Care.com Founder Sheila Lirio Marcelo: How a Struggling Mom Built a Million Dollar Caregiving Empire | E140
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What early experiences shaped Sheila’s drive to create Care.com?
I remember my first job outside of college. I hid the fact that I was a young mom because I felt I was gonna get judged. I couldn't be my whole self, Alana, as a young Sheila Lirio Marcello is a serial entrepreneur. She is best known for the founder of Care.com, one of the largest care marketplaces in the world. I remembered two of my mentors that you promised where I was working pulled me aside, took me to lunch and said, you're so talented, we think the world of you, but no one likes working with you. When you're starting out, it was way before the gig economy, basically kind of a new concept. We opted to start with one side of the marketplace. We went and thought about the logic and then we tested it and we said, listen, who has the deeper pocket and who's willing to pay?
Talk to me for a second about those early days because I think this is where a lot of these dreams are killed. It wasn't an easy road because I kept learning more about myself as I grew. You gotta have the inner drive to push to push push an idea to see the light of day, but you also have to be
Sheila Lirio Marcello is a serious powerhouse. She's a serial entrepreneur. She's actually best known for the founder of Care.com. Some of you would probably know it. Care.com went public in 2014. It was acquired for 500 million in 2020. And Care.com is one of the largest care marketplaces in the world. Sheila is also the master in reinvention, which I I love so much, and we'll talk about, and she's since taken a bold leap into the world of AI with her newest venture, Ohi AI, which is an AI-powered household assistant. I mean, it makes so much sense. And I'm so excited to have this conversation because it includes everything I love about Leap Academy, about our show, about our programs. It's about breaking barriers, it's about creating massive impact, doing good.
And reinventing, Sheila. I do want to take you back in time to your childhood and maybe some of these moments that defined you as a person because you've had an interesting childhood. You moved back and forth. You have a lot of siblings. So talk to me a little bit about that. Yes, thank you. Um, born and raised in the Philippines. What's interesting is Philippines, a lot of people don't know, has one of the narrowest gender gap of Asian countries in the World Economic Forum report, a matriarchical culture. So I had very much a Assertive tiger mom, very ambitious, very pushy, I would say. She does not apologize for it at all. as we would say unapologetically ambitious. My friend wrote that book. And then my dad was very much a teddy bear dad.
Very nurturing, very loving, Lots of hugs and kisses, actually never minded cooking for us. Or sometimes when he visits me, even once in a while, he'll see my shirt wrinkled. He's like, Would you like me to iron that for you? He's just a very sweet man. He's the kind of guy who stands at the window and says goodbye until he can't see us anymore. So very, very sweet man. My childhood had the lack of stereotypes around Madalana. So I feel like as a leader, I embody both the feminine and the masculine in a comfortable way. I was raised with four brothers, so I'm very comfortable around guys, men, and having my voice and opinion heard because you know, you four You fight for it. I'm sure you be a part of your fighter pilot background.
And my sister was just incredibly my she was an older sister, incredibly kind, athletic, thoughtful. So she was always a role model for me and was my protector as well from my brother. So loved her very much. Probably the most memorable thing for me is I had gone back and forth between the United States in elementary school in the Philippines. And my parents decided that they wanted to send my four older siblings to boarding school. And my younger brother and I went to a local Catholic school in the province of the Philippines to relearn the language. It was also tough on my parents financially to be sending four kids immediately, six kids immediately to boarding school. So it like gave them a year of a reprieve, save money, but also send us into the province and learn the language all over again.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What early experiences shaped Sheila’s drive to create Care.com?
0:00–7:39
2
How did Sheila balance motherhood with a demanding career in her 20s?
7:39–15:07
3
What key lessons did she learn from testing ideas and building the first marketplace?
15:07–22:01
4
How did Care.com overcome trust challenges and grow a two‑sided marketplace?
22:01–28:27
5
Why did Sheila decide to take Care.com public and what were the biggest hurdles?
28:27–35:29
6
What practices does Sheila use to manage stress and maintain mental clarity as a leader?
35:29–41:53
7
How is Ohai.ai designed to reduce the mental load of running a household?
41:53–48:11
8
What advice does Sheila give to founders about staying a generalist and embracing reinvention?
48:11–53:55
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
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From Losing Everything to Startup of the Year: Ilana Golan’s 5 Shifts to Reinvent Yourself
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