Podcasts about fuel capital

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we're joined by Leah Solivan, Founder of TaskRabbit. Leah transformed the future of work with TaskRabbit, the revolutionary on-demand marketplace that paved the way for the gig economy. She shares her journey of scaling TaskRabbit to an international business, operating in 44 cities, and leading its successful acquisition by IKEA.Now a General Partner at Fuel Capital, Leah supports world-changing ideas by investing in founders across industries like consumer tech and marketplaces. If you're curious about innovation, building a disruptive business, or scaling for success, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in now on The Kara Goldin Show! Are you interested in sponsoring and advertising on The Kara Goldin Show, which is now in the Top 1% of Entrepreneur podcasts in the world? Let me know by contacting me at karagoldin@gmail.com. You can also find me @‌KaraGoldin on all networks. Learn more about Leah Solivan and TaskRabbit:https://www.instagram.com/labunleashed/https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahsolivan/https://www.instagram.com/taskrabbit/https://www.taskrabbit.comhttps://www.fuelcapital.com Sponsored By:Range Rover Sport - The Range Rover Sport is your perfect ride. Visit LandRoverUSA.com and check it out.Insurance Pro Agencies - Visit FindTopQuotes.com or text QUOTE to 855-665-0829 to get personalized auto, homeowners, renters, condo, and other insurance quotes from over 50 top-rated carriers across the U.S.Strawberry.me - Visit Strawberry.me/Kara for 20% off your first month's membershipAncient Nutrition - Get 25% off your first order at AncientNutrition.com/KARAGOLDIN Check out our website to view this episode's show notes: https://karagoldin.com/podcast/644

Sali Christeson is the Founder and CEO of Argent. Sali had a vision to arm women with a wardrobe that delivers style, functionality, and self-expression as they take their seats at the table. Since its inception, Argent's mission has been centered around forwarding women's progress, both through its product collections and brand initiatives. We discussed all of this and more this week on the On Brand podcast. About Sali Christeson Sali Christeson is the Founder and CEO of Argent, a venture-backed women's clothing label on a mission to redefine workwear and drive forward women's progress. A business major with an MBA from the University of South Carolina, Sali spent a decade in the Bay Area's finance and technology space, where she struggled to find work clothes that were bold, practical, and professional. For too long, workwear for women had been stagnant, constricting, and lacking key functional elements as simple as pockets. After reading hard statistics that women in the workplace are judged on appearance, which results in a tangible impact on their income over time, Sali founded Argent with a vision to arm women with a wardrobe that delivers style, functionality, and self-expression as they take their seats at the table. Argent's community counts leaders and disruptors like Dr. Jill Biden, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Meghan Markle, Gloria Steinem, and Amy Poehler as members, and is backed by industry leaders, including Founders Fund, Fuel Capital, Katrina Lake, and Brooklyn Decker. To date, Argent has partnered with Supermajority and Michelle Obama's organization, When We All Vote, to advocate for women's voting power. In addition, Argent created the first jeans designed for the office with denim brand AGOLDE, launched its first wholesale relationship with Nordstrom, and opened three NYC storefronts since the pandemic. The stores are built specifically for working women to help support them with their professional wardrobe overhauls as they navigate shifting dress codes/hybrid schedules. From the Show What brand has made Sali smile recently? Like many, Sali is excited about all