into now 15+ startups (that have now raised $110M+) and is also a limited partner in two funds.
Our Team
Thinkbox is a small core team that is multi-disciplinary in product, design, and development. We're all former (and current) operators and have worked with some of today's top startups. We are also active makers and are always contributing to projects, working on our own weekend side projects, and perfecting our craft.

Mike Williams (Yoroomie) - Founder
Yoroomie is a serial entrepreneur that has taken two startups from idea to acquisition (one funded & other bootstrapped). He is also a mentor at Founders Institute and helps mentor and advise other young startup founders.

Ben Collins - Technology Lead
Ben was the founding CTO of Codeity, has built and scaled multiple development teams, and has also served as interim CTO for various venture backed startups before leading technology and all development at Thinkbox.

Aure Gimon- Design
Aure is one of the most sought after designers in Los Angeles and has led design for various venture backed startups in the past. He also frequently runs design sprints with startups and leads design for various marketplace & blockchain projects such as Origin Protocol.
Want to join our team? Send us a message here.
Thinkbox Companies
Our team is always taking our own ideas and turning them into startups. We quickly build, launch, and if our product validates, we will then scale, operate, and support them as a Thinkbox startup.
Our first startup we successfully did this with was Studiotime, which has been called the "Airbnb of music studios" and has been featured in VICE, Forbes, BBC, and more. It's the largest online community of music studios in the world (in 35+ countries), and we continue to operate Studiotime as a highly profitable startup.
We also built and launched Yoroomie App, which was acquired in an all-cash deal within six months (in 2016). This was the first acquisition for a Thinkbox startup.
We're always working on something new and the best way to stay updated is by subscribing to our newsletter or following us on Twitter.
Studiotime
Yoroomie App (acquired)
We're Full-Service, Offering Design & Development
Looking to work with a full-service team that can help you take your napkin idea to launch? Need a trusted design and development team that has the track record and experience working with successful startups that you can trust?
We help founders and startups design, build, and launch marketplaces and consumer apps.
Napkin Idea To MVP
Looking to take your idea to MVP in days? We've built and launched 100+ MVP's. Using our experience and process, we can help you get to a validated MVP using minimal time and resources.
Marketplace Design & Development
Need a team that's worked with some of today's top marketplaces to help with your marketplace design and development? We can help design and build an award-winning marketplace experience for you. We are your marketplace tech team as a service.
Mobile App Development
Looking to build a custom mobile app for your marketplace or a launch new consumer app? We've built iOS and Android experiences for some apps that you've probably used.
Sharetribe Development
We're the team behind the most successful Sharetribe marketplaces. We offer full Sharetribe partner development services (here) for their hosted, Flex, and open source marketplace platforms, in addition to full support.
Some Of Our Marketplace Work
Studiotime
Napkin Idea To MVP, Shartribe Flex Build, Sharetribe Marketplace Support
We're the team behind the largest online marketplace for music studios in the world. Studiotime is in 35+ countries and is frequently mentioned in top media outlets such as Forbes, BBC, Hypebeast, Fader, Complex, and more. Our team continues to operate and support Studiotime as a highly profitable marketplace that runs on Sharetribe Flex, which we've heavily customized.
Roamer
Napkin Idea To MVP, Sharetribe Customization, Sharetribe Marketplace Support
The Roamer team came to us with a napkin idea for a student housing marketplace and we helped them with go from idea to live MVP in a week. We leveraged our marketplace expertise to help Roamer also have a successful launch and achieve market liquidity to validate their business concept. We then helped further customize and support their customized Sharetribe marketplace.
Some Of Our Mobile App Work
Lenny App
Product Design, Mobile App Prototyping
The Lenny team came to us with a challenge to design and create a mobile experience. We went through a product design and prototyping sprint with the team and created a mobile app experience that has gone on to win standout Fintech recognition, in addition to being showcased at SXSW.
Stitch
Product Design, Mobile App Prototyping
The Stitch team came to us with the challenge of designing an app that would revolutionize the way fans interact with artists. Stitch was a venture backed startup with a development team of 30+ that we interfaced with. We delivered full product designs and a mobile app prototype within 30 days.
See more of our mobile app work
We Focus On Marketplaces And Consumer Apps
Our team of designers and developers are all marketplace and consumer app experts. We've built and launched successful startups ourselves (two have been acquired), have worked with some of the top marketplaces and consumer mobile apps, and are confident that we can deliver some of the best work to make your marketplace or consumer app successful.
FAQ
Why Thinkbox?
We're not your typical software design and development agency. We bring the additional value of our experience as operators (successful exits), working with 100+ founders and top startups to refine our process, and offer this as a full-service team to founders and startups. We're also one of the only teams offering this with deep marketplace expertise and focus.
