L.A.B. Unleashed

We made it!  Boston to SF in 7 days, we even made it to my sister’s wedding in Nashville on time!  It was quite the ride.  Kansas was just as long and flat as everyone said it would be.  8 hours of nothing but fields and the highway dragging on as far as the eye could see.  You can view a few of our photos on my Facebook page.

Growing up we spent summers in Florida visiting my Grandparents – Poppie and Nana to me.  We would always drive, Boston to Orlando – 3 days in the Dodge Caravan, where my sister and I would each get our own row.  It was pretty plush, but back then I can’t even remember what we had to distract ourselves with.  No electronic games, no movie screens, no headphones to play music.  I remember sleeping a lot and getting really fidgety and ultimately slap stick silly with my sister in the back seat.  We must have drove my parents crazy, although it was their choice to drive.

Our road trip was more than manageable with all of the pieces of technology we had in the car to keep us busy – 3 laptops, a 3g card, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, a video camera, and the ultimate power adapter to keep everything charged.  It felt like the freakin bat mobile.  At any moment we could download a new song, or audio book (ahemmm … I am now obsessed with the Twilight Saga).  We could get anything we needed at our whim.  I could stay connected to email and voice mail, even throughout the spotty areas on Kansas and Wyoming.  How the times have changed!

People also mentioned that they had fun following along on our trip every time I checked in on Gowalla and Foursquare.  Taking a look at my feed, you can clearly see our progress each day, and some of the fun site we saw.  I was diligent about checking in on both platforms, with the goal of assessing the number of users across the country that are using each product.  In the end, I definitely saw much more activity on Gowalla across the board.  Foursquare seems to have more of a following in the press, but I’m not so sure they are winning the majority of consumers.  Gowalla’s product is far superior in my opinion.  It was created by some pretty kick ass designers who provide a high quality visual and user experience.  We shall see who comes out on top in the end, but as far as our cross country trip is concerned, I am giving the win to Gowalla, solely based on the number of users checked in at each location I checked.

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.

Road Trip – Preparing for Boston -> SF from Leah Busque on Vimeo.

I’m going to try to video blog from the road too.  There is a lot to do in the next 24 hours – not sure how its all going to shake out, but I always manage to get there.  First stop will be Nashville, TN on Saturday for my sister’s wedding.  I just hope we make it on time!

Thinking about what the top 5 things to pack for a major road trip.  Here’s my list so far, let me know if you have other recommendations:

1. AT&T 3G card so I am always connected
2. Audio books for that long and exceptionally flat stretch through the middle of Kansas
3. A cooler full of snacks: vitamin waters, almonds, and other nom noms
4. The camera / video recorder to capture the whole trip
5. My iPhone, iPad, and Macbook to upload all the fun for YOU to see!

What else am I missing?!

Yes the rumors are true, as Scott Kirsner reported this morning, Kevin and I have decided to move west for the launch of TaskRabbit.com in San Francisco.  It was a tough decision to head west, and I’ve appreciated all the support from family and friends as we make this journey.  I realize there is some rivalry between the two coasts, especially when we are talking about a certain city, but our reason for moving is simple.  TaskRabbit has a somewhat unique model, in that we are hyper-local, we scale city by city.  It is only natural at this early stage, as the Founder, I would want to ensure that everything goes perfectly in the second market.  So in order to absolutely nail our launch in San Francisco, I want to be out there, learning the landscape, the neighborhoods, and the idiosyncrasies.  After this second city, we will have learned enough about scaling of the model to go quickly after that.  Our Boston-based operations team will remain in place the Cambridge office to support our East Coast growth. Look for us to bring on more Boston suburbs this summer.

In the 18 months TaskRabbit has been doing tasks for people, we have experienced tremendous growth.  The company has expanded from me working alone in my apartment in Charlestown, to five full time employees and an office in Cambridge. We have more than 300 runners completing tasks in the Boston area. And we are continuing to grow.  It’s a dream come true.

Both Boston and San Francisco are home to some of the brightest minds in innovation and venture and we will look to both coasts when we seek an additional round of funding to support our growth.

Kevin and I are pretty excited.  We’ll be driving across the country, with our 100lb yellow lab Kobe in tow.  The timing worked out that my sister is getting married in Nashville, TN this weekend – at 2:30pm on Saturday.  We’ve got 24 hours to drive from Boston to Nashville staring Friday afternoon.  Of Memorial Day Weekend.  One of the busiest driving weekends of the year.  And hitting New York City at rush hour.  We should be fine, right?!  I am a little concerned, but we have to make my sister’s wedding, so that’s what we’ll do.

