Tech Talent Tuesday- Leah Busque founder of Task Rabbit

Task Rabbit is an online platform and marketplace that connects skilled freelance ‘Taskers’ with customers who need help with a range of tasks including moving, shopping, furniture assembly and handyman work to name a few.

In 2008 Leah Busque founded TaskRabbit, previously known as RunMyErrand. Her inspiration for the business was sparked when one snowy night in Boston, she discovered that she was out of dog food and thought how convenient it would be if she could go online and find someone nearby to complete this task for her. After 10 weeks of coding, Busque had created the TaskRabbit website and shortly after she quit her job at IBM to work on the business fulltime.

The business began operating with one hundred ‘runners’ in the Boston area, and by 2011 it had expanded to San Francisco where it opened its HQ and hired its first fulltime employees.  The start-up underwent rapid success after securing $1.8 million in seed finance, followed shortly by a successful Series A amounting to over $5 million.  By 2010 the start-up had over 2000 active ‘runners’ now deemed ‘Taskers’ operating across the states including New York, Illinois and California. In 2011 the company secured $17,8 million in Series B funding, had grown its team from 13-35, and was generating $4 million in business each month.

In 2013, TaskRabbit went global, expanding into the UK market and by 2018 it was operating across the USA, Canada and Europe. As the company grew, so too did its offerings. They launched TaskRabbit business enabling companies to hire temporary workers and introduced an E-bay inspired bidding model. This enabled ‘Taskers’ to set their own rates and when a new job is posted that matched their profile the platform will send them an alert and the first to respond got the job.

By 2014 the company had received four thousand applications to be a Tasker which had tripled by 2015 to fifteen thousand. Busque had successfully transformed her small frustration into a business offering a solution for millions of users across the globe. She stepped down as CEO in 2016 but remains a Chairwoman and the business is continuing to flourish and since it was acquired in 2017 by Ikea they have grown rapidly and expanded into new markets and extended their product offering. 

In 2021, they company rebranded to a more slicker look to reflect their increasingly professional network of 'Taskers' and their continuously growth of product offerings. In 2021 TaskRabbit had fiscal growth of 67%, and its estimated annual revenue is $228.7 million per year. There are currently 200,00 independent workers on the platform, with s using it as a full-time role and the average tasker earning an average of $48 an hour.

TaskRabbit now offers services across 35 categories which is continuously growing to meet the demands of users. To stay up to date with TaskRabbit follow them here now.

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