Who will I be working with?
You'll be interfacing directly with our founder and product lead, in addition to our core design and development team as needed for your project. Our team is all based in Los Angeles, CA and we do not offshore our work. You'll have the peace of mind by working with a team that has a proven track record as operators, working with other successful startups, and comes highly recommended.
What services do you offer?
We are full-service and can help with everything from initial napkin idea to MVP, marketplace design and development, consumer mobile apps, to of course our Sharetribe services we're best known for. We can also help with your launch and post-launch support. You can also think of us as your team as a service.
How can we work together and what are your rates?
To keep things simple, we work on a project basis and cash compensation for all of our projects. We don't take equity and recommend projects have an initial budget of at least $10K to get started with our napkin idea to MVP sprints. Custom design & development, mobile app development, and Sharetribe development are based on the scope of work.
What's the deal with Thinkbox and Sharetribe?
We were one of the first and now largest marketplaces to run on Sharetribe. We have a close relationship with their team, have helped 100+ people build their marketplace MVP using Sharetribe, and are also the team behind the most advanced Sharetribe customizations. They are a software partner and we typically leverage their platform for marketplace builds.
How can we get started?
It's very easy and you can contact us here. Please let us know your needs, budget, and timeline that you're looking to get started. We'll get right back to you and get everything out of the way such as project proposal, timeline, deposit, and everything else so we can have a project start date confirmed within hours or days.
"Mike and the Thinkbox team are experts at building online marketplaces. Their work has been extremely valuable to Sharetribe and our users."
Juho Makkonen, CEO Sharetribe
"The team is hands down invaluable and helped us take our idea to validated startup. They also expedited our learning curve as a marketplace startup."
Alexander Galicki, Co-Founder Roamer
"Mike and the Thinkbox team are incredible resources and helped me go from idea to live marketplace in days! He really expedited my marketplace in every way from product, growth, to user validation. I highly recommend working with them!"
Laura AlOtaibi, Founder Venues N More
Ready to get started and work with us? Please reach out to us and let us know more on your project, budget, and timeline.
Some More Of Our Mobile App Work
Yoroomie App
Napkin Idea To App Store, Mobile App Development, Mobile App Support
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Seedly App
Napkin Idea To App Prototype
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Vidfly App
Napkin Idea To App Store, Mobile App Development, Mobile App Support
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Art Chatbot/Art Chat App
Napkin Idea To App Prototype
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Ready to get started and work with us? Please reach out to us and let us know more on your project, budget, and timeline.
Thinkbox Fund
Our "fund" was initially started by our founder making angel investments via AngelList to build an initial "fund MVP".
Now that we're a bootstrap and profitable startup studio (with one acquisition), we've chosen to build out our initial portfolio and reinvest a large part of our profits from our acquisition and projects back into the startup ecosystem. We're proud to play our small part in backing some incredible startups and have invested in 15+ startups that have raised $110M in addition to two funds. We've done this in 18 months and plan to invest in 20-30 startups within the next 12 months.
If you'd like to invest alongside us, you can back our AngelList syndicate here.
Brandable
Burrow
mParticle
Zeotap
ProducePay
Public Goods
The Picks & Shovels Co.
Cognomotiv
Drive Motors
Gone
Krue
Rinse
Service
Trusted (acquired)
VetPronto (acquired)
Shrug Capital Fund Investment
Bitwise Asset Management Fund Investment
Working on something amazing and want us to invest? Send us a message below.
Helpful Marketplace Resources
We're always sharing what we're working on, learning, and insights so we can help other marketplace founders.
Here are a few resources that we've created to help others that are interested in learning more about marketplaces.