After Nashville, we plan to get on either I-70 or I-80 to make the trek to San Francisco.  Would love any recommendations here.

You can follow our progress on  Twitter and I plan to checkin on Gowalla the entire way.  Maybe even get a few video blog entries in.  Kobe is ecstatic, he loves a good car ride.  Hopefully he’ll love the 3,000+ car ride as well!

The 11th Annual Nantucket Conference was this past weekend.  It was my first time in attendance and perhaps surprising – my first time on Nantucket.  It would have been tough to attend if I hadn’t been invited as a Speaker, even though it is a great conference, its also an expensive one, in an expensive location (hotel + travel, etc).  I was thrilled when Scott Kirsner invited me to participate on his panel – “Targeting the Wily Consumer”, offering me the opportunity to attend and participate.  The panel was a great group that included – Colin Angle, CEO iRobot, David Friend, CEO Carbonite, Stuart Nixdorff CEO ID8 Mobile, and Jules Pieri CEO Daily Grommet.  Each company was at a very different stage, from TaskRabbit and DailyGrommet who are still early stage, to Carbonite who has raised over $70MM in VC funding.  The range of perspective on customer acquisition strategy was wide – everything from writing a $2M check for radio ads, to more scrappy word of mouth tactics.  One of the funniest things was watching the old TV ad for the Roomba, and then watching the spoof SNL did for it called the Woomba.  All press is good press, right?!  You can check out the audio from the panel here.

One of the most contentious panels was on Venture Capital – what’s working and what needs rethinking.  With small micro funds represented by Eric Paley from the Founder’s Collective to large growth funds, it was apparent that the perspective on this topic is all about who you are talking to.  Brad Feld from the Foundry Group called attention to the fact that there was only 1 person at the conference under 30 … and it wasn’t me!  He enthusiastically pledged to sponsor one under 30 entrepreneur for next year and others followed, bringing the room to  a clapping praise.  Its a nice start, and it certainly won’t hurt the New England VC scene to include more young entrepreneurs in conferences like these – but as an early 30-something entrepreneur, I couldn’t help but sit there and see the entire conference as a metaphor for what we should be doing better here in New England.  This closed, invite only, expensive scene is difficult to broach for most young entrepreneurs.  The seclusion of the island was a great opportunity for networking and innovation, but it naturally separated out who was able to attend.

When the panel was asked, “what is the scarcest resource missing for making great companies in NE”, it was *almost too* quickly answered “great entrepreneurs”.  This was a bit surprising, since I know of a vibrant entrepreneurial scene here in Boston, but from the perspective of these panelist, apparently this is what is lacking.  How can one be so blind?  I submit what is lacking is a VC scene that actually sees the exciting innovation happening in Boston.  We are lacking investors that are willing to take a calculated risk on the next generation of leaders.  I have been lucky to have support from both coasts, for which I am grateful.

All in all, it was a great weekend, and I learned a lot.  I was happy to be able to attend, participate, and get to meet many other wonderful people.  It was a bonus to experience the island of Nantucket – such a gorgeous place!

I’m sitting here at the airport (SFO), after what has been a whirlwind few weeks.  Coming off the heels of the Facebook incubator program, it has been non stop, and even before that I can’t really remember a time where I have paused.  Pausing now.  Just for a moment, as I am waiting for my flight to board.  Back to Boston?  Nope, change of plans and taking the red-eye to Orlando to celebrate 95 years of a long life my grandfather lived.  Picture a fiesty, puerto rican man, my mother calls the old "burrito" — priceless! 

