L.A.B. Unleashed

Over the course of the past couple of years, I would say the one continuous thread I can see in our success is surrounding ourselves with the right mentors, advisors, and investors.  It is so interesting to trace the networks between groups of people, and realize that perhaps the one small conversation you may have had at a random networking event was the connector.  You just never know who you are going to meet and who else they might lead you to.  We have been so fortunate to work with the amazing group that we do.  From the beginning Scott Griffith (Zipcar), Robbie Vorhaus (Vorhaus Communications), and Tom Erickson (Acquia) have been personal mentors to me, and from there came two early stage private investors, Jill Preotle and Peter Aldrich.  In these very early days, this group guided me and helped shape my vision for TaskRabbit.  They remain a strong thread in the vision today.

Participating in fbFund REV, Facebook’s incubator program run by Dave McClure, connected me with Tim Ferriss who has been immensely helpful and instrumental in helping us launch TaskRabbit in the San Francisco Bay Area.  After fbFund, a round of funding was lead by Ann Miura-Ko at FLOODGATE Fund (formerly Maples Investments) and Steve Anderson at Baseline Ventures.  Ann and Steve have offered invaluable help and insight, and have been really wonderful to work with.  Shervin Pishevar (SGN), Michael Powers, and Payman Pouladdej rounds out this strong group of advisors.

Following the same high standard of working with the right people at the right time, I am thrilled to welcome First Round Capital to the TaskRabbit team.  Their partners are smart, savvy, and most importantly, incredibly supportive of our vision.  As the Founder, I constantly want to ensure that this company is collaborating with the right group of investors, advisers, and mentors.  Anyone can write a check or offer input, but to be able to work with this amazing group is an absolute dream come true.

I am obsessed with the potential that LBS solutions pose.  I can see clearly how applications such as Foursquare and Gowalla have an underlying power beyond gaming, and I am excited about the synergies with what we are creating at TaskRabbit as well.

Since Foursquare and Gowalla seem to be neck and neck, I realized that our cross country drive, will give me a unique opportunity to assess the scale of each product. I’ll be passing through over 3,000 miles of highway, stopping off at major metropolitan areas such as Nashville (for my sis’ wedding!), St. Louis, Denver, Salt Lake City, etc. Not to mention all the tinier places and rest stops along the way – maybe even a giant ball of string or two.

So here’s my plan. At each stop, when I have the unmanageable urge to check in and get a new badge, become a founder, or pick up a virtual taco, I will do so on 2 applications – 4sq & Gowalla. At each point, I’ll measure how many other people have checked in at that location and in the end, I should be able to tell who has the better reach across the country over all.

You can follow my experiment on twitter, as I push out my checkins and updated stats along the way.  There are obvious differences between the two products, so this will just measure the amount of scale and reach these applications have across the nation.  I personally have a favorite, and would love to hear your thoughts as well.

I’ve written a few times before about researching customer feedback tools.  I’ve tried a bunch, Kampyle, UserVoice, GetSatisfaction, and SnapABug.  All have their pros and cons, and a few months ago we decided to utilize SnapABug.

The development team there is constantly cranking out awesome new features and functionality.  Just since we started using them, they’ve added Proactive Chat, Click to Call (powered by Twilio), stats and analytics, and customized forms – a lot of high impact work.  We are utilizing it all, and have found Proactive Chat to be especially useful.  After 90 seconds on a page, a friendly box pops up in the bottom right hand corner asking if we can help with anything.

We tested different time lengths, and found if someone was sitting on the same page for 1.5 minutes, they are probably interested enough to be engaged, but they also might be struggling with a question that we can quickly answer.  Its not just a customer service tool, we find that its really turned into a sales channel for us.  If we can spend a couple quick seconds getting someone over that initial “hump” and win them over as a customer it is highly valuable.

One day, Jason, our new Director of Partnerships fondly referred to it as “Snap A Hug” and it stuck.  Go ahead … feeling lonely?  Come on by and we’ll snap a hug you!  In fact, I’d like to snap a hug Jerome and his team for making such a great product and executing on their vision so quickly!

Scott Kirsner does a compelling write up on the changing start up scene here in Boston.  He theorizes that there is a revolution going on and poses the question – which side are you on?  I was honored to even get a mention!

The new culture is open, fast-paced, and encouraging of first-time entrepreneurs. It’s about blogging and tweeting and digitized networks of people sharing information about what they’re interested in, and where they’re investing. It’s about informal "unconferences" popping up to discuss the latest tech trend. It’s populated by people who see the value in having broad networks of friends and acquaintances across lots of companies.

