TaskRabbit: Leah Solivan

So we're scaling up. And we're also realizing that the product На твоні леви Is it's just not working. It's just not working. And at this point

There are competitors coming out. That are launching mobile first. Mobile only. And we've been on the web. I mean honestly it's like the the entire consumer market and expectation just

changed underneath us and we missed it. Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. built. I'm Guy Roz and on the show today how a hungry hundred pound dog on a snowy night.

Inspired Leah Solomon to launch Task Rabbit. A service that will take care of Of your errands. Leah Sullivan's idea for a business grew out of a very specific problem she wanted to solve on one snowy evening in Boston. The problem of getting a big bag of dog food for her yellow lab.

To her apartment. And did she really want to go out in the middle of a snowstorm? Not really, but was there someone else who might be willing to do it for the right price? Now that was an interesting question. But the thing Leah found most compelling about this problem was not that the solution might one day turn into a business. Instead, Leah, who at the time was an engineer at IBM,

saw the problem as more of an engineering challenge, like Do I have the coding skill I need to solve the dog food delivery problem? And if, for example, I were to start an online business for home deliveries, Is the market ready for that to happen? Well the answer to these questions turned out to be a resounding

Yes. Because not only did Leah know how to code, She also knew how to connect the dots. And at that time, in 2008, she was connecting three very important dots in particular. Three technologies that were about to intersect in a critical way. Mobile, location services, and social media.

Those three developments would, of course, eventually power companies like Lyft, and Uber, and Airbnb, and Instacart, and DoorDash. But as early as 2008, even before any of those companies came on the scene, Leah was coding the beginnings of what would become TaskRabbit. It's a marketplace that matches users with freelancers who provide all types of services from delivery to furniture building to gardening. Working out of a Boston coffee shop, Leah found a group of moms to be her first users, and she recruited people from Craigslist to be the first errand runners.

And over the next few years, as the company grew. It also navigated a series of hairpin turns, including some management shakeups and at least one major rebranding that was hated by many of its loyal users. But Task Rabbit continued to grow. And nine years after launch? It sold to IKEA for an undisclosed amount, and Leah moved on, having created one of the best known mobile marketplaces in the country.

Leah grew up in a little town outside of Boston. Her dad ran training programs at a nearby Air Force base, while her mom looked after the family. As a young girl, Leah was really into dance, but when she got to college at Sweet Briar in Virginia, She took her first programming courses and got hooked. on C plus plus. For me, it was

The opportunity to be able to build whatever was in my mind. I mean I I I am very imaginative. I I have ideas all the time. And um I'm not really good at delegation and so the the idea that I could take what was in my head and build it so that someone else could see it or use it or interact with it.

was really exciting. I mean, I remember it was the simplest, simplest assignment, which was taking this little JPEG robot And being able to code it so that With the arrow keys on the keyboard. It could move around the screen. And honestly, it was that was enough for me to understand.

How powerful programming could be. All right, so you fall in love with programming. C plus plus. And this was your first exposure, like you w I mean, you weren't like a kid who had like, you know, the Apple Two at home and then like a a P C clone and and you were using basic and and and you're and you were like

I don't know, bring computer magazines in high school. Yeah, no well so Not really, but a a a little bit. Let me explain. So

You know, programming in college was my first exposure to actual engineering. Інгайсько I dated someone who eventually became my husband who I started task rabbit with. Kevin. And Kevin was really into computers. Right. And so we would spend like Friday nights. I would help him build computers. We would go to computer shows on the week. Yeah, I think. So you were plugging in the components into the

Yes, the motherboard and the bus driver and like twice actually. It's fun. Twice. Okay. Yeah, it is fun. We go to computer shows and buy parts and that was very helpful. Yeah. All right, so two thousand one I believe you you graduate from Sweet Briar with a degree in in computer science and uh and I think you get a job as an engineer. Yeah. at a small software startup. Which I guess eventually gets merged into IBM and and what are you doing for them? Wha w w w were you coding?

I actually started as a quality engineer, so I wasn't doing any programming. They wouldn't let me touch the code, but I was the tester. So I would find all the bugs in the code. I would write up the bugs, and then I'd work with the developers and the engineers to fix them. I did that for five years, um, but I always wanted to be the programmer. I always wanted to be the coder. Mm.

It was really hard for me to break into that side though. Um You know, and I saw other IBM You know, interns coming in right out of school and joining as engineers. And I'm like, why aren't I coding? Why aren't I programming? Because you knew how to do it. But I did. I did. I finally I finally worked my way into it. And the only way that was possible is I got another job offer at another start of the case program. Story of my life. I know.

So I was like, I can do this, I can go do it at this other company or I can stay here and do it. No, don't go. Exactly. Oh, we really value you. Don't go. Yep. And so finally I get to start coding and I joined a new team and I really loved that team and my time there. I still stay in touch with my mentors and technical leads there on that team. Meanwhile, you got married really early, like right out of college, you with your to your high school sweetheart, right, Kevin? Yes, yes. Yeah. I was twenty two. Wow. He actually also worked at Iris Associates. which was bought by Lotus and then Lotus was bought by IBM and so we worked together there for many years and then he left first. He left and started joining startups in the Boston area, focused mostly in the healthcare space. And I stayed right. And it was a stable job. I mean you had probably had health insurance I'm sure you do, you had health insurance, uh retirement plan, I mean it's y IBM's the mother ship, right? Yes. So you were there for like I think seven something like seven years or six years. Almost eight years. Almost eight years. Wow. Yeah, yeah.

It was consistently one of the top hundred places to work for women. And that mattered to me. Yeah. And I thought I can just stay here, I can move up. I always wanted to stay on the technical side. They kept trying to put me in management, go manage people. I was like, I don't want to manage anyone. But by the end, the last the last couple years, I I felt a little bit loose in the saddle. I know for a fact that I was seen as very ambitious.

And in fact, there was one incident that occurred on my team where You know, one of the other engineers Said to me, Wow Leah. You're really ambitious, and he said it like it was a problem. Like they're criticizing you.