Marketplace Resource Stash
The Sharetribe Marketplace Directory
The Complete Guide To Building & Launching A Marketplace (coming soon)
Marketplace Video Series (coming soon)
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Marketplace Resource Stash
We've curated some of our favorite and most helpful marketplace resources we've found and are sharing them with you. You'll find posts and essays from marketplace experts like Andrew Chen (Andreessen Horowitz), founders like Jonathan Swanson (Thumbtack), Brian Chesky (Airbnb), and more from some of the most successful marketplace teams. We've even added videos!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Idea Stage Resources
β
How to come up with a great marketplace idea
What you need to know before starting your marketplace
Four Things Every On-Demand Company Needs To Nail
Want to suggest an article or video for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Pre-Validating Marketplace Resources
β
How to validate your marketplace idea before building the platform
Read This Before You Build Uber For X
Want to suggest an article or video for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Building A Marketplace MVP Resources
β
Building A Marketplace MVP Without Coding Guide
How To Build A Minimum Viable Marketplace
How I Built The Airbnb Of Music Studios In A Single Evening
π₯
How I Built & Launched The Airbnb For Music Studios In An Evening (part 1)
How I Scaled An MVP To The Largest Marketplace & The Tools Used (part 2)
How To Build A Marketplace Without Coding Tutorials
Want to suggest an article or video for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Launching A Marketplace Resources
β
Marketplace Scaled To Thousands Of Users In Hours
π₯
How I built & launched the Airbnb for music studios in an evening
3 Tips For Launching A Marketplace
Want to suggest an article or video for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Building Marketplace Supply & Demand Resources
β
Liquidity hacking: How to build a two-sided marketplace
How the 100 largest marketplaces solved the chicken and egg problem
Lessons Learned Scaling Airbnb 100X (lessons on bootstrapping liquidity)
Marketplace Liquidity (TechCrunch overview article)
8 strategic hacks for building marketplace liquidity
How Modern Marketplaces Like Uber and Airbnb Build Trust to Achieve Liquidity
π₯
Interview: Building A Marketplace - What Your Mother Never Told You
Want to suggest an article or video for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Scaling Marketplaces Resources
β
Lessons Learned Scaling Airbnb 100X
Uber's virtuous growth cycle
All about Network Effects
π₯
Blitzscaling 18: Brian Chesky On Launching Airbnb And The Challenges Of Scale
Airbnb's Joe Gebbia: "Do Things That Don't Sale
Scaling Growth With Gustaf Alstromer, YC Partner (formerly Airbnb) & Ed Baker (formerly Uber)
Mosaic Ventures: Building And Scaling Marketplaces With Reid Hoffman
Want to suggest an article or video for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Other Marketplace Resources
β
Four Questions Every Marketplace Startup Should Be Able to Answer
Mapping the B2B European Marketplace Ecosystem
Why Platforms might want to welcome regulators
Not All Marketplace are Created Equal: Tales of a marketplace Founder
Why "Uber for x" startups failed: the supply side is king
Whatβs Next for Marketplace Startups?
Will Blockchain(s) Eat The Marketplace Stack?
π₯
2017 Platform Strategy Summit Videos
What's Next For Marketplace Startups
Want to suggest an article or video for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Marketplace Tools
Sharetribe -Marketplace platform. Easily build an Airbnb, Etsy, and more similar types of marketplaces.
Eventgrid - Create your own events marketplace. Eventgrid is a complete white label API driven event ticketing platform.
Stripe Connect - Payments platform for marketplaces.
Spreedly - Connect once to a complete, cloud-based infrastructure for payments applications.
Chargebee - Easily manage susbscriptions, invoicing, and more for marketplaces.
Payable - Everything you need to pay contractors for your marketplace and ensure that you are 1099 compliant.
Peerkey - Easily add user identity, trust, and reputation to your marketplace without any technical integration needed.
Stripe Radar for Fraud Teams - A more powerful toolkit for marketplace teams to control fraud and protect their business.
Jumio - Trusted ID and identity verification as a service. Products such as AI selfie recognition and ID matching is used by Airbnb and other top marketplaces.
NoFraud - Accept credit cards without the worry of fraud chargebacks. Eliminate the need to manually review transactions for fraud β NoFraud delivers a yes/no response using the latest fraud prevention technology.
Blockscore - ID verification API for user identity. Used by KitSplit.
Sift Science - Fraud and chargeback prevention software. Used by KitSplit, Airbnb, Shutterstock, Cabify, and more marketplaces.
TalkJS - Messaging for marketplaces. Add buyer-seller chat to your online marketplace or platform.
Timekit - A booking API that can be added to your website allow for booking experiences, scheduling, and more.
Forest - A highly customizable admin interface for your marketplace.
Want to suggest a marketplace tool for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Marketplace Business Model Resources
β
Anatomy of a Managed Marketplace
The Evolution of Managed Marketplaces
10 Marketplace Monetization Strategies
Four Strategies To Win Big With Low Frequency Marketplaces
10 Marketplace KPIs That Matter
SaaS Based Marketplaces
16 Ways to Measure Network Effects
The Marketplace Funding Napkin 2018
The Next 10 Years Will Be About "Market Networks"
π₯
Marketplace Business Models by a16z
"What You Don't Know About Your Marketplace Type" by James Currier, NFX Guild
Want to suggest an article or video for us to add here? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.
Marketplace Resources Stash
We've curated some of our favorite and most helpful marketplace resources we've found and are sharing them with you. You'll find posts and essays from marketplace experts like Andrew Chen (Andreessen Horowitz), founders like Jonathan Swanson (Thumbtack), Brian Chesky (Airbnb) and learnings the teams that have scaled companies such as Airbnb, Uber, and more. We even added videos!
