Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
In this Toronto Tech Week conversation — powered by Interact — Paul Arlin, Co-Founder of Jiffy and now representing Intact Insurance, shares the journey of building a real-time home services marketplace and successfully exiting to Canada’s largest home insurer.
Founded in 2015, Jiffy was built to solve a simple but broken problem: getting trusted tradespeople for small, pre-priced home jobs quickly and reliably. Paul walks through how Jiffy focused on unit economics, trust, and quality control to scale a two-sided marketplace — and why resisting pressure to expand too early was one of the company’s most important decisions.
This conversation covers:
• Building a marketplace for home services and trades
• Solving trust and retention challenges with homeowners
• Scaling supply and demand with strong unit economics
• Lessons from fundraising, COVID, and acquisition
• How Intact sees digital home services as a long-term advantage
• Using AI to improve booking, dispatch, and service quality
Paul also shares candid advice for founders on retention, customer acquisition, marketplace discipline, and staying focused on what actually drives a sustainable business.
🎥 Recorded live during Toronto Tech Week | Powered by Interact
🏠 Built for founders, operators, and marketplace builders
#PaulArlin #Jiffy #IntactInsurance #MarketplaceStartups #HomeServices #StartupScaling #FounderStories #TorontoTechWeek #Interact #UnitEconomics Watch more talks: youtube.com/c/TechTorontoOrg
Upcoming events: techto.org/events
Events calendar: luma.com/TechTO-Events
Newsletter — The read on Canadian tech: blog.techto.org
Membership: techto.org/memberships
In this Toronto Tech Week conversation — powered by Interact — Paul Arlin, Co-Founder of Jiffy and now representing Intact Insurance, shares the journey of building a real-time home services marketplace and successfully exiting to Canada’s largest home insurer.
Founded in 2015, Jiffy was built to solve a simple but broken problem: getting trusted tradespeople for small, pre-priced home jobs quickly and reliably. Paul walks through how Jiffy focused on unit economics, trust, and quality control to scale a two-sided marketplace — and why resisting pressure to expand too early was one of the company’s most important decisions.
This conversation covers:
• Building a marketplace for home services and trades
• Solving trust and retention challenges with homeowners
• Scaling supply and demand with strong unit economics
• Lessons from fundraising, COVID, and acquisition
• How Intact sees digital home services as a long-term advantage
• Using AI to improve booking, dispatch, and service quality
Paul also shares candid advice for founders on retention, customer acquisition, marketplace discipline, and staying focused on what actually drives a sustainable business.
🎥 Recorded live during Toronto Tech Week | Powered by Interact
🏠 Built for founders, operators, and marketplace builders
#PaulArlin #Jiffy #IntactInsurance #MarketplaceStartups #HomeServices #StartupScaling #FounderStories #TorontoTechWeek #Interact #UnitEconomics Watch more talks: youtube.com/c/TechTorontoOrg
Upcoming events: techto.org/events
Events calendar: luma.com/TechTO-Events
Newsletter — The read on Canadian tech: blog.techto.org
Membership: techto.org/memberships
