Entrepreneur Leah Busque shares business insight
Taskrabbit founder, Fuel Capital partner to address forum Friday
Entrepreneur Leah Busque is the founder of Taskrabbit, a service that connects clients with taskers to get small jobs like furniture assembly and cleaning done. Busque stepped down as CEO of the company in 2016 and in 2017 helped oversee its sale to IKEA. Last year she also became a general partner at Fuel Capital, where she invests in early stage companies.
Busque will be in Albany on Friday to address the Key4women Forum at the Albany Marriott where she will speak on entrepreneurship.
Women@work asked Busque via email about entrepreneurship, venture capital funding possibilities and the unusual requests made on Taskrabbit. Questions and answers have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
You originally planned to study dance in college but ended up majoring in math and computer science with a dance minor. What prompted the switch, and how does your interest in the arts influence your work in the technology sector?
I danced for about 20 years before and after college. It’s one of my biggest passions. But in high school, I also became very interested in math and science. I — along with my then-boyfriend, now husband — would build computers from scratch, which led me to pursue a degree in math and computer science at Sweet Briar College.
The intersection of my liberal arts education and my dance background with my engineering education has been critical. While I am technically minded and can understand how products are built from the ground up, I feel very comfortable con-
tributing to the “softer” side of the business — like branding, PR and storytelling.
Q.: What business sectors do you see as possibilities for venture capital funding — and why?
After a decade of building Taskrabbit (a two-sided marketplace), I still love consumer marketplaces — their complexity is the ultimate puzzle, and their potential for impact is the ultimate prize. Magic happens when, despite all the underlying complexity, the marketplace facilitates decision-making for both supply and demand, delivering an incredibly fast, intuitive and seamless experience. That’s where I have been focusing as an investor. One of my earliest investments at Fuel Capital is Werk, a jobs marketplace for women transitioning back into the workforce.
You’re credited with developing the concept of “service networking.” What exactly does the term mean?
When I launched Taskrabbit a decade ago, social, mobile and local technologies were just emerging. The iphone had just debuted and Facebook was still relatively nascent. With all these new technologies emerging, I recognized that there was huge potential if you were to marry all three to connect real people in the real world. So, service networking is all about connecting real people in the real world to get real things done.
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs trying to build a business or start a project?
First, surrounding yourself
with a strong team makes you even more successful. After a decade of building Taskrabbit, I know that much of my — and the company’s — success was the result of me surrounding myself with the right people. It was, and continues to be, critically important for me to find great mentors, advisers and team members. A great team will make you and the company more successful. I believe so strongly in this that I recently launched a new organization called Shine Together, which is all about shining a light on the contributions of everyone — and mostly those who are doing amazing things behind the scenes.
Second, it’s actually OK to talk to strangers. Companies spend millions of dollars conducting focus groups to gauge interest in their products. In the early days of Taskrabbit, I got similar results chatting with a group of strangers at a coffee shop. These impromptu focus groups provided me with great feedback, insights and validation. Many entrepreneurs are reluctant to share their idea too broadly. I, on the other hand, think there is so much value to getting feedback on your concept and product as early and as often as possible.
Third, take your idea further than you think you can. One thing that Scott Griffith, former CEO of Zipcar, told me in the early days of Taskrabbit that continues to inspire and motivate me was ‘See how far you can take it.’ Those words stuck with me every day. I would wake up each morning and think, ‘What can I do today to take the company one step further?’
Finally, don’t overthink it. Just act.