Pre-Validating Marketplace Resources
β
How to validate your marketplace idea before building the platform
Read This Before You Build Uber For X
Building A Marketplace MVP Resources
β
Building A Marketplace MVP Without Coding Guide
How To Build A Minimum Viable Marketplace
How I Built The Airbnb Of Music Studios In A Single Evening
π₯
How I Built & Launched The Airbnb For Music Studios In An Evening (part 1)
How I Scaled An MVP To The Largest Marketplace & The Tools Used (part 2)
How To Build A Marketplace Without Coding Tutorials
Launching A Marketplace Resources
β
Marketplace Scaled To Thousands Of Users In Hours
π₯
How I built & launched the Airbnb for music studios in an evening
3 Tips For Launching A Marketplace
Building Marketplace Supply & Demand Resources
β
Liquidity hacking: How to build a two-sided marketplace
How the 100 largest marketplaces solved the chicken and egg problem
Lessons Learned Scaling Airbnb 100X (lessons on bootstrapping liquidity)
Marketplace Liquidity (TechCrunch overview article)
8 strategic hacks for building marketplace liquidity
How Modern Marketplaces Like Uber and Airbnb Build Trust to Achieve Liquidity
π₯
Interview: Building A Marketplace - What Your Mother Never Told You
Marketplace Business Model Resources
β
Anatomy of a Managed Marketplace
The Evolution of Managed Marketplaces
10 Marketplace Monetization Strategies
Four Strategies To Win Big With Low Frequency Marketplaces
10 Marketplace KPIs That Matter
SaaS Based Marketplaces
16 Ways to Measure Network Effects
The Marketplace Funding Napkin 2018
The Next 10 Years Will Be About "Market Networks"
π₯
Marketplace Business Models by a16z
"What You Don't Know About Your Marketplace Type" by James Currier, NFX Guild
Scaling Marketplaces Resources
β
Lessons Learned Scaling Airbnb 100X
Uber's virtuous growth cycle
All about Network Effects
π₯
Blitzscaling 18: Brian Chesky On Launching Airbnb And The Challenges Of Scale
Airbnb's Joe Gebbia: "Do Things That Don't Sale
Scaling Growth With Gustaf Alstromer, YC Partner (formerly Airbnb) & Ed Baker (formerly Uber)
Mosaic Ventures: Building And Scaling Marketplaces With Reid Hoffman
Other Marketplace Resources
β
Four Questions Every Marketplace Startup Should Be Able to Answer
Mapping the B2B European Marketplace Ecosystem
Why Platforms might want to welcome regulators
Not All Marketplace are Created Equal: Tales of a marketplace Founder
Why "Uber for x" startups failed: the supply side is king
Whatβs Next for Marketplace Startups?
Will Blockchain(s) Eat The Marketplace Stack?
π₯
2017 Platform Strategy Summit Videos
What's Next For Marketplace Startups
Marketplace Tools
Sharetribe -Marketplace platform. Easily build an Airbnb, Etsy, and more similar types of marketplaces.
Eventgrid - Create your own events marketplace. Eventgrid is a complete white label API driven event ticketing platform.
Stripe Connect - Payments platform for marketplaces.
Spreedly - Connect once to a complete, cloud-based infrastructure for payments applications.
Chargebee - Easily manage susbscriptions, invoicing, and more for marketplaces.
Payable - Everything you need to pay contractors for your marketplace and ensure that you are 1099 compliant.
Peerkey - Easily add user identity, trust, and reputation to your marketplace without any technical integration needed.
Stripe Radar for Fraud Teams - A more powerful toolkit for marketplace teams to control fraud and protect their business.
Jumio - Trusted ID and identity verification as a service. Products such as AI selfie recognition and ID matching is used by Airbnb and other top marketplaces.
NoFraud - Accept credit cards without the worry of fraud chargebacks. Eliminate the need to manually review transactions for fraud β NoFraud delivers a yes/no response using the latest fraud prevention technology.
Blockscore - ID verification API for user identity. Used by KitSplit.
Sift Science - Fraud and chargeback prevention software. Used by KitSplit, Airbnb, Shutterstock, Cabify, and more marketplaces.
TalkJS - Messaging for marketplaces. Add buyer-seller chat to your online marketplace or platform.
Timekit - A booking API that can be added to your website allow for booking experiences, scheduling, and more.
Forest - A highly customizable admin interface for your marketplace.
Want to suggest articles, videos, or tools for us to add to our resource stash above? Tweet at us @Thinkboxmakes and let us know!
Subscribe to our dedicated marketplace newsletter for marketplace insights, tips, what we're learning as we run Studiotime, and more.