of the energy and excitement around Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. She also shared some smiles she had with her kids around the Super Smalls brand. Connect with Sali on LinkedIn and Instagram and listen to Argent's Work Friends podcast. And, of course, the Argent website. As We Wrap … Listen and subscribe at  Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon/Audible, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeart, YouTube, and RSS. Rate and review the show—If you like what you're hearing, be sure to head over to Apple Podcasts and click the 5-star button to rate the show. And, if you have a few extra seconds, write a couple of sentences and submit a review to help others find the show. Did you hear something you liked on this episode or another? Do you have a question you'd like our guests to answer? Let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #OnBrandPodcast and you may just hear your thoughts here on the show. On Brand is a part of the Marketing Podcast Network. Until next week, I'll see you on the Internet! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(0:00) Intro.(1:10) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.(1:57) Start of interview.(2:40) Leah's "origin story." (3:41) Her time at IBM.(4:48) Her founding story of TaskRabbit (Boston, 2008).(12:43) The evolution of her board at TaskRabbit, and how to think about (startup) board composition and scaling. (20:31) First CEO succession (after $12m Series B in 2012).(25:10) Her return as CEO, raising a Series C, and adding 3 strategic independent directors.(26:13) On hiring Stacy Brown-Philpot as COO, and successor to CEO role.(30:45) Distinguishing between startup directors (management, investor, and independent directors).(36:01) Transitioning to investing as a general partner at Fuel Capital. Motto: "We're on your corner, not in your kitchen"(40:55) On the role of CEO coaches (vs board directors or advisors).(42:44) About YPO. "It has been a hugely influential organization for me."(45:21) Her thoughts on boardroom diversity. Reference to the LCDA.(48:42) Innovation in the boardroom, risks and opportunities of AI.(51:29)  Books that have greatly influenced her life: Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston (2007)Books by Adam Grant.(51:51) Her mentors.(52:25) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by.(52:50) An unusual habit or absurd thing that she loves.(54:15) The living person she most admires.Leah Solivan is a General Partner at Fuel Capital, a Silicon Valley-based seed stage venture capital firm. Prior to that, she was the founder, CEO and Executive Chair at TaskRabbit.You can follow her on social media at:Twitter: @labunleashed You can follow Evan on social media at:Twitter: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__You can join as a Patron of the Boardroom Governance Podcast at:Patreon: patreon.com/BoardroomGovernancePod__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Martin Janicki, Partner bei ​​Cavalry Ventures. Martin kommentiert die Runde von Charm. Charm, ein Startup, das sich der Modernisierung der Benutzeroberfläche von Kommandozeilen (command line interface) widmet, hat eine Finanzierungsrunde in Höhe von 6 Millionen US-Dollar bekannt gegeben, bei der Gradient, Googles auf KI fokussierter Risikofonds, der Hauptinvestor war. Zu den weiteren Investoren gehören bestehende und neue Investoren wie Cavalry Ventures, Fuel Capital, Firestreak Partners sowie Gründer verschiedener Unternehmen, darunter Supabase, Foursquare und Fleetsmith. Die Mission von Charm, die vor vier Jahren begann, ist es, die Kommandozeile glamourös, leistungsstark, unterhaltsam und modern zu machen. Darüber hinaus setzt Charm auf Open-Source-Lösungen und hat Projekte wie Glow und Glamour eingeführt, um das Kommandozeilenerlebnis durch eine klare Trennung von Struktur und Stil zu verbessern, ähnlich wie HTML und CSS in der Webentwicklung.