In any case, I’m sitting here thinking about a few key episodes over the last few months and wondering if I just might be insane, or simply a scrappy entrepreneur.  Probably a little bit of both!  It was the last week of the Facebook program, and I was on my way to meet a potential advisor/investor.  It was 2:30pm when I left the hotel, and my meeting was 2 miles away at 3pm.  I had plenty of time – 15 minute walk to get the Zipcar, a few minute drive to the meeting.  The Zipcar was located on Standford’s campus – a gorgeous place.  As I made my way down the main drag, towering palm trees welcomed each step toward the large green oval on campus.  It is now 2:45 and I am standing in the spot my Zipcar is suppose to be.  The spot is empty.  The last Zipster did not return it on time, and I began to slightly panic.  I called Zipcar’s customer service line, and they couldn’t get a hold of the other driver either, and still no one was showing up.  Panic – I have 10 minutes and I’m a 15 minute walk away from a main road without any hope of getting a cab.  I called a cab company, it would be 15 minutes to get to me, let alone to my meeting.  I start to feel the weight of this meeting – what if I am late, how would that look to an investor?  So what did I do … what any normal person would….  A car approached, and looked to be picking up someone on the oval.  I frantically ran over, waived them down, and asked if they were going up to the main road.  They barely answered when I piled in, and realized an entire family was piling in behind me.  It was a cozy 4 person back seat, with the mom and the older sister up front (driving), Dad, and two boys (one college age looking at Standford) in the back.  Nice family from Chicago.  As they started the drive up to the main road, I explained my predicament and important meeting.  They offered to drive me the entire way.  As I told them about RunMyErrand – "connecting people to help each other out", it became clear we were living the dream together in that moment.  With their act of kindness mixed with my frantic insanity, I was able to get to my meeting on time. 

Actually, while we were driving, I get a phone call from the investor’s admin, saying he is running 30 minutes late! 

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!

For the third summer in a row, we spent last weekend at Lake Winnipesaukee, with friends.  Its become sort of a mini tradition for us.  We always have a great time, but no one has a better time than Kobe …

It is a nightmare to keep him OUT of the water.  Its just not possible.  He such such a water dog … a better swimmer than I am for sure!  He would wake us up at 7:00am each morning, with a quiet whine, as if to say … can we get up and go swimming already?!!

It is almost sad when we have to take him home at the end of the weekend.  His walks with the dog walker, boat days on the harbor, and play groups at the park, are obviously not enough.  We are completely depriving him of what he was meant to be …. a lake dog.

Maybe someday … Kobe.  Until then, you’re just going to have hang in there and enjoy the city dog life!

Finally got a "best of PR" album up on picassa web albums.  While I was doing this I realized picassa web albums offers a Mac plugin for iPhoto … good to know! 

Quick notes on the villa …. it was called Martineau Belle Playa Villa.  I would definitely go back to this specific house, and would recommend it to others.  It would be great for families with children too!  The location was perfect on the island, close to the airport and the ferry terminal.  Private beach, gorgeous pool, full outdoor grilling area and bar, there was really no reason to leave the house!  We were able to eat all of our meals there, so that was a good way to save a little $$.  It was fun going to local stores and fish markets to get things to make for dinner.  The local fish market was actually this guy Roberto’s house, in a small part of the barrio Martineau.  We were tipped off to this fisherman named Roberto who sold his daily catch right from his house every day!  We got there and he had a nice little shop set up out back.  Two freezers – One for fish and the other for octopus, conch, shrimp, and lobsters!  The fish freezer had probably 30 different types of fish in it … all kinds of crazy looking tropicals!  We were able to get 3 huge Red Snappers for $20!!  You can not beat that deal!  Andy, our cook for the week did a superb job of stuffing them will all kinds of spices and cooking them up on the grill!  Paired with my nana’s rice and bean recipe it was an extravagant meal that we all enjoyed!! 

We booked through a company called villascaribe.com, which I was happy with.  You first go through a booking agent, and then are transfered to the concierge staff who handles the details of your arrival and plans for the week.  The only problem I had was there seemed to be a disconnect between the villascarbe concierge and the on-island concierge that the villa’s owner has hired to provide services to the house.  The problem started with minor things, like not knowing how we were going to get from the ferry terminal to the villa.  One party says there will be a taxi waiting, but the other side says they don’t know about any of these arrangements.  That part was worked out after a couple of weeks of emails … fine.  The real problem I had with the on-island concierge is you felt like they were really trying to scam you.  They would tell us one price for a tour, and then we’d get there and ask them how much they were charging and it was less than what we were quoted.  It was a little shady.  The main concierge lady just had a really awful attitude, but her assistant Kim was wonderful!  Just something to consider for next time I suppose. 

Another great thing about the villa is it came with full maid service every day.  Our lady Wanda, spent at least 3 to 4 hours at the house every day scrubbing down everything!  You would think we were pigs, but we really weren’t that bad.  She just did a really thorough job.  She spent a lot of time on the grill outside, and washed all the windows and floors every single day!  Like I said before, with such a gorgeous place to live for a week, it was tough to complain, and I would love to go back!