TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit is an American online and mobile marketplace that matches freelance labor with local demand, allowing consumers to find immediate help with everyday tasks, including cleaning, moving, delivery and handyman work.[1][2] Founded in 2008 by Leah Busque, the company has received $37.7 million in funding to date and currently has tens of thousands of vetted,[3] background-checked "Taskers" available to help consumers across a wide variety of categories.[4][5] Busque founded TaskRabbit when she had no time to buy dog food, basing it on the idea of "neighbors helping neighbors".[6]

TaskRabbit Inc
TypeSubsidiary
Founded2008 (2008) (as RunMyErrand)
FounderLeah Busque
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
U.S.
Area served
47 US cities, 4 UK cities, 1 Canadian city (October 2018)
ServicesOnline marketplace
ParentIKEA
Websitewww.taskrabbit.com

History

The precursor of TaskRabbit was RunMyErrand, which was launched in 2008 in Boston, Massachusetts with the first 100 "runners".[2][7] In 2009, Tim Ferriss became an advisor to the firm after meeting Busque at Facebook's startup incubator, fbFund.[8][9] The firm accumulated $1.8 million in seed funding from venture capital firms,[9][10] and hired the company's first full-time employee, Brian Leonard, a software engineer with whom she had worked at IBM.[7][11][12]

In April 2010, Busque changed the name of the company from RunMyErrand to TaskRabbit.[13] By June 2010, Busque and team moved across the country and opened operations in the San Francisco Bay Area. One year later, in May 2011, TaskRabbit closed a $5 million Series A financing round from Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, Floodgate Fund, Collaborative Fund, 500 Startups, and The Mesh author Lisa Gansky.[14][15] At that time, the firm had 13 employees and 2,000 participating "TaskRabbits".[1] Within the next year, the firm expanded from Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area to New York City, New York; Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; and Orange County, California.[16][17]

In July 2011, TaskRabbit launched an app which allowed users to post a task with an iPhone.[18][19][20][21][22] In October 2011, Busque hired Eric Grosse, the co-founder and former president of Hotwire.com, as the firm's new CEO so she could focus on product development.[23][24][25] In December 2011, TaskRabbit received an additional $17.8 million in a Series B round of funding.[15] At the time, the firm had 35 employees and generated $4 million in business each month.[1][26][27]

In 2012, Busque reassumed the role of CEO, with Gross staying on with the company’s board of directors, advising on strategy and operations.[28] In January 2013, the company hired Stacy Brown-Philpot, former Google Ventures Entrepreneur-in-Residence and a veteran leader of global operations at Google, as the company’s first COO.[29]

In March 2013, a new tool for “TaskRabbit Business" was introduced which allowed businesses to hire temporary workers from the TaskRabbit users, with a 26 percent commission.[30]

Reboot
Faux fur-covered TaskRabbit vehicle at South by Southwest

The company launched its first international market in London in November 2013.[31] Because of declines both in bids and in completed and accepted tasks in the U.S.,[6] the company chose to test a new system in London; instead of an eBay-inspired bidding model, Taskers would set their own rates and schedules, and when a new job was posted that matched their profile the platform would send them an alert. The first to respond got the job.[4][32] In London, the results were positive: almost all the company's metrics improved, and the average amount of money that individual Taskers on the platform were taking home increased.[4]

On June 17, 2014, TaskRabbit announced and began implementing this change in all markets.[33][34] The new version was officially released on July 10, 2014, and was met with significant backlash from the Tasker community.[35][36] TaskRabbit incorporated some of the feedback into an updated version of its app that launched on January 1, 2015, and has since experienced considerable growth.[37] In 2014, TaskRabbit received 4,000 applications to be a Tasker. In 2015, that number grew to 15,000.[4]

In April 2016, Stacy Brown-Philpot was promoted to CEO.[38]

Acquisition by IKEA

In September 2017, the IKEA Group announced it would acquire TaskRabbit, which would continue to operate independently. [39][40] IKEA launched a furniture assembly service from TaskRabbit in March 2018.[41]

In April 2018, the company was affected by a data breach.[42]

In September 2018, IKEA announced to launch TaskRabbit in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal in late 2018. At present, TaskRabbit is available in around 45 cities across the United States and Britain.[43] As of October 2018, the service had launched in Toronto and its Vancouver launch was planned for the following month.[44]

Contractors

Over 60,000 independent workers use the TaskRabbit platform.[40] The education level of contractors varies. Out of all the contractors, 70 percent hold bachelor's degrees, 20 percent hold master's degrees, and 5 percent hold a PhD.[6]

Some people have turned their TaskRabbit work into a full-time job.[6]

TaskRabbit was the basis for an episode of season three of Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.[45]

TaskRabbit was parodied in The Simpsons episode Dad Behavior as ChoreMonkey.

