6.25.19 - How TaskRabbit Got Its Start and Helped Spawn the Gig Economy
'As an engineer, I was passionate about technology. In early 2008, there was no Apple App Store yet. I was living in Boston with [my then husband] Kevin, and we had a 100-pound yellow Lab. We were getting ready to go out to dinner one night when we realized we were out of dog food. I thought it would be great if I could find someone to help, maybe someone who was at the store that very moment. I grabbed my iPhone and typed RunMyErrand.com. No such service existed. The domain name was available, so I bought it on the spot.'
'I saw the potential of combining emerging mobile and location technologies with the social graph [the people you’re connected to online] and decided to build a platform for what I called service networking.'
'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.'
Read the full Fortune article interviewing TaskRabbit founder Leah Busque here