Leah Sullivan was one IBM engineerworking on business collaboration tools like Lotus noteswhen she came up with her million-dollar startup idea: an online marketplace connecting customers with “workers” who could run errands or do chores for them for a price.
The idea came when Solivan ran out of dog food one night and wondered why he couldn't hook up with someone right then who could get it for him. It was 2008 and The first iPhone it had come out a year ago. Solivan saw the potential in her iPhone for a location-based business.
Leah Sullivan. Photo: Chance Yeh/WireImage
In an interview with entrepreneur Jeff Berman Last week, Solivan said when she looked at the problem as an engineer, she saw these three technologies: social, location and mobile.
“I thought, there's a lot here,” she said.
Solivan decided to quit her engineering job and withdrew the $27,000 she had earned in her IBM retirement plan to get her idea off the ground. Ten years later, Ikea bought TaskRabbit for an undisclosed sum after the startup built a valuation of around $50 million from multiple rounds of fundraising.
TaskRabbit was from Ikea first purchase in the USA
However, it was not easy to achieve a purchase. Shortly after leaving IBM, Solivan began coding. For six to eight weeks, she worked on her idea and built the first version of it, working from a coffee shop occasionally and asking random people in the store for feedback on what she had created.
When the site was ready, Solivan posted an ad on Craigslist for taskers – people who would complete tasks through the site. She gave each person who answered the ad a 30-minute coffee shop interview and ended up with 30 taskers for the first launch in Boston.
The launch taught Solivan that she had to “be the first task.” She also ran errands throughout Boston. The experience still prompts him to ask founders, “Can you be part of the process?” Solivan says being part of the day-to-day of the company is key to learning what customers really want.
Meanwhile, Ikea, known for its furniture that needs to be put together, bought TaskRabbit in 2017 after a partnership in the London store proved profitable. Customers could choose to have TaskRabbit deliver and assemble Ikea furniture for them instead of doing it themselves, which increased the average order value for Ikea and brought new customers to TaskRabbit.
Ikea decided then that they wanted to own TaskRabbit.
“It was bittersweet,” Solivan said. “It's been 10 years… It feels so good for me to know that even without me, she lives.”
For entrepreneurs with jobs at Meta, Microsoft or other companies who come to her to ask if they should quit their jobs to work on their ideas, Solivan says it's hard to be the whole startup with a day job, but she knows that not everyone has the privilege of being able to pursue their idea without a safety net.
“My advice is, if you really believe in something, you'll find a way to achieve it,” Solivan said.