References
  1. Moran, Gwen. Building a Business on Busy Schedules and Making Errands Pay. Entrepreneur. November 21, 2011.
  2. Tsotsis, Alexia. TaskRabbit Turns Grunt Work Into a Game Wired. July 15, 2011.
  3. Jeffries, Adrianne. TaskRabbit takes on another $13 million in funding The Verge. July 23, 2012.
  4. "TaskRabbit: How an app can relieve you of all your chores". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  5. "TaskRabbit Nabs Ex-Googler Stacy Brown-Philpot For COO Spot". TechCrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  6. "Temping fate: can TaskRabbit go from side gigs to real jobs?". The Verge. May 23, 2013. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  7. Kirsner, Scott. Small start-up takes an idea and runs with it. The Boston Globe. July 5, 2009.
  8. Eldon, Eric. FbFund: 18 companies and 2 nonprofits win, head to Palo Alto. VentureBeat. May 28, 2009.
  9. Kirsner, Scott. TaskRabbit's Leah Busque: The exit interview. The Boston Globe. May 26, 2010.
  10. Lopez, Lolita. Creative Ways to Make Money in Sour Economy. NBC. February 3, 2012.
  11. Moore, Galen. Web startup RunMyErrand to move execs west. Mass High Tech. March 11, 2010.
  12. Hoshaw, Lindsey. Need someone to run your errands? There's an app for that Forbes. July 28, 2011.
  13. RunMyErrand becomes TaskRabbit. L.A.B. Unleashed. April 8, 2010.
  14. Parr, Ben. TaskRabbit for iPhone Lets You Outsource Your Chores Mashable. July 28, 2011.
  15. Tsotsis, Alexia. TaskRabbit Gets $5M From Shasta Ventures TechCrunch.
  16. Shontell, Alyson. Taskrabbit Leah Busque Interview BusinessInsider. October 27, 2011.
  17. O’Dell, Jolie. How one woman technologist single-handedly created thousands of jobs VentureBeat. November 2, 2011.
  18. Tsotsis, Alexia. TaskRabbit Releases Its Amazing iPhone App. TechCrunch. July 28, 2011.
  19. Brustein, Joshua. Outsourcing Chores Made Easy New York Times. August 21, 2011.
  20. Hornshaw, Phil. Fresh iPhone Apps for Sept. 19 Archived 2012-03-02 at the Wayback Machine Appolicious. September 19, 2011.
  21. TaskRabbit THRILLIST.
  22. Myers, Courtney. TaskRabbit goes mobile! TheNextWeb. July 28, 2011.
  23. Why TaskRabbit hired a CEO SFGate. October 12, 2011.
  24. Taylor, Colleen. TaskRabbit nabs Hotwire co-founder as CEO GigaOM. October 12, 2011.
  25. Tsotsis, Alexia. TaskRabbit Gets A New CEO, Eric Grosse TechCrunch. October 12, 2011.
  26. Bilton, Nick. TaskRabbit Looks to Expand Cities and Offer an API. New York Times. November 10, 2011.
  27. Roush, Wade. Bay Area Biztech News by the Numbers Xconomy. October 12, 2011.
  28. "TaskRabbit Founder Leah Busque Takes Back The Reins, Stepping Back Into CEO Role". TechCrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  29. "TaskRabbit Hires Google's Brown-Philpot in a Renewed Management Expansion". All Things Digital. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  30. "TaskRabbit Debuts Tools For Hiring Ongoing Temp Work As It Hones Focus On Business Users". TechCrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  31. "TaskRabbit online marketplace for chores and errands arrives in the UK". Wired UK. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  32. Newton, Casey (17 June 2014). "TaskRabbit is blowing up its business model and becoming the Uber for everything". The Verge.
  33. Somerville, Heather (17 June 2014). "TaskRabbit reboots with new business model". SiliconBeat.
  34. Perez, Sarah (17 June 2014). "Following A Drop In Completed Jobs, Errands Marketplace TaskRabbit Shakes Up Its Business Model". TechCrunch.
  35. "Through The Fire: What TaskRabbit Learned From Its Big Backlash". TechCrunch. Jan 21, 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  36. "TaskRabbit users revolt as the company shuts down its bidding system". VentureBeat. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  37. "Cold shoulder: TaskRabbit tells customers to stay inside while contractors freeze their asses off". PandoDaily. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
  38. Guynn, Jessica. "TaskRabbit names new CEO". USA Today. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  39. "Ikea has bought TaskRabbit". Recode. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  40. Dickey, Megan Rose. "Ikea has bought TaskRabbit". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  41. Perez, Megan. "IKEA U.S. launches a furniture assembly service from TaskRabbit". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  42. Alaimo, Dan (2018-04-19). "Ikea-owned TaskRabbit hit by apparent data breach". RetailDive. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
  43. "IKEA's services platform TaskRabbit expands to Canada". Reuters. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  44. "IKEA 'TaskRabbit' coming to Richmond to assemble your furniture". Vancouver Courier. Glacier Media. 18 October 2018. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  45. Tiffany, Kaitlyn (May 23, 2017). "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is weirdly into the gig economy". The Verge. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
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