And I was super confused. I I uh his tone, like it didn't make sense to me exactly. Yeah. But you know what, that actually was part of what made me realize that IBM wasn't the long term fit for me and I was really ambitious. And I did always have this sort of fire in my belly. Yeah. And so I think people saw that, people knew that I mean that's hard for me to hide. I guess I should we should also clarify, it wasn't it probably wasn't even IBM. It was just a big company with a bureaucracy that wasn't gonna

It couldn't it couldn't accommodate your ambitions, right? You you had to do something and it wasn't gonna happen at a big company. That's right. Um, and I think in hindsight, what I've realized just a pattern in my career, a pattern in my life is In really, I mean

back into college too. I only like to work on problems that I feel like I can uniquely solve. Yeah. And if if if I feel like There's someone else who can also do it and do it just as well. Like I become very disengaged and very bored.

um and uninterested in working on it. And and so I think that was where the ambition came from. And I you know, like I was always thinking like I I can do more. I I wanna be doing more. Alright, so you

Start to get itchy feet, right? You're starting to think Okay, I'm I'm I'm just getting bored here. And you're you know, in your late twenties, right? Um

And What what's going through your mind? What do you I mean, do you start to think like maybe I could do something on my own? Maybe I mean, were you searching for something or were you just what do you remember about that time around two thousand seven, two thousand eight? Yeah. So at that point We're living in Charlestown, a neighborhood of Boston. I was working out of the Cambridge office for IBM

And I did start to think You know what? I have the skill set. I I have ideas. Like maybe I should just go code some things. And I started a blog. Mostly about technical engineering, projects, ideas.

There was one idea I had in the real estate space. Where I was you know, doing these um Going to open houses and doing write ups about them and then letting, you know, buyers engage with the with the blog entry. Oh wow, oh you would write the right a review of the house, like this house sucks, don't bother. Yes. It would save a lot of time.

Yes, and it was anonymous, right? It was all anonymous. Terrible staging. Don't go on this one. Yeah, absolutely. And I and it was really yeah, it was really fun. I mean I've since now invested in a company that's a version of sort of doing Yeah, like it's doing a version of this. It's very exciting. Um But yeah, that was back in two thousand six, two thousand seven. And so um I also built a dog walking site for our dog walker so that he could expand his business. And then I started building dog walking sites for all of his dog walking friends and And then I had the idea for what became Task Rabbit.

So tell me how that that that happened. I mean what how did the Task Rabbit I what would become Task Rabbit, how did that Idea. First come to you.

Yeah. So I was in this very entrepreneurial mindset. I was looking for a problem to solve. And so it was February of two thousand and eight. It was cold. And snowing outside. It was we're getting ready to go out to dinner in Boston with some friends.

And we realized we were out of dog food. And at the time we had this hundred pound yellow lab named Kobe. Who he kept very well fed. Hundred pounds. Yeah, he was a that's a human. That's not a dog. It's another human in your house.

He was he was the best. Um And so we realize we're out of this dog food and I'm talking with Kevin and I'm like God, there's gotta be a way to get this dog foot. Are really gonna We're taking a cab to dinner. We don't want to drag the dog food with us to dinner.

We don't think that's the thing. Thirty pounds. Yeah, a big bag of dog food. That's right. That's right. What if all the stores are closed on the way home? It's snowing outside.

And I was like, you know what, wouldn't it be nice if there's just a place online you could go? Say you needed dog food. Name the price you're willing to pay. There's probably someone in our neighborhood right now that'd be willing to help us out, and maybe there's even someone at the store at this very second. And we should be able to connect with that. Yeah.

And the iPhone had just come out. And so I grabbed my iPhone and I was like We should be able to connect with whoever who's ever at the store right now. I said, Okay If a site like this existed, what would it be called? And I typed into my iPhone into GoDaddyrunmyerrand.com. Uh-huh.

And the domain name was available for$6.99. Great. So I bought it on the spot. And I was like, Okay, well we now own runmyerrand.com, what are we gonna do with it? And so We ended up going to dinner. We met friends at dinner. Like it was that dinner where we're talking about this idea with friends.

You start talking about this idea. And let's say I was at dinner with you, I would have said to you at the time 'Cause I'm I'm like A buzz kill. Not anymore, but I w I would have been then. I would have said but No, I might still say too. I say but but what about uh Peap? That's around. Pe Pod exists. I know it existed in Boston in two thousand eight. You can get Pe Pod to deliver food to your house.

That's right. There's also a grocery company, I think Home Run or something like that. And there's Cosmo. Yeah, Cosmo it just like Flamed out. All kinds of You know, sort of Dead companies in this space.

But before you got that that discouraging news that that dinner your friends were like, Oh my God, this is amazing, Leah, you should do this. This is incredible. Was it like that kinda dinner? Yeah, it it was, but they weren't in tech either. So they were doctors, my friend I it was like a sweetbriar college roommate who was going to medical school. I mean, they were kinda like, huh, that's interesting, you know? And it sounds interesting. Like I I might have also said at the time, you know, I would totally use that. Yeah, I hate going out in the snow and This is before Uber. This is before like things that just that we've now come to depend on, un unfortunately, or fortunately, um in depending on your perspective. But I w I might have said to you, yeah, I would totally if somebody could just like bring it to my house and I could just go online and Absolutely. Yes. It was people We're excited. It made sense. They were like, Hold on, this someone must be doing this. Like this already exists. I mean it was a lot of like

This must exist already, but I think the key, like I knew as an engineer. that No one was using mobile yet technologies. Right. The app store was just emerging. It was very early. I knew no one was using location based awareness. And so as an engineer again, I was like, I want to find the person at the store at this moment. How do I find that person?

Yeah. And then the other key for me from a technical standpoint was Facebook. was just emerging and coming out of the college scene. Yeah. And honestly the biggest piece of feedback we got in the early days, including at this dinner. Was why would I trusta?

To bring something to me or to come into my house, you know, what if they're, you know, an axe murderer? I mean, people would say this to me all the time. And so I saw Facebook. as a way to leverage the social graph to build trust. between people. So if I could tell you that, you know, you need your dry cleaning picked up and the person that was gonna pick up your dry cleaning was two degrees of separation from you and your friend Bob. Like You're gonna be okay with that.

But initially the idea was to just have people run errands for you. It wasn't like to come and fix things in your house. It was just like go get your dry cleaning, go get your groceries, right. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Um and deliver food, or whatever it might be. Yeah. And and um You had all of these I mean, you had this kind of unfair advantage because of your background as an engineer. Like you you Did you understand intuitively?

How You could Do this. Like how how like did you understand that the technology existed to make this possible? I did, and that was the key driver for me, I think as an engineer and as someone who

wanted to work on something. I I saw those three technologies, social location and mobile. And I That was what was interesting to me at the time. It was like I can mash up these three technologies And create a new platform.

That no one has launched before. It is amazing because it is A very simple concept. It's have somebody deliver something to you. But the challenge it was a technology challenge. It wasn't a Yeah.

I mean the the idea was simple. Coming up with the I mean this is People have been delivering stuff for centuries. It was how do you connect the person to the person who needs the service. That was what h

What would you think? You had to solve. Yes, and I always I've always said I am not the first person who had the idea for Task Rabbit. Many people have had this idea. Many, many people.

Um, but It was the way that I leveraged the technology that was available at the time. That made it all work. By the way. Same story with Google and Facebook. They did not invent those technologies.

