L.A.B. Unleashed

A year in the making, RunMyErrand finally switches over to TaskRabbit.  I’ve blogged a few times about wanting to change the name for many reasons.  Mostly because the word "errand" in RunMyErrand was much too narrowing.  I am thrilled with this fun, spunky, and hopefully memorable name – TaskRabbit.com. 

When I founded RunMyErrand almost two years ago, I knew the name would only take us so far.  The original vision of empowering a community to live smarter and more efficiently, remains true, and this evolution into TaskRabbit will support my core vision now and beyond.

There is one problem though.  Kobe really hates the bunny ears.

Today we launch a brand spanking new website with all kinds of hot new features.  These pieces of functionality are largely requests we’ve gotten from our members over the past 12 months.  Some of the ones I am most excited about are:

• Put a Task up out for bid.  Choose your Runner based on their profiles, ratings, and reviews.
• Schedules a task to occur every 1, 2, 4, or 6 weeks.  It will autopost for you – set it and forget it.
• Pay only when your Task is complete.  No need to pre-purchase credit packages.

In contrast with RunMyErrand.com where I did almost 100% of the development work, another major difference with TaskRabbit.com is that I did almost none of programming.  This is the strangest thing for me.  I used to know were every last piece of code and functionality lived and breathed.  Any little tweak or bug fix I needed to make, I could pin point in my head exactly where I needed to be.  With the new TaskRabbit.com, the inner workings of the site are foreign to me.  I’ve shifted my focus to running the company and building the business, and the surprising part is, I actually like the business side of things a smidgen more than the programming side. 

I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to explore these new skill sets.  That was the whole purpose of breaking out of my previous engineering job at IBM.  I knew I had other skill sets I wanted to explore and use on a daily basis.  In that, I have succeeded, and 2 years later am so excited to see this company evolve into TaskRabbit.com.

Exactly 2 years ago today, the idea for RunMyErrand was born. You may have heard the story before, but it all started with a dog. A big yellow one. His name is Kobe, and 2 years later he is our CIO – "Chief Inspiration Officer".

It was a cold February evening in 2008, when we were out of dog food for Kobe, and came up with the plan for RunMyErrand. We were meeting my dear college friends at Masa in the South End – Brie, my roommate from Sweet Briar who I hadn’t seen in years, and Jen another SBC alum. I remember barely being able to contain my excitement over dinner and margaritas that night as I shared our idea with friends. They were the first to hear about RunMyErrand, and it was wonderful to have their support from the start.

I was still at IBM at the time, and I would have never guessed that two years later, this is where we would all be. A company launched, funded, with an amazing team (including advisors), behind us. My house in Charlestown sold – the one we were going to "settle down in" – with plans for a launch in the San Francisco market imminent. Not to mention a special dog food delivery partnership that solves the original problem that inspired RME! Craziness!

Reflecting back, I’m not sure I realized at the time, how fast two year would go, and how much work it would be to get to this point. I myself have learned a ton in this time, expanding my skill set beyond engineering, and finding a passion for entrepreneurship that I realize was always a part of me. I have never felt more alive.

I am so grateful to advisers, mentors, and new team members that have supported this company, and a very timely update to our team page was just pushed live yesterday featuring then entire RunMyErrand Crew, including our CIO – Kobe. A celebratory margarita will be made in the Busque house tonight – here’s to the next 2 years …

Dr. Robeva was one of my favorite Math and CS professors at Sweet Briar.  I had many favorites actually, between Dr. Chase, Dr. Wassell, and the Kirkwoods, it was impossible to go wrong in that department.  I vividly recall one memory in particular, that has stuck with me, and for some reason, as I have been going through this fundraising process for RunMyErrand it somehow keeps popping into my head.

I was a C++ tutor (total geek), and we were sitting in the the large computer lab in Guion (the science building).  Anyone in that building lived and breathed the sciences and we were affectionately referred to as "Guionites" pronounced "Guy-on-nites".  Anyway, we were sitting in the computer lab amongst robust Dells and IBM PCs, with big old monitors, and a 1st year CS student was learning how to compile C++ code.  The exercise was to write a swapping algorithm, where two values were swapped between variables.  I could overhear the student behind me struggling, tweaking, changing syntax, and recompiling.  Error after error relentlessly surfaced.  Dr. Robeva was there, helping by throwing a few pointers (as in tips), over the student’s shoulder.  Finally, there was a big HORRAY as the student ran the compile command and it ran CLEAN.  Woo-hoo!  The student was thrilled, and as Dr. Robeva peered over her shoulder at the code and then the output, she said

Not so fast.  Just because your code compiled, does not meet the programming is correct.  In fact, your two variables did not swap         values at all – the intended outcome was not reached.  You only reached step 1 of the entire development process.