Dan Lewis launched Convoy in 2015 into the highly fragmented industry of trucking. Now worth $3.8 billion, the company is a leader in bringing digital services to trucking and freight. I'm thrilled to have him on TechCrunch Live this week, along with Chris Howard, founding partner at Fuel Capital, which invested in Convoy's first several rounds.As you'll hear, in 2014 and 2015, freight was ready for reinvention. Uber was becoming a verb, and the trucking industry needed a digital solution to connect the different parts of the industry. Convoy launched at the right time, CEO Chris Howard told me. Starting in 2014 wireless carriers started offering free smartphones, and once truckers got their hands on these devices, the industry quickly started to change.But there's more to this story than just free smartphones. Lewis and his fellow co-founders spent countless hours with truckers, trying to understand the market and how digital services would impact their businesses. Dan even explains that the company occasionally holds off-sites at truck stops.During this event, we'll look at Convoy's early pitch decks, which illustrates why Convoy launched when it did and how it established clear guiding principles.

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a talk by Leah Solivan, General Partner at Fuel Capital and Founder of TaskRabbit from the in-person Traction Conference.   The idea for TaskRabbit came about in 2008 around the time the iPhone first launched, while Leah was living in Boston and bootstrapping the company.   In the process of bootstrapping, the entire trajectory of her journey changed. She went from being an engineer at IBM with no network or entrepreneur friends, all the way to raising her first million dollars in seed from a 15-minute meeting with Tim Ferriss.   Today, Leah shares lessons learned from her time at TaskRabbit, scaling the business from nothing to 40+ cities and acquisition by Ikea.   More specifically, Leah covers: 1:57 - The story of founding TaskRabbit: transitioning from an engineer to an entrepreneur and 5 tips to build a successful startup 2:32 - Why ideas are everywhere 6:51 - Experiencing vuja de, the opposite of déjà vu 8:02 - Why you should tell everyone about your idea 16:25 - The serendipitous network of happenings 17:41 - The importance of big, hairy, audacious goals 21:54 - A story about a big corporation with aggressive sales goals   Learn more at https://tractionconf.io   Connect with Leah Solivan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahsolivan/   Learn more about Fuel Capital at https://www.fuelcapital.com/   This episode is brought to you by:   Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses. But the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process, enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don't get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI.   Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6,000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa, visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca    Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline its podcast production. Learn more at https://contentallies.com

This week, Alexis gets non-technical with Leah Solivan, Founder of TaskRabbit and General Partner at FUEL Capital. They talk about boxing chaos, planking in Vegas (?), an 18-minute Star Wars tour de FORCE, “Bad Moms,” avoiding airplane altercations, and murder mystery (family) dinner theatre.You can find Leah on Twitter at twitter.com/labunleashed and Alexis at twitter.com/yayalexisgay or instagram.com/yayalexisgay and twitter.com/NonTechnicalPod.This episode is sponsored by Betts Recruiting! If you're a high-performing professional looking for your next opportunity, it's time to become a Betts Connect Community member. Apply to join Betts' exclusive network, and if you're accepted, those tech startups will reach out to YOU. Apply now for your exclusive lifetime membership at bettsrecruiting.com/nontechnical

Maggie Vo, CFA®, is a finance expert with more than a decade's experience in the public markets, analyzing and managing investments across […]

Leah Solivan, General Partner at Fuel Capital and Founder of TaskRabbit, shares how leveraging the entrepreneurial mindset can aid in finding solutions as both an intrapreneur and a founder. Hosts Dylan Gambardella and Justin Lafazan, CoFounders and CEOs of Next Gen HQ, dive deeper to really learn how Leah views the grind vs. glamour of entrepreneurship and how team members should be celebrated for their grit. SUBSCRIBE TO MOMENTUM NEWSLETTER: ✨https://nextgenhq.com/getmomentum CONNECT WITH NEXT GEN HQ

If you want to launch, scale, and eventually sell your business, understanding what investors are looking for is important. Besides having a great business idea and the skills to operate it, it’s about your mindset. Entrepreneurship is like leaping blindly into the unknown and having the confidence in yourself to know you’ll figure it out.  As my guest today says, there’s no better job than creating what’s in your head and sharing it with others. And recognizing that you don’t need to know how to do everything off the bat is key. Keep Reading >> I am so excited to share this conversation with you today. I’m talking with TaskRabbit founder and General Partner at Fuel Capital, Leah Busque Solivan. Leah scaled Task Rabbit to be in 44 different cities across the country, raised more than $50 million in capital, and in 2017, it was acquired by Ikea. She has a wealth of wisdom and experience to share with you about building, scaling, and selling a business. Listen in today as Leah walks us through the process of launching, scaling, and selling her startup, TaskRabbit. She is now an investor in startups so she also offers some critical mindset considerations for female founders. And, she’s sharing how you can start building relationships with investors so you can secure the funding you need for your startup down the line. This episode is packed full of insights and advice from someone who has been there and did it successfully, I know you’re going to learn a lot from her. Today on the Power + Presence + Position Podcast: Why Leah became an entrepreneur and the impetus for starting TaskRabbit. The importance of understanding your customer and following data. The biggest shifts Leah had to make as a leader. Leah’s advice for female founders looking to secure funding. Why it’s so important to have more underrepresented groups writing checks. How Leah advises founders to lead their companies through a crisis. Resources Mentioned: Today’s episode is sponsored by the show, Young Money with Tracey Bissett Fuel Capital EP416: Free Yourself from Freelancer Pricing Love the show? Let us know! Are you a fan of the Power + Presence + Position? If the tips and interviews we share in each episode have helped you gain the confidence and inspiration to become a better, more powerful leader, head on over to Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show and leave your honest review to let us know! What are you waiting for? Head on over to Apple Podcasts, subscribe, and leave a review to enter your name into this month’s drawing! Join the Community of Practice! Want enriching conversation with intelligent, insightful women entrepreneurs, who are unapologetic about their ambition? Join me in the Power + Presence + Position community - the free, invite-only community for fierce, high-level women entrepreneurs making a huge impact on the world. You’ll get access to our book club, happy hours, and executive round tables where we talk about the issues that matter most to women entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level and be part of the best conversation about women entrepreneurship on the internet, join me in the free Power + Presence + Position community today!