They just made them better. Yes. Yes. Right. And that and that's the cycle of innovation. I mean, just building sort of on the backs of what has come before you. Yeah. Okay, so now

From what I understand, you're working at IBM. And you're still employed there. You're not gonna leave your job. But this idea stays in your mind. T s so much so that you really start to do the kinds of things that

that I think really smart entrepreneurs do, which is you first start to research it. You first start to kind of You talk to people, you you you try to understand whether this is possible and viable. Yes. But you reached out The the first person that was sort of pivotal that I reached out to was Scott Griffith who was running Zipcar. Wow. And Zipcar was really started to take off in two thousand eight. I remember using it back then. Uh like I would just get my car and sh you know

Absolutely. It was taken off. And he had taken over from the founders, from Robin Chase. And it was In Cambridge. And I met Scott Through a friend of a friend. I mean it wasn't an obvious connection. But again, we had been out to dinner one night with friends and

And Talking to my uh talking about this idea and my friend says, Oh my gosh, you know who you should talk to? My friend Scott, he would love this idea. I used to work with him back at my old company. I had no idea he was the CEO of Zipcar. She failed to mention this. Yeah.

And I email Scott this note, I'm like Hi Scott, my name is Leah and I'm working on this new idea. And to his credit, you know, he wrote me back Sunday morning and he was like, Wow, this sounds interesting. Why don't you come by my office this week? And then I see in his signature that he's the CEO. Of Zipcar. Of Zipcar. And I I lose my breath. I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe I just emailed the CEO of Sipcar. Cold email. So Alright, so and and when you told him the idea

How did you describe it? So I went to his office and I said Much like you're thinking about zip car, where you share cars in a neighborhood, I wanna create a platform in a marketplace where you can share errands and share services. And

He immediately was like, Wow, I think you're on to something here. Let's meet again next week. And so he he just Was so brilliant and so nice. And he said, Why don't you come by every week for an hour and sit with me and we can brainstorm. I was still at IBM. Yeah. And so I started meeting up with Scott once a week. I go by the office, tell him more about the idea. I talk to him about challenges I saw in the marketplace. He would tell me about Zipcar as well and his experiences there.

Yeah. And finally After a few months of that. You know, he said to me, You know, Leah I really feel like you're onto something here. Why don't you just see how far you can take it?

And it was sort of his nice way of saying like What are you still doing at IBM? When we come back in just a moment. Helia taps into Craigslist and her local coffee shop to launch Run My Errand. Just in time for the onset?

Of the global financial crisis. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2008, and Leah is still working full time at IBM. But in her spare time? On nights and weekends? She's thinking about how to get run my errand on its feet, and she's workshopping her business plan.

Every chance she gets. I would sit next to someone on the bus going into Boston, I'd be like, Hey, do you want to hear about this new idea? I mean, I would talk to anyone who would listen to me. But one of the places where I got a lot of great feedback was a little coffee shop in Charlestown called Zoomies. And I'd go hang out there and I would code and I'd program. And they're a bunch of mobs. That would come into the coffee shop with their kids. And I'd say, like, hey, do you have a second? I'm working on this new thing, like, would you use a service like this?

How much would you pay? What like what sorts of jobs do you need help with? What what do you need done? The owners of the coffee shop were so fabulous. They they were very nice to let me hang out there, you know, for hours and hours and talk to their customers. Using it using their wifi. Using their Wi Fi. Eating their muffins. It was all good. Yeah. Uh Yes, and and so in Charlestown.

This one square mile neighborhood of Boston. I figured out that there was this Mothers Association. And I'm not a mom at the time, right? I'm still like I don't have kids. So I don't fully understand. But I think moms are busy and like they'd probably use the service. So I go to the head of the Charlestown Mothers Organization. And I say, Okay.

I have this idea, I've talked to a lot of the moms in town, and I wanna build a beta for you. I wanna build a beta just for you. Nine hundred moms in one square mile of Boston. You know. Will you advertise it through your newsletter if I build you this beta? Right. Okay, I understand that part. That makes sense. Yep. I'm wondering how you can do the other part, which is to find the people to do the task. Oh, that was easy. I just went to Craigslist. So I build the site for the moms, close beta.

And I post an ad on Craig's list. And I say, I'm looking for some help running errands. And I got hundreds, hundreds of inquiries. I'll help you, I'll help you, you know. And so I'm like, wow, okay, there's a lot of demand out there for people that wanna run errands. And so I started meeting Um potential

They would come meet you face to face. Yeah, I met everyone face to face to start because I was terrified. that you know there was gonna be a trust and safety issue early on. And so I met them all at Zoom's coffee shop, thirty minute interviews And I brought on thirty of them.

To start the fight. Yeah. You know, I'm just curious, just it's a bit of a an aside, but This is the time when Uber and Lyft and you know, Air B and B are really kind of starting to come together, still not known yet, not widely used yet. Right. What what would become known as like the gig economy or peer to peer economy.

Did you even know about that? Had you were you kinda looking around and saying, You know, this is gonna be a thing? Not yet. Um, that was still so early. It was so early. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean U Uber hadn't started yet. Relay rides was started in Boston. Um, and that was

Kind of like a zip car, but with people that owned their cars, right? Now it's Turro. But you weren't but you weren't like looking at the landscape and saying this this peer to peer economy is gonna be'cause it's amazing that you were already thinking like this, I mean and and who I mean, who knew that it was gonna become a huge Thing.

It was the engineer in me. I was really driven by the technology. That that was it. I had no exposure still to Silicon Valley or what was happening. You know, like I didn't really know what was going on on the West Coast. And so I was driven by the technology and what I I saw what was possible with the technology. Alright, so You land like thirty people.

Errand runners. And you've got this group of moms. And then what? Then what how did you get them to like'cause it's a chicken and egg problem, right? You need the you need the problem and you need the solver. You need the solver and you need the problem. So how did you get them to you know To to start. Yeah, so I I posted in the Charlestown Mothers Association newsletter that run my errand dot com was open to them and them alone. Yeah. And that I had vetted, you know, these thirty taskers or runners at the time. Yeah.

And then as soon as I posted, you know some moms were trying it out. They needed dry cleaning picked up. They need groceries delivered. Um you know, just like simple, easy little tasks. I then had created the algorithm, right, which would alert all of the runners, all of the taskers at the time that a new job had been posted. So they'd get an alert on their phone. And at that time it was a bidding system. Tasker runners at the time would pick up jobs. They would

Do the errands. They would be rated and reviewed but you know by the customer. But I I personally, right, would get an alert every time something was posted. I mean this was a close beta. I would be sweating Bullets. To see how long it would take. For a runner for a tasker to pick up the job as like oh my god is someone gonna pick this up? I mean like

I didn't know it's a marketplace. Someone would pick it up or they wouldn't pick it up. I ended up being The one doing a lot of the early jobs. I had this little scooter uh That I wrote around Boston, a Charlestown area.

