L.A.B. Unleashed

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!

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!

I have been wanting to blog about the awesome and exciting things happening at my alma mater, Sweet Briar College, ever since I made it down for their first annual Conference on Entrepreneurship and the Liberal Arts, back in April.  The conference was organized and run by the students and faculty of the fairly new Business Administration program.  Professor Tom Scott, as chair of the department, is explicitly moving the focus of the 6 year old program into the direction of entrepreneurship.  SBC is already known for its strong Liberal Arts programs, and focusing their Business degree on entrepreneurship just makes a whole lot of sense.

At SBC you are expected to be good at many things.  Dance majors are also applied Mathematicians, and Biochemists are also concert pianists.  As an entrepreneur, I’ve learned you also have to be good at a multitude of things.  You can’t just be a programmer or a marketer, its good to have an interest and even excel in many areas.  When I left IBM I was an engineer – a simple role to convey.  Two years later, I would say I am part engineer, part marketer, part saleswomen, part business strategist, part fundraiser, part communicator, full time janitor, part community advocate …. the list just goes on and on.  Here’s the kicker … I love it all (sometimes even the janitor part)!  As I build a team, I look for others that can do it all and enjoy thriving in an environment where there are minimal boundaries and innovation and independence is encouraged.

I believe a strong Liberal Arts education leads to well rounded, smart and savvy, contributors to our world.  A focus on entrepreneurship in this environment is the perfect compliment, and I am thrilled to see the generation of women going through this program come out with the confidence and skills they need to succeed as a leader – perhaps even founding their own business ideas and companies.

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!