TaskRabbit founder Leah Solivan discusses how she addressed early consumer skepticism and safety fears regarding strangers entering homes or running personal errands in 2008.
Insight
Solivan: Evaluating new startup ideas depends on timing, technology, and TAM
“Having experience now as an investor and having talked to hundreds, if not thousands of entrepreneurs, I really think it comes down to three things. Timing, technology, And TAM, the three T's.”
Opinion
Solivan: Public education is too slow and underfunded for venture capital
“From a venture investor standpoint, which is where my brain works you know, the industry is so fragmented it's slow, it's underfunded and there's not a lot of room, you know, to innovate.”
Insight
Solivan: Founders must pitch broad visions but execute on narrow wedges
“I think as a founder, you have so many ideas, you see all the possibilities, and really, you have to pitch all of those possibilities to kind of bring people in and inspire them and get the company off the ground, but when it comes down to execution and custom…”
Disclosure
Solivan: Facebook Offered $15,000 for Equity to Join fbFund Incubator
“So we get the offer from Facebook to come out to do the incubator program. It's 15,000 dollars. And it's for a chunk of the company. It's like, you know, a few percentage points of the company.”
Opinion
Solivan: Boston's DIY culture hindered TaskRabbit, requiring a San Francisco move
“I think the culture of Bostonians is a very do-it-yourself mentality. 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 …”
Insight
Solivan: TaskRabbit Hired an External CEO Too Early to Scale
“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. It was too e…”