And I I would do a lot of the early jobs myself, and so I would then get like firsthand knowledge of what it was like to be a tasker, a runner, to do these jobs, and that actually helped a lot. in building out the service, having that knowledge. Alright. Now This is a lot of work.

There's a lot going on here. But at what point Did were you uh I mean, did you have to leave your day job because you know, I don't think you left your day job until June of two thousand eight. Yeah. W were you just like going to work during the day and then just trying to do all the stuff at night? Yes, nights, weekends, I mean, it was a lot and

It really was Scott who kinda nudged to me to To make the leap you saw the progress. Yeah. And Everyone I had talked to, no one had said, You're insane, this won't work. Everyone's reaction. Brilliant idea.

Yes. Everywhere. Everyone. And so I finally decided to make the leap and and quit IBM. Did you have savings? Some money that you saved up?

So I had twenty seven thousand dollars in my IBM pension program. That's it. You know, we could withdraw with a penalty because it was for retirement. But I was like, Whatever, let's just withdraw this money And so I gave myself like six months to to make something happen.

And meantime, I mean you I guess because you were married and Kevin probably had some income coming in. So you didn't have to worry about like feeding yourself. That's right. That's right. I it's interesting because you said in the beginning the stability of IBM I was the stable one for many years while Kevin kinda jumped around at different startups. And we talked and he's like, You know what? This is such a great idea.

I'll be the stable one, you go. Like go see what you can do with us. Yeah. So what would the user experience be like in two thousand eight? You know, you go on. You had people who who were available to run errands. Yep. And and then what would you do as a as a person who needed an errand?

Taken care of. So I built it modeled after eBay, you know, the big marketplace at the time. And so you'd go on and you'd say, I need dry cleaning picked up. I'm willing to pay you ten dollars to do it. And a tasker would come on, they'd get an alert on their phone and they'd say Will I do this for ten dollars or do I want to Make a bid on the job.

Oh, I'll do it for fifteen. So some Runners, Taskers, Erin runners, they would bid on jobs. Others would just do the buy now price, right? Um, and connect. And then that was it. And then the transaction would occur offline and then they'd come back to leave each other ratings and reviews. Okay, so it's June of two thousand eight.

You've got some of these moms that you're working with. You're starting to to onboard. Some errand runners in the Beta. Yeah.

And how does it go? It goes really well. And The moms in Charlestown start referring their moms in other neighborhoods of Boston, but it's not open. In those neighborhoods. Yeah. And so I'm thinking, wow, maybe I should just open this up.

in more neighborhoods, but that means I need to go recruit more runners in these neighborhoods. But I'm then frantically posting Craigslist ads and interviewing runners all over the city. Um But it's going well. And I get to the point where

I think okay, maybe I should try to do a little bit of marketing or, you know, get the word out. More than just word of mouth. Yeah. So I march into the Charlestown Patriot Bridge, which is the local newspaper in Charlestown. Yeah.

And I kinda I pitched the guy there the story about Run My Ernest starting and how I'm opening it up. It's been in the Charlestown Mothers Association. It's gone really well. And he's so nice and he loves the story and he's like, I'll yeah, let's write it up. I'll publish it. Wow. And honestly that drove so much traffic. I mean, I think the readership was like thirteen thousand people. It drove so much traffic to the site and all over Boston. It wasn't just Charlestown. And so as like okay wow there's sun there's something here Yeah.

I think you opened it up wide, right? The the beta phase ended in like September of 2008. Right. Something like that. That's right. In September, yeah. But September two thousand eight was wow. I mean that was like Lehman Brothers and and you know, it was just the the world is collapsing and then you had like

uh the Madoff Ponzi scheme was exposed in December and then they just a financial crisis in two thousand nine. I I actually remember it very well because I was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fall of two thousand eight. Um For a year. And That was a crazy time.

Crazy time. It was like H you know, w do you um do you remember having any anxiety over like oh I left my job and I'm starting the Yeah. Yes, I was freaking out. I th what am I doing? I had this stable job at IBM and The world feels like it's falling apart. Yeah, no one wants to give me money right now. Investors don't want to write checks right now.

Um, yeah, it was very stressful. Uh but I did realize something, which was The runners, the taskers, the people that wanted to make money on the platform. It was overwhelming. Because people were losing jobs. Yes. It was overwhelming. And the I mean the the skill sets and the talent in these people were

Educated and they'd gone to college, they were pharmacists, they were lawyers, they were teachers, they were being laid off. And they were looking for new ways to make money. So you were getting overwhelmed with people who were responding to the cre Criggsad. Yes. And so that motivated me. That Despite my own personal panic around leaving my own job to do this, that

There was something interesting here to be built. Yeah. But from from what I've read, like in order to attract more Users.

Right, to run my errand. You you tried a bunch of different interesting strategies. Like for example you you offered like the first errand would be free. Oh yeah. I'm assuming you guys would ha pay the the the ta the the errand runner. So you were losing money on it, but you had to attract users. So you

Yes. Uh and then like you were trying to talk to I guess corporations like IBM, I think even approach IBM To see if they would adopt. Your service, right?

Yes. We tried Everything. A lot of what I would call gorilla marketing techniques. I mean one of my actual favorite sort of stunts we did in Boston was to um

Do a marketing uh program during the Boston marathon. And we called it Run My Marathon. And we actually hired Runners, errand runners.

to run portions of the marathon all the way along the marathon route. But yeah, I mean we We just it was Boots on the ground, knocking on doors, yeah, you know, cold talking to these business owners about the service. Mean time

You can't run this without any money, right? So I I from what I understand you raised a little bit of money, like just to keep it running, is that right? Yeah, I mean it's even sort of a more in depth story than that, which is um So I had that twenty seven thousand dollar pension that I knew would last us from June when I left IBM to December. Six months. Minus the penalties and the tax. That's right. Then we're putting the mortgage on the credit card. Like we're putting

Everything on credit cards after that. Yeah. And so September rolls around We've got the beta launch, there's good feedback, people are using it. Scott introduced me to some investors. I start

you know, going around Boston and talking to people And these conversations with investors are not going well. Yeah. Um they're not going anywhere very quickly. And I remember Scott calling me on Christmas Eve of two thousand and eight, saying, Hey, are like are you getting the round clothes? There are a couple of angels That were the first investors in zip car.

that um that were gonna come in. He's like, hey, are you getting the round clothes? It was supposed to be two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Yep. I said, I don't know, the money yet, like I don't know what's going on And so in the new year. Um I go and sit down with the with the investors and We're there with lawyers. We're supposed to be closing the round. I actually have a co founder at the time too.

That's gonna leave her job. And you know, I've offered like twenty percent of the company to to come on as my co founder. So we go, we meet these investors and they're like, listen. This financial crisis has hit us hard. We're we're getting cold feet.