This Week in Rec Tech is Sponsored by Rejobify.com Competitive Wedge, the video interviewing solution that helps recruiters make authentic connections with candidates, today announced details of its funding. The company completed the final tranche of its seed funding, bringing its total funding to $1 million raised to date. With social distancing now the norm, recruiters and candidates are unlikely to have in-person interviews anytime soon. The use of video has been ranked as one of the top work communications tools that are helping businesses thrive during the pandemic. Since resumes were never adequate to convey a job candidate’s true capabilities – especially in the hourly workforce – Competitive Wedge enables them to share their enthusiasm, skills and know-how through its one-way video interviewing platform. Wedge CEO, Matt Baxter, commented, “Wedge was designed with both the recruiter and candidate at the core. For recruiters, we streamline processes and reduce screening times. For candidates, they gain an anytime, any device job interviewing platform that enables them to use the communications medium they’re already familiar with – video – to express their interest in the open requisition and company.” Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Matt Baxter, Competitive Wedge’s primary solution is Wedge, the one-way recorded video assessment that enables candidates to show their true selves. For more information, visit https://competitivewedge.com/   https://hrtechfeed.com/video-interviewing-solution-raises-1-million/ NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ –JumpCrew, the leading B2B outsourced sales and marketing solutions provider has launched salesabroad.com. This initiative will provide jobs for sales professionals who want to embrace the remote lifestyle. JumpCrew has become the leading outsourced sales partner for venture-backed B2B startups and established brands. Their Satellite Sales offering is a turnkey, outsourced sales solution. Their clients get a dedicated team of sales reps, marketers, client success specialists, and operations support; focused on quickly generating revenue at scale. “Building a platform to support a global remote workforce, of extremely talented salespeople, who suddenly have no job is a no brainer. JumpCrew is still agile enough to see this opportunity and launch a vehicle to leverage it,” says Lavall Chichester, CMO of JumpCrew. “Salesabroad.com supports the increased global demand for outsourcing sales and allows us to help salespeople support their families.” https://hrtechfeed.com/jumpcrew-launches-salesabroad-com-to-build-a-global-remote-workforce/ INDIANAPOLIS, IN, (July 13, 2020) – Jobvite, the leading end-to-end talent acquisition suite, today announced that it has acquired the artificial intelligence (AI) and data science team at Predictive Partner. Morgan Llewellyn, CEO of Predictive Partner, will serve as Jobvite’s Chief Data Scientist and oversee a team leveraging AI through automation, predictive analytics, data science, machine learning, natural language processing, and optical character recognition. “As the first provider to introduce both machine vision to generate ‘Magic Resumes’ and candidate de-identification technology to reduce screening bias in chat transcripts, we understand the potential AI holds for talent acquisition professionals,” said Aman Brar, CEO of Jobvite. “The addition of Morgan and the Predictive Partner team to our ranks will help our customers derive even more value from the Jobvite Talent Acquisition Suite. By weaving native AI into all aspects of our software, we will deliver more than mere features—we will deliver the future of smart automation, intelligent messaging, candidate matching, and data-driven hiring decisions for talent organizations of all sizes.” Coinciding with the acquisition, Jobvite has also announced the launch of enhanced candidate engagement scoring and intelligent candidate matching capabilities. Enhanced candidate engagement scoring will help talent acquisition teams better gauge candidate interest through at-a-glance engagement metrics for every candidate. Intelligent candidate matching will enable recruiters to scale their efforts by reducing the time it takes to identify a qualified candidate from a large volume of candidates. https://hrtechfeed.com/jobvite-acquires-predictive-partner-team-to-accelerate-ai-innovation/ SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Lattice, the leading people management platform for businesses with people-first cultures, today announced that it has raised a $45 million Series D growth round of funding led by Tiger Global with participation from Frontline Ventures, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Thrive Capital Partners, Fuel Capital, and Y Combinator. The new round of funding will accelerate Lattice’s focus on expanding offerings to better serve its global clients and continuing to scale its team to meet ambitious product goals. Lattice launched in 2016 to enable people leaders to unlock insight into company culture through goal and OKR management. Since then, the company has built a suite of performance management products and engagement solutions that offer customers powerful, real-time analytics leading to actionable insights.  “2020 has been a year that’s proven how important it is to invest in your culture,” said Jack Altman, co-founder and CEO of Lattice. “We’re building Lattice to be a holistic people management platform that helps keep your employees engaged, growing, and highly effective. Company culture is forged during difficult times and we’ve seen an increase in companies turning to solutions to sustain and increase the employee experience in our new remote world.” https://hrtechfeed.com/lattice-raises-45m-in-series-d-round/   ########## Dont just reject candidates, Rejobify them. The Rejobify rejection email service will help those you cant hire. Give back to the candidates who take the time to apply with your company….book a demo today at rejobify.com