- Blogs exposing the inner workings of venture capital and entrepreneurship, from local leaders like Larry Cheng, Bijan Sabet, Jeff Bussgang, Dharmesh Shah, Healy Jones & Prasad Thammineni, and Leah Busque.

I’ve seen this trend begin to surface, and I hope it continues, because I believe we still have a long way to go.  The potential is there, and those of us who are engrossed in the scene, and by our very nature, are playing the game differently must continue to forge ahead.  I actually think that the revolution, as Scott describes it, falls in line with the growth of the internet and digital media industry in general.  It is so cheap to get a company started these days.  The old overhead of server costs and data centers is a thing of the past, replaced by slick computing clouds and lean resources.  These changes in the industry only help to propel ideas forward – the good ones and the bad ones.  As more and more people continue to innovate, its just a matter of time before the startup scene is flooded with companies a-buzz. 

If you think of Boston as a fresh water pond, and new ideas and companies popping up each as their own crystal of salt, its only a matter of time before Boston turns into an ocean.  I say let’s build an ark, load it up with scrappy entrepreneurs and seasoned thought leaders, and see how far we can go!

Tim Ferriss came to fbFund last Monday and gave a fabulous talk on creating a global phenomenon.  The author of the Four Hour Work Week (4HWW), a New York Times best seller, had some great insights about how to break into a market and secure earlyvangelists.  I was excited about this session, because I had read 4HWW on the plane the night before.  I read it in 3 hours instead of 6 using Tim’s speed reading techniques outlined in the book!   Actually I tried to read it faster, but didn’t quite double my speed.  I think it takes some practice. 

I can summarize the take aways from Tim’s talk in one word – optimization.  He shared great tips on the optimal time to post blog entries (7am / 6pm Tues, Thurs, & Sat), how to optimize the landing pages of a website for conversion metrics, how to launch a new product and being hyper focused about the initial target.  "What is the smallest meaningful number that will start a cascade effect?"

Also I enjoyed the excellent insights into naming companies.  You may remember that we thought long and hard about changing the name RunMyErrand.  To be honest, the name changing battle still haunts me on a daily basis, and I think that eventually we’ll have to make the switch.  I loved hearing about Tim’s very analytical approach to deciding on a name change, check out the description about 6 minutes into this video, and as we continue to obsess of this, we’ll absolutely follow his approach in making the final decision.

So I told my buddy back in Boston about the awesome talk, and you know what his response was?!  "OMG … I read the 4HWW back in college and was a total mess for the next 6 months … trying to start new companies left and right."  Made me laugh!

We are almost there … consider this your sneak peak!  As previously mentioned, one of the things I am most excited to be working on right now is what I am calling our User Interface Refresh.  I’ve been bouncing around a lot of terms – redesign, just seems too heavy, overhaul – sounds like a big mess, but refresh seems to fit.  We are re-skinning the current site, updating the logo, graphics, and icons.  The collective "we" being our "User Advocate", Eric Sagalyn, and our original design guru, Brian Thomas.  This is going to go a long way as far as usability is concerned.  We are definitely simplifying, removing the noise, and reassessing what is important.  We will be cranking the rest of the week to pin down the design, swap out icons, and get all the interior pages layed out properly. 

As I complete this refresh, I would like to integrate a feature that I am starting to see everywhere – the "Give Feedback" widgets.  These widgets are developed by third parties and are designed to remain sticky no matter what page of a website you are looking at.  On any given page, users can click the feedback widget button, and provide their opinions, ideas, frustrations, and general comments about your website.  I’ve researched GetSatisfaction, Kampyle, and UserVoice.  They all have this feedback widget I am talking about, but beyond that, they are very different and I’m not sure how robust I want to go right now.  To start, I am leaning towards Kampyle for its easy Feedback integration widget and analytic tracking.  The piece of the feedback form that sets them apart is the very first question they ask you: "How do you feel about this site?" and you have choose one of these little faces:

This was really compelling to me, because I not only want to get my customer’s feedback, I really want to know how they are *feeling* about the experience overall.  GetSatisfaction has some nice additional features, where users can rate on a scale of 1 to 10 whether they would recommend the site to their friend, and UserVoice had a really cool way to vote suggestions up and down in Digg style.  All seem to fill the market in different ways, and it is tough to decide between them.  If there are other suggestions or recommendations on other feedback widgets I should take a look at, I am all ears!

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks.  It doesn’t even feel like weeks … its feeling more like months, but everything is moving so quickly.  Not sure that makes any sense at all, but I am sure that there is probably someone out there that can relate!  Please give me a shout-out!  