We really love what you're doing. We love the idea, but We can't we can't put all this money down right now. We're just we're nervous. And so We'll we'll give you some money. But it's gonna come in tranches.

And you you have to meet certain milestones. To get the next check. And I am like, oh my god, it's been now nine months since I left IBM. Everything is going on credit cards. And this round is not coming together. Yeah.

So we leave that meeting. She decides she can't leave her full time job to join me, after all. So sh you lose your co founder. Lose the co founder. And The investors say, Let's start with fifty K. We'll give you fifty K. Let's see how you do.

So we start with fifty K, that was March in two thousand nine. And I just I just make it work. I just stretch it. Um And keep going. Now how from a from a User's perspective at this point. It's only available in in the Boston area.

Like I have to imagine you're still you still have a tiny number of people using it. Probably you're bringing in I don't know. Five thousand, ten thousand bucks a month at at most at that point. Probably less, honestly. Um probably less. Boston was a tough market, even at scale with Task Rabbit.

Boston was like number ten. Market. For us. And I mean, you had fifty thousand dollars, which is gonna give you some runway, especially if if it's just you pretty much doing everything, but it's It's not It's limited.

Um You had some revenue coming in but a really small amount. It was really mainly sounds like you were it w it was really mainly data you were collecting. Yes. That's right. It wasn't big enough yet to sustain anything, let alone pay for the, you know, web server costs of running the site. And so I just kept expanding. At that point though, I was working out of the zip car office. So Scott

Very nicely said, Why don't you just come work out of here? You know, for as long as you want. And one day he said, You know, there's another entrepreneur from California coming by. His name's John Zimmer. He runs a company called Zimred. Yeah. I want you guys to meet. Um, we're d we're gonna do a deal with them and Sipcar. I said, Cool.

And so later that day I meet John and and he's like, Hey, you know what? Um There's this incubator program Facebook is gonna launch this summer. You should apply. I know the people who are gonna run it. I'll I'll put in a good word for you. I was like, Okay, great. So I go back, I tell Scott, he's like, Yeah, that sounds really good. Why don't you apply to that program? And In the meantime, we had closed a little bit more angel money, you know, in total it became around a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Yeah.

And so I apply to this program called the F B Fund. I do a phone interview for it. And And then we we get it. We're offered it. And and John says, You know what? I think it's like two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Like it's a You know, uh an investment from Facebook. And I say, Oh, that sounds great. That sounds a great way to raise money.

So we get the offer from Facebook to come out to do the incubator program. It's fifteen thousand dollars. And it's for a chunk of the company. It's like, you know. few percentage points of the company. Wow. For fifteen grand. For fifteen grand. And I said, Well what happened to the two fifty? And they're like, Yeah, well, it it's different for everyone.

Is what they tell me. They they decide how much they're gonna offer you, okay? Right. So I'm talking to Scott about it, he's like, Don't do it. That's not worth it. It's fifteen grand. Don't do it. Yeah. And so they're offering you fifteen grand, but uh presumably also mentorship and connections. It's Facebook. That's right. So what did you do? So I decided to do it. I decided to go for it. Most people thought it would not be worth

Doing I felt like this is the connection. to Silicon Valley. Th there are things happening there. Let's go do it. And the incubator program presumably was in In California. It was. It was in Palo Alto.

So I'd spend a week in Boston on the ground. Yep. And then I'd spend a week over at the Facebook program. And I told Facebook, I was like, Hey, listen, like I've got this company running in Boston. I can't just go there for the summer. So I just went back and forth all summer. I mean that was a piv it ended up being a pivotal moment. And that program was life changing. And I think I'm assuming if they if they ran it like Y Combinate or others

you would be able to present to investors. Is that is that how it worked? Exactly. There was a big pitch day at the end of the program and And I remember on the first day of the program one I was surrounded by all of these other amazing entrepreneurs and founders and people and that was

The first time in my life I had been surrounded by that type of energy and it was Really exciting. So day one Day one. They get us to stand up, introduce ourselves.

And give. our thirty second pitch and they It's like twenty companies. And then we get rated. On how well we did on day one.

Yeah. out of ten. I got like a two. A two. Rated by who? By the Because you didn't what, you didn't properly explain what you were doing or you didn't have enthusiasm. What was the feedback? It wasn't enthusiasm. They they said that I used too many technical Buzzworth.

And so I really had to make the shift away from being a technical engineer. And into what is the value propos like what are you actually building here for consumers. Right. And so That was very helpful. I mean I actually worked on the pitch then for the next twelve weeks and

And at the end there was a big demo day and You know, it was online and there were investors there as well, and I was just like I am making this round happen. Like this is my chance. I have to bring a round together at the end of this program. And I think what I

What were you looking to raise? 'Cause you hadn't really done a seed round yet, right? Based on the advisors and mentors there, they said, you know, raise a million dollars. Raise a million dollars. Yeah. And

It's two thousand nine. Right. And that there are people with money. There are people that are investors, but still even on Sand Hill Road. I mean I've heard stories of Of of companies looking to sell. uh at the time for like pennies and the dollar that you know today are worth many, many m tens of billions of dollars that didn't do it, but

You know, it was like a bloodbath. in two thousand nine. Yes, it was, and I didn't fully understand yet either. You know, just how to do this or the dynamics around it, but One of the people that

was very pivotal uh in the rays and that came out of Facebook fund was Tim Ferris. Tim Ferris. Yes. Who's been on the show is fabulous human beings. At the time four hour work week was like all was a huge deal, right? Yes. Okay. So I had read four hour work week. And particularly as it related to runmyerrand.com, I thought, oh my God, if I could get Tim as an advisor to this company. That's gonna be a huge win for us.

And it just so happened that Tim was gonna speak. At Facebook Fund. Um on a Monday morning. Now I was flying back and forth, right? A week in Boston, a week in Palo Alto. So the head of the Facebook program says, Okay, Monday morning, Tim Ferris is gonna be here. Surprise. What you know, everyone can sign up for fifteen minutes with Tim on Monday. I'm literally on a flight back to Boston when I get this email.

I'm like, Oh my God, do I really turn around just so I can have this meeting with Tim? I look online to see how much a plane ticket is to fly back. It was like seven hundred dollars. It's a lot. And I think, okay, it's a fifteen minute meeting with Tim, like is this really worth it? Yeah. But

I decide. that I'm gonna make it worth it. I'm just gonna I'm gonna make sure that he comes on an advisor, like whatever it takes. And so А бук майкет. Back. On Sunday night.

So I'm in Boston for a day. Go back on Sunday night and And on the way there I read the four hour work week again. So I just have it fresh in my mind. Yeah. I have the 15 minute meeting with Tim and I'm showing him the site and I'm describing Run My Errand to him and he's giving me feedback about the homepage.

