FOCUS
28
FORTUNE.COM // JULY 2019
VENTURE
social graph [the people you’re connected to
online] and decided to build a platform for
what I called service networking.
I started talking to potential users, ask-
ing people what kinds of errands they would
outsource and how much they’d pay. If I met a
handyman, I’d ask how much he would charge.
One day, I met Scott Griffith, [then] the CEO
of Zipcar, who was a friend of a friend. We
brainstormed once a week, until he asked,
“Why don’t you just go code this? Why are you
still at IBM?”
I had about $27,000 in my IBM pension
fund, so in April 2008, I cashed it out and
quit my job. I locked myself in my house for
10 weeks to make the beta platform. I ended up
spending a year working out of Scott’s office for
free while I was bootstrapping.
That summer, I launched in Charlestown,
a neighborhood in Boston. I would go to this
coffee shop where the Charlestown Mothers
Association would come every morning after
dropping their kids off at school. I told them
about my idea, and they loved it. So I posted an
ad on Craigslist for Taskers. The response was
in the hundreds. I met about 30 of them over
coffee and hired them for the original site. This
was before we did background checks, so I had
to make sure they were the right people. My
criteria was whether I’d be comfortable inviting
them into my grandmother’s house to do a job
for her. For the three months we were live that
first year, the revenue was about $10,000.
Scott encouraged me to raise some angel
money, but by September 2008, the stock mar-
ket had crashed, so I panicked. But it turned
out to be the best time to start TaskRabbit
because people were looking for ways to make
more money. The gig economy was born out of
that 2008 downturn.
I ended up securing $150,000 from two
Boston-area angel investors and was invited to
join fbFund, a 12-week incubator boot camp in
Palo Alto for entrepreneurs.
I’d spend a week in Boston, working on the
program, then a week in Palo Alto. On the
West Coast, people were more willing to take
risks with new entrepreneurs. I maxed out my
credit cards, so every purchase had to count.
I had just returned to Boston one week when
I learned that Tim Ferriss, the author of The
4-Hour Workweek, was going to be in Palo Alto
the next week.
It would cost $700 to turn
around and fly back to Palo
Alto for a 15-minute time slot
with him. I thought, “If I could
turn that into making him an
adviser or investor, it would be
worth it.” He ended up intro-
ducing me to Ann Miura-Ko, a
cofounding partner of Flood-
gate, and she led the seed
round for TaskRabbit, which
totaled $1.8 million. It was tak-
ing risks like that that changed
the trajectory of the company.
At the end of 2009, I decided
we needed a new name. We did
some brainstorming and whit-
tled down the options to five
names. I hated RunMy Errand,
but when we did a survey of our
Boston users, they all loved it.
No one wanted to change it, but their second
favorite name was TaskRabbit.
In the early years, one of the things I had to
learn was how to build a team. I’d never hired,
fired, or managed anyone at IBM. At times, I
hired too quickly or hired for roles we didn’t
need yet. The things that kept me up at night
were hiring the right people and not running
out of money.
I gained confidence over time. One of the
things that surprised me at first was that if I
had a problem, I could go to three different
people and get three different kinds of advice.
I realized I was going to be the only one who
could make the call about my business. I would
gather information but made calls based on
my own instincts. You have to write your own
playbook while you’re playing the game.
At the end of 2015, Ikea wanted some in-
store installation help, and I thought it would
be great to try a partnership in-store. A few
months later, they were interested in acquir-
ing us. By then, we had multimillion dollars a
month floating through the platform.
We closed the deal in October 2017. I
decided to go to the VC side and joined Fuel
Capital as a general partner.
I feel like I’ve sent my child off to college.
TaskRabbit will always be my first baby. It went
on to become a successful company and brand,
and no longer needs me. As a founder, I feel
really proud about that.
BEST ADVICE
LEAH BUSQUE,
39, FOUNDER OF
TASKRABBIT
A founder’s health
is really important
to the company’s
health. TaskRabbit’s
last round of funding
was the hardest to
raise. I ended up in
the hospital with
stress-induced
colitis, and my colon
almost burst. I did
the closing from a
hospital bed. You’ve
got to invest in your
own exercise, sleep,
and nutrition, as
well as your com-
pany’s needs.
“You have
to write
your own
pl aybook
while you’re
pl aying the
game.”
