Forming Strategic Partnerships and Lessons Learned | Founder of TaskRabbit, Leah Busque

How are you going to take this to the next level?

Intergalactic domination. TaskRabbit Mars is next. Now, you know, I think for us there's a lot of really exciting things that we're working on. And, you know, we've been able to share glimpses of that through, for instance, we just launched a really exciting partnership with Amazon. where we're part of Amazon's checkout flow. Imagine you're ordering a flat-screen TV. Chances are you probably need that TV mounted. And so now you can just hire a Tasker right through Amazon, have them come to your house, and mount your TV for you. So there's hundreds, maybe even thousands of different use cases where we can plug Taskers as the service network into, into a purchase decision that a consumer is making. Those are pain points in real life for people because you're ordering a TV and you're like, great, I'm going to have this giant TV sitting in my living room for weeks before I can figure out what to do with it. Trying to figure out where people are having those pain points already online via other services and then partnering with them as this nice value add is pretty exciting.

You're now selling 7 years in existence. So you started off, and you really kind of started off with the partnership model almost. You went to those mothers and you said, hey, beta test for me. And now 7 years down the line, I mean, different scale, not 600 mothers, Amazon. Where, in what stage do you think people should really be going after these strategic partnerships? Should it be right out of the gate and just hit the ground running? Or do you get a footing for a second and then think about that?

Such a great question, because I think over the years we've had some missteps here. These partnerships are hard. They take a long time to do. We talked to Amazon for 6 months before we got this done, and that was fast. That was really fast. There are other partners that we have talked to for 18 months plus that just don't go anywhere. So I think the challenge is, is you as an early-stage company with limited resources, limited time, just a few people that can focus on just a few things, Some of these big partners are just, are just gonna be a distraction. They're gonna suck up all your time and energy, and then they may or may not go anywhere. But at the early stage, runway is king. Cash is king. You gotta make sure that you're focused on the right priorities that are gonna get you to that next level. I don't think it's the big partnerships at the early stage. But at some point as a company, For us, it was about getting to more and more geographies, more locations. Amazon wouldn't be interested in us if we were just open in San Francisco. Being live in 20 cities across the country, having a presence in London now as well, those are all things that have helped take us to the level that it makes sense to start thinking about bigger partners.

Now, for a 10-year plan, are you just going to continue on that expansion route?

There's definitely some really cool things Business development partnerships we're working on. There's also more international expansion in Europe. We're looking at markets in Asia as well, which we feel like have a lot of potential. Canada is so close to us and would be low-hanging fruit. So definitely taking the model now that we've proven out in the US and in London and just stamping it out in more and more places is on the to-do list.

Cool. That's really cool. So I want them to be able to ask some questions. But first, what do you think your biggest lesson learned was while you've been at TaskRabbit? Oh my God.

There's been so many lessons learned. I mean, I really— I started TaskRabbit, I like to say, as an engineer and kind of morphed into an entrepreneur. And I didn't know what that journey was going to be like. I just knew that this product should exist. And that was what I became really passionate about. I wasn't thinking, like, oh, I'm going to build this massive company. get all these people. It was more about, like, this product should exist. How do I make this impactful in a real way in the world? And it sort of snowballed into a company, which has been really exciting. But there's been a lot of learnings along the way. I think for me, one thing I've learned is that the brand that you build early on really can influence the type of culture that you build as a company. And at TaskRabbit, we've been lucky enough to have a very strong tie and connection between our brand externally and our culture internally. So the core values that people might use to describe TaskRabbit when they look at our logo or look at our website, the reliability, the collaboration, the neighbors helping neighbors, the openness, the friendliness, those are all things that get tied into our internal culture as well. And it attracts a certain type of person. Because the person that wants to come to TaskRabbit and wants to make an impact in the world in the way that we are is very much tied to that brand and those values as well.

Yeah.

So that, I think, was a big learning. And so be very careful as you're establishing your brand and realize that it'll have an impact on your culture as well. And just make sure those 2 things are aligned.