And it's fifteen minutes, so I'm like, Oh my God, the clock is ticking down like How do I ask him to be an advisor in a fifteen minute meeting? So I decide That that's too much. Too much to ask for in fifteen minute meeting. All I need to do is ask for another meeting. Yeah. And so it gets down to like twelve minutes, thirteen minutes, he's given me tons of great feedback and I'm like, Hey, you know, Tim

Would you be willing to spend more time with me? Like could could we set up another meeting and He's a little hesitant, to be honest. He's like, Well, why don't you reach out to my admin and like we'll see what we can make work? And I say, Okay, great. And it's kind of incredible because That I mean that could have been where things sort of

Ended but But I guess you called his assistant and you you actually were able to get a lunch meeting with Tim. Uh a few days later, right? Yes. And over that lunch meeting

We just really bond and connect over four hour work week and run my errand and how they're so collaborative. And I ask him to be an advisor. And on the spot he says yes. And he says, and I wanna introduce you to my good friends that are investors

And Miraco at Floodgate. And Steve Anderson at Baseline Ventures. Wow. You know, I was like, if I can turn this into a a a million dollars of funding, it'll be worth it. Yeah. And so that was just my mindset. I had to make it work. Alright, so

This was a a crucial This was like a crucial meeting that you had to to have. You felt like this was gonna r and it did. It helped. It opened it opened the doors. So you raise that you raise that million Dollars. sort of the the sort of late two thousand nine. But you're in Boston.

And you're running this out of Boston and Uh y I mean, it sounds like Boston wasn't really You could see that I'm everyone that you talk to love this idea, but for some reason It wasn't really taking off like wildfire in the way you'd hoped it would. That's right.

The culture of Bostonians is a very do it yourself mentality. Yeah. And so that was some friction for this type of service. And I felt like if we could just get to San Francisco. Where

You know, it's the tech company capital of the world. Like this is the consumer market where we actually prove this is a real business. When we come back in just a moment. Halia proves that Run My Errand is indeed a real business, but how when she's really ready to scale it? She realizes she has the wrong team.

at the wrong time. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the summer of 2010 and Leah and her husband Kevin decide to move to San Francisco, so she can relaunch Run My Errand from there. And one of the first things she decides is to change the name.

Of the business. I did not like the name Run My Errand about twenty minutes after I bought it. Off a go daddy. February of two thousand and eight. But it did get us pretty far. It was clear, it was descriptive. I felt like

what we could build was bigger than errands. Yeah. I felt like the the word run my errand was a command and it felt demeaning. And I wanted I wanted the site and the service to feel uplifting and innovative and push the thinking forward and so We came up with Task Rabbit. So

Had you been thinking already at this point. You know, we can't Just limit. Are brand to Errands that eventually

It could be more like Angie's list, where people do repairs, or where people do contracting work, or maybe it's gonna be something bigger. Was that When you start to think about that. Yes, I mean, we saw the main use case was errands, but we even saw early days in Boston. People posting Really interesting different things. They needed help with a birthday party or

Um, you know, they needed um a costume sewn or there was there was like all kinds of crazy things that people would come up with and so You know, we did a little bit of press, we did a lot of the on the ground guerrilla marketing like we had done in Boston. And how was the response in the city? It was much faster than it was in Boston. And so I uh from the very early days of launching San Francisco, I could see that

Just the consumer in the Bay Area. was gonna use the service differently. I mean it was under a new name and brand as well, so that helped. But people were really creative with their use of the service. You know, they're they were using it much more often than people in Boston were. The weather was nicer, so there were a lot more outdoor tasks being done. Yeah. It was definitely growing faster than we were in Boston. And at this point, I guess you're able to hire someone who can take over the the coding for you. I think this is a somebody you knew from IBM Uh Brian Leonard.

Uh and also I think pretty soon after you arrive to to San Francisco you started to fundraise for for Series A. This was g and this was gonna be big. Like this was gonna be like Like five million bucks. That's right. That's right. It's yes.

So we start to rent fundraise for the series A and We Brian and I Sort of. Hm. up and down Santo Road and we pitch investors and

Even given all of that, the fundraise was not easy. Uh it wasn't easy and We talk to a lot of investors. Um I remember one such meeting where we're on Sand Hill Road, Brian and I And we park. You know, at the investor's office.

I get out of the car and I like somehow close the door awkwardly and it slams. My right hand in the door. Mm. And

I'm barrell over in pain. Brian is like, Oh my God, are you okay with what just happened? We've got to get into this meeting. And I'm like, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'll deal with it later. We just go into the meeting I walk in, I say nothing, I shake everybody's hand with my broken hand, grimacing, sit down at the table and start the pitch. And at this point, Brian and I you know had done this pitch Many times.

Part of the pitch was also, you know, we're building out the team. Still it's just four of us. And um in this particular meeting, about halfway through The investors interrupt us, they interrupt and they're like, Hold on, hold on, hold on. Does anyone on your team Speak Spanish.

Mm. I'm confused. I'm like, Well, my father's Puerto Rican. I speak a little Spanish, but like why? He's like it just dawns on me. You could You could really Build a huge house cleaning business with this.

platform. I was like, what? What is he talking about? And he was thinking that if we spoke Spanish we could mark it to the Spanish community and bring them on. It's it was just was like so far off from Yeah. What we were pitching that day and my hand is broken and I'm just completely destroyed by this meeting. So um You know, we we continue to talk to investors and

We finally get connected with the team over at Shasta Ventures. And then we meet Todd, who's one of the founders of Shasta. Um, and after several meetings with them and um Yeah, they invite They invite me out to dinner. Which is so nice. It's very old school. I don't know if this happens anymore, but they're like, Let's go out to dinner and we'll discuss terms, you know? And so then they put together Uh, five million dollar term sheet.

Hm. You know, it was It was so exciting. It was a great interaction too. I remember Todd saying You know, we never go back on our work. We've never pulled back a term sheet and like we're really excited about working with you. And that was it. And so we we decided to

move forward with Shasta and It was a great partnership with them. Around this time you're closing the the the this round of financing that they get closed in in two thousand eleven, May of two thousand eleven. Um, you decide that that you should not be the CEO of the company, that you should find

Outside. Tell me what What you were thinking at that time?

Yeah, I was thinking I had always wanted a business partner. I am an engineer. That's That's how I was trained.

Which is really smart, by the way. It's a really smart way to think about it. Yeah. I always wanted that business person, and so At this point, we're like we're open in two markets, we're four people, but I know we need to raise more money. And I know that having more operational and business help is is gonna help get that done. Yeah. And so we met a lot of different people over the course of Many months we ran a whole search process.

Alright, so You Reach out to To become the

CEO. And and who was it? The man by the name of Eric Grossa Uh he was One of the early guys at Hot Wirecom.

hundred million dollar business. Uh had sold to Expedia. referenced very well. And and I mean is an amazing human being I think when I look back It was more about timing.