  
The student was puzzled, as she thought the entire point of the exercise was to get the right syntax in place so that the code would compile.  What she didn’t realize, was that compiling the code was only the first step, and the easiest step at that.  Now she had to take that code, debug her swapping algorithm, and ensure her underlying logic was solid enough to support a larger outcome than just running through the compiler clean.

I remembered that moment the other day as I was reflecting on my fundraising efforts, and how it is just one small step in building this business.  Getting the syntax right, getting the structure of the financing right, is a piece of the foundation, but I realize it doesn’t automatically mean the underlying model won’t need to be tweaked and iterated over (again and again).  My instinct tells me, this is the easy part, and actually producing the intended outcome of a big business is much, much, harder.  There is a sense of satisfaction when that code compiles, but the even greater satisfaction comes when your produce an algorithm that is innovative, aggressive, efficient, and actually contributes to a larger picture.

As Hubspot closed another 16M in Series C financing, this floated across tweet deck last week: @dharmesh: Startups: Closing a funding round is not value creation.  It’s the *opportunity* to create value.

I think he summed up where I was going with this blog post in 140 characters or less!

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!

So I’ve been back and forth between Boston and San Francisco for much of the summer.  The longest amount of time I’ve spent out here consecutively has been 16 days.  Other than that longer stay, its been a lot of smaller kamikaze trips, so that I can try to reap the full benefits that this fbFund REV program offers and keep up with the business in Boston as well.

Because we wrap up here the end of August, with two exciting "Demo Days", I decided to try to sublet a space for the entire month, instead of racking up more hotel charges.  This proved to be a smart move, since I found a cute studio 2 blocks from the Facebook office for $800!  Compare that to hotels @ $100 a night, where I could get 8 days for the same price of an entire month.  Awesome, I thought!  For the most part, I was right.  The "challenge" with the studio apartment is it was completely empty.  No bed.  No TV.  No towels.  No anything.  But for $800, it still seemed like the best deal.  So I packed the suitcase with a few necessities (towels, sheets), and "borrowed" …. okay stole 1 roll of toilet paper from the Facebook office.  I called up Rent a Center and paid $100 to have a twin size bed delivered to the apartment.  Still … I’m pretty sure I am coming out on top.

So this is where I have been staying all week, and it has been pretty great.  There is a leaky facet in the kitchen that kept me up the first night, but I rigged up a little "bag" system to mitigate the dripping noise.  The bag system is composed of 1 small zip lock bag wrapped closing to the drippy facet, along with a large kitchen bag secured via pony tail holders.  The system works great, but the only problem is the kitchen bag fills up just about every 5 hours, which requires me to get up in the middle of the night to dump out the water and set up the system again.  Kind of a pain at 2am, but not the end of the world. 

I won’t describe the questionable issues with the tub, but lets just say I have been using the same leaky facet bag to stand on in the shower.  Honestly, I’m just glad there is hot running water and I don’t have to sleep on the hard wood floor!

Startup life is super glamorous!

I have been here two weeks, and it feels pretty pathetic that this is the my first blog entry from the West Coast.  I apologize!  Even 14 days feels like a whirlwind trip … seriously.  Spending the first 1.5 weeks in Palo Alto and the end of the trip in San Francisco has been a nice way to break things up, yet the fast pace of my schedule has left me with wishing I could spend more time in both places.

The REV program at fbFund is in full effect.  The other companies are cranking away, boasting things like getting 3,000 users over one weekend, and closing substantial investment deals.  All very exciting, and the energy there is contagious.  I fit in well (I think anyway), because I tend to feed off this type of energy.  Get me plugged in and I am ready to roll. 

The sessions at fbFund were very high quality and extremely valuable.  Topics like metric driven SEO and how to improve user experience in your product by @hnshah, had a lot of substance and specific action items we could take away and apply to our own products.  In some sessions, we even got to submit our companies to be used as examples for analysis and recommendations.  There is nothing better than good free advice – even if they are ripping apart your product in a room full of fiesty entrepreneurs.  Fun stuff, and I might be exaggerating just a tad!

There was a great session on how to put together a founding team.  What to look for and how to recognize "red flags" early in the process.  One recommendation I thought was interesting was to ask early team members what their most challenging experience in life has been so far.  The thinking is, if someone has had everything handed to them, and hasn’t had to work for anything, they might not be ready to be part of a scrappy founding team.  Interesting.

Also great talk by Josh Kopelmen, on how an express train compares to the VC world.  Some companies may want to purchase that local ticket, with a lot of planned stops along the way, while others may decide that the VC route and express ticket is the right path for them.  I liked the analogy.

Networking opportunities flourished, and as I head back tonight, I’ve already got more meetings set up for the next time I am out here.  The fbFund REV program runs through the month of August, so I rented a cheap studio apartment 2 blocks from the office in Palo Alto.  This will allow me to bounce back and forth as much as possible and save some money in the process.  I am a bootstrapping entrepreneur after all!