Founders: Leah Solivan on building and selling TaskRabbit
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When I think of the future, I think of important people and what I want to offer them. In Nordea Private Banking, my investment manager helps me make decisions that take time. This way my family stays ahead of the steps. Nordea.fi or Private Banking.
Täällä Pekka Palvikinkku. Tänään testaan ruoka-alan ammattilaisten digipalveluita. Eli tästä se säätö alkaa. Ensin valio Aimo'n verkkokauppa. Tehdään tilaus. Valmis. Siis aivan järkyttävän.
Selkeä. Ja niin pitääkin. Kun digipalvelut toimivat, sinä voit keskittyä olennaiseen. Olen Aimo, ruoka-alan ammattilaisten kumppani, ja mukana siellä, missä onnistumisia tehdään. Valio Aimo. Onnistumisen ainekset.
Kyllä, kyllä. Hello, this is Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Sarah Rogers. Today's founder is Leah Sullivan, the founder of TaskRabbit, an app that connects people with taskers who they pay to help with everyday jobs like building flatbed furniture. Hi, Leah. Welcome.
How did Leah Solivan's childhood shape her path to founding TaskRabbit?
Hello. Thank you so much for having me on. Now, Leah, you started in tech before founding your own company after a simple frustration. You needed dog food and you didn't want to go out and get it yourself. Now, that relatable moment sparked TaskRabbit in 2008 and made you a pioneer of the gig economy before the mainstream. You built it into a global business, sold it to IKEA, but success, of course, disappeared. did come at a personal price, which we'll talk about. Now you're on the other side of the table as a venture capitalist and you've got a book coming out next year. Not much then.
Not much going on. Exactly. Yeah.
So let's go back to before all that. Before you got the dog, you grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. What was family life like?
My father had been in the Air Force for 35 years. He worked at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. And my mother was a stay-at-home mom. I have a younger sister who's two years younger than me. And I remember being very interested in and very good just naturally at math. And that kind of led me to computer science in college. And even way far back, I remember my father came home from work one night. I must have been, I don't know, eight years old. And I don't know why I asked him this, but I asked him what the highest position was in a company. What is that called? And he said it's being a CEO, a chief executive officer. And I remember starting my first company at that moment. It was called Pollution Solutions, and it was a recycling program I set up in my elementary school.
I don't really think we made much money, but I remember that vividly from childhood.
How old were you when you asked your dad that question?
I think I was probably about eight years old. I was also really into dance.
Why did Leah leave IBM to build a gig-economy platform in 2008?
I was a ballerina. I studied dance growing up. I actually danced for about 25 years before I started TaskRabbit.
That's really different from the girl who wants to be the CEO, also want to be a ballet dancer.
I know. I also wanted to be an astronaut. So there were a lot of things that I was interested in.
Keeping your options open. That's right. Were you good with money? Who taught you about finances and money?
I remember my parents decided to set up an allowance for my sister and I, and we would do chores, house chores during the week. And it might be, you know, setting the table for dinner or, you know, cleaning our bedrooms, whatever it was. But they kind of posed this interesting question, which I still remember to this day. And they said, we will pay you $3 every week, or we will pay you $5 every two weeks. And you can decide. Now, I think they were trying to see how smart we were or trick us maybe. But I did the math and I realized, well, getting paid the lower amount, but every week frequency was better. And so that's what I chose. But I think those little lessons learned around money were from saving, were from acting fiscally responsible and just being really careful, actually, about money and how it was spent.
You then went to college. Your first proper job was in tech.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:27
2
How did Leah Solivan's childhood shape her path to founding TaskRabbit?
1:27–3:25
3
Why did Leah leave IBM to build a gig-economy platform in 2008?
3:25–6:31
4
What was the original TaskRabbit product and how did it work?
6:31–9:53
5
How did Leah recruit and vet the first TaskRabbit taskers in Boston?
9:53–14:12
6
How did Leah raise early funding during the 2008 financial crisis?
14:12–19:42