Because The business Was too early. To bring in Someone that was a step away.

From The core. Vision. And the business still needed me. to really drive

the momentum forward. He was brought into scale. Yeah. It was too early to scale in the way. That man can scale a company, right? I mean he's brilliant, yeah. He burned credible businesses. Yes. And and you guys were still just getting started. That's right. That's right. But You know, we did go out and raise our series B, uh with Eric. So Eric and I then hit the road. And I gotta say, like, oh my God, it was such a relief. Yeah, because investors are looking at the two of you and they're saying, Okay, great product, great engineer, and then super experienced

Operations person. Exactly. So here's a check. Here's the check. And it was the largest it was the largest round that we raised. It ended up being eighteen million dollars led by LightSpeed. It came fast because we had brought on this amazing talent.

Alright, now meantime, there's no way the Task Rabbit is profitable because most startups are not profitable for a long time, some are still not profitable after a very, very, very long time. But what was the business model that that you start to land on at this point? Obviously This is a question investors are asking. How are you gonna make money? So it was always just a commission from every task that went through the site. And um that was always the business model. So we were always making money and

The unit economics looked good. We were profitable on a task basis. We're always making money on every task. We're you know, at that point. Now at this time You're also starting to see Uber. And lift and Airbnb, all these other, you know, peer to peer economies really start to take off and start to emerge. Yeah, end of two thousand eleven, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And so We're kind of in the midst of this. monumental moment for Consumers.

Yeah. And Task grab it actually feels Pretty slow and sluggish. Compared to Yes, yes. Compared to

the Ubers and the Lifts and It's not happening as instantaneously. As the consumer starts To get trained to expect. Yeah. And so

This is the point in the business where like, wow, we we need to make instant connections And things hap have to happen in real time. But just to ask about the the business model for a moment. I mean the the model of taking a commission from every task doesn't seem to me

to be sustainable in the long run because you would have to have milli hundreds of thousands of tasks happening every day. to hit profitability. Cause if it's like I don't know, forty bucks I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like there had to be other revenue streams that you had to focus on. Is that is that right? Did that happen? You know, the main revenue stream was the commissions and the average task size at that time.

was about a hundred and fifty dollars. Okay. Right. And so it it the number the numbers worked. We took anywhere between twenty and thirty percent of of a task and that was, you know, net profit to us. Right. So yeah, that that was always the main business model. All right, now Eric was brought in to really scale the company. You had now a pretty nice war chest. Yes. Um but you were In the process of trying to scale, it sounds like the adoption rate wasn't actually

It wasn't moving as quickly as you'd hoped. Yeah, that's right. 'Cause it never really felt like a rocket ship. It always felt like we were on the brink of getting on the rocket ship, right? Yeah. And so the lever in the model was always this repeat usage metric. Like if you could get someone to post Two tasks a month or one time a week. That was the huge lever in the model that like really made all the numbers work. But on average, people were posting about one time a month at the time.

And so We're like, Okay, why is it only happening one time a month? Where is the friction in the model? Yeah. At the same time, Eric is really like he's starting to scale the company the way he knows how to scale companies. It's like bring on sales and marketing and you know I you know, I need more engineering. We need business development people, we need operation like so we're scaling up. Енсорізінь да продат.

Now in twenty eleven. Is it's just not working. It's just not working. And at this point There are competitors coming out. That are launching mobile first.

Mobile only. And we've been on the web. Like we have we have a mobile product, but it hasn't been given a lot of attention because we've been so focused on the web. I mean honestly it's like the the entire consumer market and expectation just changed underneath us and we missed it.

I think Eric would end up being CEO for like Less than a year. Before You kind of

reassume that role. Can you can you tell me what what happened ultimately'cause It doesn't sound like it was a it was like Drag down, you know, I hate you, I hate you.

It was what what yeah. It was the wrong timing and it was the wrong fit and It turned out that we needed to really change the trajectory of the product into this mobile first Фаст пейст он деман сервіс. Which was more analogous to Uber and Lift and all these other services.

And all these other competitors, frankly, that were popping up. But we had scaled a team that was built to run a traditional web business. Yeah. And so We decided as a board You know that

I would step back in. And and become CEO again. It was slightly reluctantly. I mean I really felt like I had failed. I mean that this process had failed, right? I mean I I wanted help, I wanted a business person.

And that didn't work. And now I have to step back in. And I also need to like Change the trajectory of this giant ship that's going in the wrong direction. Were you worried about your burn rate? Extremely worried about the burn rate. I mean at that point I think we were burning probably over a million dollars a month. And you had you had money th in the bank, but still. We did.

We did. We had over twenty million dollars in the bank, I remember, uh you know, so it was kinda like, Okay, you've got A lot of funding. But the burn is high. We've hired a lot of people. And We've also built a team

That may not be the right team. To execute. What we need to do next. Alright. In the middle of two thousand thirteen.

Um you you had to lay off about thirty percent of the team. You restructure the company. Tell me what you were thinking of in the summer of twenty thirteen. Yeah.

Yes. So It ended up being about twenty percent of the team. How many people, do you remember? At that point we were probably eighty people and so it was under twenty.

Um People. that we transition to. Out. I had to look them in the eye and say, you know, this this isn't working anymore and

We've gotta we've gotta move on. Uh The time I was six months pregnant with my first. Baby Amelia.

And I remember going into the office that morning just Feeling totally sick to my stomach, you know, I deliver. The news to this group of people. You know, in segments and chunks.

And We had enough money in the bank. To really make sure. That we took care of them financially, so That was important.

But it was gonna be a huge morale hit. At the same time You know, this is my first pregnancy and I'm nervous because I I feel like you know what I haven't felt the baby move today. And it's just a lot of stress and like

Maybe it's okay, but like I don't know. And so I call my doctor in the afternoon. And she's like I need you to come in. So I go in, they monitor.

The baby's sluggish. She's like, no, this isn't in your head, you're not making this up. A like are you under a lot of stress? Like, oh my God. I under a lot of stress. Yeah.

And You know It turned out everything was Well, please let's get to the end of that story. Baby's okay, Amelia's nine now, she was okay. But it was it was just like my body was reacting to the amount of stress I was under. Yeah.

And Іно, май доктор said to me, she said listen, I told her what had happened. And I'm like Crying, you know, she's like, listen. You're not gonna kill your baby.