One of things I am most excited about for RUNmyERRAND is the UI overhaul we have got up our sleeves.  We are working with a brilliant graphic designer, a self proclaimed "user advocate", named Eric Sagalyn.  Super talented and works quickly, which is important for our situation.  We got our first peak at the new design late last week and it is just so thrilling!!  Finally, my true vision for the site is going to start shining through.  As a software engineer, my expertise is in back end coding, algorithms, and feature development.  I can do the UI, I’ve learned a lot of CSS, but I certainly am not a self-proclaimed "user advocate"!  I did what I could while I was bootstrapping to get the first cut of the website launched, to prove the model, and now I can finally work with an expert to convey the magnificent beast that is in my head.  So keep an eye out for an exciting new look and feel coming soon!

The other great feature that I believe is going to add a ton of value, is our new Blackberry Application.  The code was merged late last night, so this is the first day it has been live.  Take a peak … all feedback is welcome!  We did a ton of testing on different simulators, but would love to hear how everything is looking on the real devices.  We tried to just make everything really simple, not graphic heavy, so that it will load fast and be useful.  Just like the iPhone you can: Login, Post an Errand, Run and Errand, Purchase Credits, and Mark Errand Complete.  All the basic, most important functionality is there.

In the words of Finding Nemo … "just keep swimming" ….

I have been absolutely slammed lately with meetings, and in desperate need to find a solution keeping me organized on the go!  My IT guy turned me on to Google Sync for my iPhone.  I was looking for a solution that would allow me to access my calendar from anywhere and then also keep everything coordinated from my iPhone.  I have been super impressed with the technology … anything I punch into my iPhone syncs OVER THE AIR with Google Calendar and visa versa.  It really is a complete solution.  The only problem is it does wipe out all your contacts during the installation process, so just make sure you back up your data ahead of time.  I unfortunately did not, and lost a lot of data.  I actually did follow the directions online, so I’m not quite sure what went wrong.  Definitely a "gotcha" to look out for.  Take extra precautions if you can not live without your current contact information and calendar data.

Another fantastic tid bit Gmail just added, is the ability to access your mail while offline.  These two features together definitely give GMail the ability to compete with other more robust messaging solutions (ahem … Microsoft). 

RUNmyERRAND has generally been laying low over the past month, but we did pop up in the press a couple times last week.  An article in Xconomy entitled, As Unemployment Rises, “Service Networking” Startups Find Niche Matching Workers With Odd Jobs, did a great job of describing this up and coming service networking trend. 

RunMyErrand founder and CEO Leah Busque has an apt term for the new phenomenon: “service networking.”  Even five years ago the technology wasn’t really available to build what we wanted, but with social networking being so popular now, and mobile applications, and all these different ways to facilitate connections, we felt we were on to something—this new standard that we began calling service networking, says Busque.

Another nice little story came out in the South End Times, announcing RUNmyERRAND’s ongoing partnership with Polka Dog Bakery.  The Press Room page on RUNmyERRAND.com has updated so that you can keep up with all of our exciting news! 

With RUNmyERRAND cranking away, it feels like a great time to take a step back and enjoy the 10,000 foot view of where we are now.  From the moment this idea was born on a cold winter evening almost 1 year ago (YES – 1 year ago!), the idea has been to use technology to make life more convenient.  We are solving an age old problem, that I’m certain even the cavemen experienced … think about all those berries and fire wood that needed to be gathered!  Even 5 years ago, the technology was not robust enough, not nearly utilized enough, to drive what we have built today.  Its about building a trusted service network.  Service networking … a phrase that I coined from day 1 is what is driving this model.  Sure its about outsourcing mini jobs and tasks on the web, but what we are actually doing is harnessing the power of a community.  A community that exists both on and offline.  Social networking has obviously become quite popular in recent years, and capturing this essence and leveraging it to get real things done in people’s every day life is some pretty exciting stuff!  I feel a surge of energy in my blood just writing about it.  It is the next evolution of the web 2.0 / social networking space.  Service networking is where is it at, and RUNmyERRAND is pioneering this new standard.

We’ve really established a personality along the way.  Its funny how a website, a company, can do that as it lives and breathes on its own.  Mini coopers are fun to drive, right?  Built well.  Convenient.  Efficient.  Trusted.  You can park anywhere and navigate around quickly.  RUNmyERRAND is like driving that hip, slick, ultra cool, mini cooper.  You get all the fun, without the large list price that goes along with it!  Unless of course you are a Zipster and car share the mini cooper in your neighborhood.  In that case, you know exactly what I am talking about!!

As the last line in the RUNmyERRAND in 90 Seconds video states ….  "Welcome to the new phase of social networking, its service networking, its RUNmyERRAND.com".  And that’s the 10,000 foot view.