Leah Solivan of Fuel Capital joins Nick on a special Crisis Coverage installment to discuss Building TaskRabbit in a Recession; COVID Effects on the Independent/Gig Economy; and Key Factors for Early-Stage Marketplace Success. In this episode, we cover: Background -- path to venture? How is the current climate affecting your investing? Differing viewpoints on how much runway to plan for w/ a new capital raise... are you suggesting founders raise for more than 18-months or does the standard runway guidance hold? This crisis has had a pretty profound impact on the sharing economy/the gig economy/the independent economy. As someone with experience working in this space, what are your observations? Key lessons learned from building TaskRabbit in 2008/2009 during a recession? What will be the big opportunities post-covid, given the changes to consumer behavior? What are the main 3-5 things your looking for in a consumer marketplace business at the seed stage? Are there GMV levels that you're looking for? How about take rate? Best advice on investing in marketplace businesses that you've come across and incorporated into your approach? I've seen a number of consumer marketplace business that start w/ an auction-style format where vendors bid for consumer business, like thumbtack... then they flip to more of an affiliate/referral model where the consumer enters the specs for their job, those leads are sent to vendors and the vendors reach out individually w/ proposals. Why have we seen this shift? Does the transaction interface/format between vendors and customers influence your interest as an investor? You've said that you think investor's should stand in a founder's corner, not their kitchen. What do you mean by that? How involved do you get w/ founders, and how has that changed as the portfolio continues to grow? Advice for founders that are approaching an exit process w/ strategics? I know you pride yourself on your efficiency... do you have any efficiency hacks or tips for investors young in their career? To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

What are the key KPIs that drive the world's leading task marketplace? Leah Solivan, Founder and Former CEO of TaskRabbit, reflects on the operational metrics that define a successful marketplace on both the supply- and demand-side. We also chat about her reflections on TaskRabbit’s exit to IKEA. And lastly, Leah and I discuss what she looks for in startups now that she’s investing fulltime as a general partner at Fuel Capital. For show notes, unreleased episodes, and more check out: https://patternrecognitionpod.com Twitter: @JohnHeezy | Instagram: @johnghu

Leah Busque Solivan didn

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Welcome back to another episode of Below The Line. Today's episode is with Leah Busque Solivan who is the founder of TaskRabbit and now a venture capitalist in Fuel Capital. We talk about the low points of her eight year journey as a founder, running her own startup TaskRabbit, sparing no details of the reality of that role, and how she transitioned to becoming a venture capitalist after handing off the reigns. We also talked about why she sees herself being an investor for the foreseeable future and not doing her own startup again along with some real talk on her lowest 24 hours she experienced as CEO. Her candor is so refreshing. And that candor along with her experience is what is making her one of the best investors out there in my opinion. Her story and our conversation is one that I haven't heard anyone share — not quite like this on below the line. I think you’re really going to enjoy today’s honest and open conversation with Leah. You can email James questions directly at askbelowtheline@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/gobelowtheline — “Below the Line with James Beshara" is brought to you by Straight Up Podcasts LLC.