She said that out to me flashy. You're not gonna kill your baby with truth. I was like, okay, all right. And I was I was kinda all right, that's what I needed to hear because I need to go back and take care of some things too. Um but you know, she monitored me for a few hours, I came back to the office, like things were settled down. Um You know, and we moved we moved forward. We m we all move forward. Alright, meantime, so you've got There's just a lot going on, right? Um

You also realize that the the model you have, which is kinda like this bidding system or the Book Now system It was confusing. There were people who liked it because they could you know, haggle over a price and And even some of the the the the the task rabbit

What were they called? The Erin Runners? Taskers. The taskers, yeah. Like they some of them liked it. But you knew that there was too much friction with this model that it wasn't easy to get and I remember this. I remember going on TaskRabbit in like twenty thirteen and being like this is confusing. Yeah. It's like I don't want to bid. It's I'm not good at haggling. Like I just just tell me the price. Yes. And so you you really the team started to come up with a new A completely new model that you would eventually got guys called it the Booker T model. I guess after like Booker's and the Model T, is that right? Yes, that's right. That's right. And this was an idea that came out of The product team. And what was it gonna what was gonna be different? It was going to just be like here's a price and

Here's how it works. It was gonna be a direct booking platform. And What we needed to do was remove more friction from the bidding. So we got rid of bidding, you know, and so people could just post. I wanna pay this much money and then taskers would Take it or leave. You know, there wasn't l a lot of back and forth. So that

Helped. From what I understand, you actually started in uh in London and the UK to to test it out. Yes. Uh but w when you brought it to the US, like I think there was a pretty strong m minority of users, or m pretty strong maybe strong and vocal minority of people who Uh who hated it? It's a very loud minority. Yeah.

And they really hated it. Yes. And what did they say? Oh my God, this was so hard because Millions of people were using Task Rabbit. In the US.

And thank God we launched this new product in London because we saw it work. We saw the mobile product work. this on demand booking platform. It worked. The metrics doubled the repeat usage. We're like, okay, this works. Now we need to take a million people in the US and sixty thousand taskers. that are on the platform and we need to transition them

to a completely new way of working. We actually brought a tasker from London from the UK. who is operating in the London market and we had her train Taskers in the US, city by city, in these little community gatherings. Thank God we launched that London product because if we hadn't, we would have been completely overwhelmed by that vocal minority. And we we could have pulled back. We could have

completely decided not to move forward just based on the feedback because it was so visceral. Yeah. Um But but we saw it working. We knew it was gonna work. Where did you see the Wh what was the most popular

I keep furniture building? Literally since day one IKE furniture assembly. Was always in yeah, I mean it was always in the top five tasks and it it number one. All the time. Task grab it it became in my mind I remember it's like oh you just want to go you got just get a task grab it person to do it if you don't have time. Yes. I remember people saying that in like two thousand fourteen, fifteen. I remember having those conversations.

It was always always I key a furniture assembly and it's so funny because It took years and years to to make contact with them, and you know, finally we did, obviously, but um But that was great for us. That was great. And in meanwhile, you guys actually start to become profitable around this period and and you also start to have

conversations with IKEA, and you knew that Tons of people were coming to TaskRab to get their IKEA. uh furniture build, so it was like a like a match made in heaven. So initially when IKEA started to talk to you guys, was it Was it talking about a a potential acquisition or or did it start with like a a partnership conversation?

Started with a partnership conversation. And They knew that we were live in London and London is one of their biggest markets.

And London for us was Number four out of all the markets we were launched in. So we were doing very well in London. Yeah. And they wanted to talk about a partnership in store. So that they could drive up sales, right, and have people buy more IKEA furniture because it would then be assembled by a task rabbit. And so initially it was let's

Yeah, let's have some kind of partnership. Yeah, and it was great. So we launched in the London market a partnership between IKEA and Task Rabbit. And what I really Got excited about with IKEA. Is particularly being in their headquarters.

You could feel That they had s similar values around sustainability and culture, just their way of thinking about the business. It felt really aligned with Task Rabbit. And that got me really excited about working with them.

Alright, so Ikea acquires Task Rabbit in twenty seventeen and And not long after you leave, you Uh you step away from the company. you know, five years plus removed from Task Rabbit now. Is it d I mean, do you have any emotional attachment to it or or not anymore?

Oh God. Um I I do. It's it's So as a founder

I always felt like wouldn't it be amazing to build something that lives beyond you? And that's what I got to achieve. And That was incredible.

Now the flip side of that is There's this company that lives beyond me. That I have no control over anymore. Mm. But everybody associates with me.

And so sometimes I'm on the opposite end where people are like asking me questions about like oh and You know, what do you think about this with Task Rabbit and what do you think about this decision or that? And I'm just like, wow, I like I have no Input, no I'm very detached. Very detached. I I know a handful p of people at that company.

today. So it is sort of odd for me because it it was my baby. It is my baby. It was the first the first baby. Um and so it is this very conflicting feeling at times. I'm proud that it lives on beyond me. And I also Sometimes feel a conflict that I'm no longer a part of it.

Yeah. I mean it is amazing. Story. Like you We started this In an apartment in Charlestown.

Boston. Um and did everything. I mean you you you built the site and all the functions and features and you recruited the users and you recruited the taskers and you formed the L C and you did it for a year and a half before you fi hired somebody. I mean that's

Amazing. And that's I mean and then and you built a brand, a brand that people know. They're they know that name. Yeah. I mean looking back It was a lot and

Could I go back and do it all again? Oh my God, I don't know. Could I go back and even do that whole product pivot change in twenty fourteen? I don't know. Um But I'm really, really glad.

That I did. When I did. I'm proud of the journey. That I had that we had. Um But it was a lot.

Do you when you think about You know what happened with Task Rabbit and your and and and and everything that Obviously with but Great smart collaborators.

Do you think that that what you achieved there was because you You worked really hard or do you think there was luck involved too? I think it's definitely both. I think that There are definitely times that Through circumstance.

I was very lucky, for instance. Being able to be out to dinner and get connected with Scott Griffith from An old co worker. Like you can't plan some of these things to happen. The serend there is a lot of serendipity. And I think at the same time Given the serendipity

You have to be able to Capture it and execute on it. Yeah. And so for me, I feel like it was very much both. It was both. That's Leah Sullivan, founder of TaskRabbit. Right now, Leah's helping lead an early stage venture capital firm called Fuel Capital.

By the way, she and her former husband Kevin divorced a few years after the sale to IKEA, but they still remain friends and Leah is now remarried. And from time to time, she still hires Taskers. In fact, a while back, after TaskRabbit went fully remote, We heard that they had to get rid of the eight-foot wooden logo that used to hang outside office. She hated to think of someone throwing it out, so she hired a tasker to deliver it to her house, and it now sits in her garage. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week.

If you want to contact the team, our email address is hibt at id.wondery.com. And if you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at how I built this and mine is at guyRaz. On Instagram, we're at how I built this and I'm at guy.Roz. This episode was produced by Carrie Thomson with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Sam Paulson. Our production staff also includes JC Howard, Casey Herman, Liz Metzger, Alex Chung, Josh Lash, Katherine Seifer, Elaine Coates, Chris Massini, Carla Esteves, and John Isabella. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.