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Leah Solivan was an engineer at IBM working on business collaboration tools like Lotus Notes when she had the idea for a million-dollar startup: an online marketplace that would connect customers with “taskers” who could run errands or chores for them for a fee.
The idea came about when Solivan ran out of dog food one evening and asked why she couldn't find someone to pick it up for her right then and there. It was 2008 and the first iPhone had been released a year earlier. Solivan saw the potential of her iPhone for a location-based business.
Leah Solivan. Photo: Chance Yeh/WireImage
In an interview with entrepreneur Jeff Berman last week, Solivan said that when she looked at the problem from an engineer's perspective, she saw these three technologies: social, location-based and mobile.
“I thought there was a lot here,” she said.
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Solivan decided to quit her engineering job and cashed out the $27,000 she earned in her IBM pension plan to put her idea into action. Ten years later, Ikea bought TaskRabbit for an undisclosed sum after the startup had reached a valuation of about $50 million in several funding rounds.
TaskRabbit was Ikea's first acquisition in the US
Getting hired wasn't easy, though. Immediately after leaving IBM, Solivan started programming. She worked on her idea for six to eight weeks and created the first version of it. She worked part-time in a coffee shop and asked random people in the cafe for feedback on her creation.
When the website was ready, Solivan put out an ad on Craigslist looking for Taskers—people who would run errands through the website. She gave everyone who responded to the ad a 30-minute coffee shop interview and ended up with 30 Taskers for the initial launch in Boston.
Through launching, Solivan learned she had to “be the first Tasker.” She also ran errands all over Boston. That experience still prompts her to ask founders, “Can you be part of the process?” Solivan says working the company every day is key to understanding what customers really want.
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Ikea, known for its easy-to-assemble furniture, acquired TaskRabbit in 2017 after a store partnership in London proved lucrative. Customers could choose to have Ikea furniture delivered and assembled by TaskRabbit rather than doing it themselves, increasing the average order value for Ikea and bringing new customers to TaskRabbit.
Ikea decided at that time that they wanted to own TaskRabbit.
“It was bittersweet,” Solivan said. “Ten years had passed… It makes me feel so good to know that it lives on without me.”
When entrepreneurs who work at Meta, Microsoft or other companies ask if they should quit their jobs to work on their ideas, Solivan says it's difficult to be fully involved in a startup while working a day job. But she also knows that not everyone is privileged enough to be able to pursue their idea without a safety net.
“My advice is: If you really believe in something, you will find a way to make it happen,” Solivan said.
Related: She made a popular product at home inspired by a black-owned business from the 1960s. Then it became a multimillion-dollar brand: “We never intended that.”
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
