On the TechTO stage ×2
Marketplaces
Watch on YouTube ↗How Jiffy Scaled a Home Services Marketplace and Sold to Intact
Watch on YouTube ↗First seen on the TechTO stage in 2017. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Paul ↗
In their words
The magic of Jiffy, which still holds true to this day, is you don't choose who comes to your house. Everyone else in the space at the time thought we were crazy for allowing someone random into their house.
Unit economics is the most important thing. We focused on city expansion early because that's what potential investors told us we'd have to do. What was actually a lot more important was figuring out our user acquisition, and retention.
They all told us you've got to go prove out a US market, and we spent a lot of money and time trying to launch in Boston and Chicago that I wish we never did.
the hardest thing to get off the ground is what comes first the chicken or the egg
we said we had a network of angel investors that verbally told us they loved it and they'd be into it but we wanted to actually build a product and have a hundred-plus company signed up in traction so we funded it for about six months and then we went to those angels 95% of which didn't end up investing of course
More from TechTO ×1
Quick answers
What is Paul Arlin known for?
Co-founding Jiffy in April 2015 with Ryan Shupak and Jaimie Grossman, and running its marketplace. Jiffy books trades for small same-day home jobs at a set price, and sold to Intact Financial in November 2024.
What does Paul Arlin do now?
He is a VP at Intact Financial and head of marketplace and operations for Jiffy, which continues to run as a brand inside Intact after the November 2024 acquisition.
What did Paul Arlin do before Jiffy?
He co-founded Campus Vacations, a group travel business, where his team built the booking software from scratch. He told the Toronto Tech Week stage he was envious of marketplaces like Uber and StubHub, which is why he started Jiffy.
How many times has Paul Arlin spoken at TechTO?
Twice: a five-minute talk on marketplace dynamics at the October 2017 TechTO, and a 2025 Toronto Tech Week conversation on scaling Jiffy and selling it to Intact.