Leah Busque Solivan is the founder of TaskRabbit and a Partner at Fuel Capital. n this conversation, Mayra Ceja and Leah Busque Solivan discuss her humble beginnings as the first Tasker on TaskRabbit and eventually sold it to Ikea, her personal challenges with founder stress and how it put her in the hospital right before her last fundraise, and how she’s helping entrepreneurs as a venture capital investor TaskRabbit is an on-demand services company that can help you with everything from building Ikea furniture to standing in line for you at the Apple store. I Additional topics: FBfund, Jonathan Zimmerman, founders of Zipcar, Winning vs. Success. New episodes launch every Tuesday at 7am ET. If you like this episode, remember to subscribe, rate, and share. Follow me on Twitter @MayraCeja007 or join our newsletter at www.VentureUnplugged.com -----This episode is sponsored by eToro, the smartest crypto trading platform, and one of the largest in the world. Join me and 11 million other traders and create an account and build your crypto portfolio the smart way. ------This episode is sponsored by Qtum, the first proof-of-stake smart contracts blockchain. If you're tired of paying high fees on other smart contracts platforms, head on over Qtum and start building today your own low fee, solidity smart contract today! ------This episode is sponsored by Lukka, an institutional-grade, back and middle office accounting software and data services company that is bridging the gap between the business and blockchain world. -----This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group, an exclusive content and events company that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space.

Leah Busque Solivan is an engineer and entrepreneur. In 2008, she became a rising star of the gig economy when she quit her job at IBM to found TaskRabbit, the mobile and online marketplace that hooks you up with people to help with everything from picking up your laundry to building your furniture. She sold her baby to IKEA in 2017 and now she’s using her expertise to help other startups as a general partner at the venture capital firm, Fuel Capital. On the Couch, Leah talks to us about how she hired her first 30 task rabbits (11:45), why it was hard for her to celebrate success (18:00), what pushed her to the edge (23:20) and how she helps new entrepreneurs learn from her mistakes (30:20). This episode of Skimm'd From the Couch is sponsored by AC Hotels by Marriott.

Leah Busque is currently a General Partner at Fuel Capital, an early stage venture fund located in Silicon Valley. She likes to invest across consumer, B2B saas, and technology infrastructure companies at the earliest stages. In 2008 Leah founded TaskRabbit, the leading on-demand service marketplace in the world. She spent nearly a decade involved with the company as CEO and Executive Chairwoman before she sold the company to IKEA in October of 2017. Hear about her takeaways from a product reboot with TaskRabbit.   Missed the session? Here’s what Leah talks about: What are the lessons learned from a product reboot? When  bringing a product to market - what are the BHAGs? How to navigate a product pivot. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr Leah Busque

Produced by Foundersuite.com, "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders who have raised capital. This episode is with Andrei Serban of Fuzzbuzz.io, a security platform that helps protect software from digital hacks or attacks. The Company raised $2.7 million of seed funding in a deal led by FUEL Capital with participation from Homebrew, Susa Ventures, Solomon Hykes, Florian Leibert and Ben Porterfield. Fuzzbuzz also went through Y Combinator. This series is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite users have raised over $1.2 Billion since 2016. Learn more at www.foundersuite.com.

What makes a portfolio stand out? Why is the design exercise necessary? What exactly is a “noogler” and how do you become one? In this episode, host Travis Neilson talks with Google Design Manager Mike Buzzard about the seven phases of the Google UX hiring process. Along the way, hear audio clips of designers describing their own stories of applying to work at Google. From overcoming the fear of submitting an application, to demystifying the full-day of on-site interviews, listen in for a comprehensive breakdown of all the hiring quirks you need to know. Handy links for this episode: Submit an applicationStay up to date with the latest from Google Design Meet our guest:Mike Buzzard is a design manager at Google, currently collaboratively shaping the UX Community and Culture initiative. In his personal capacity, Buzzard also acts as a design advisor to A Capital, Fuel Capital, and Stitch Labs.  

This week’s startup scene was definitely in its top shape. We are talking about a total of 397 funding rounds that’s hundred more than last week, $31.2 billion total funding which is almost 5 times last week, 153 acquisitions recorded, and a transaction of a total acquisition amount of $9.3 billion. That being said, let’s dive right into the highlights. Feather, a New York-based company that offers contemporary, higher-end furniture on a subscription basis raised $12.5 million in a Series A round led by Spark Capital. Prior seed investors Fuel Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, PJC, Kleiner Perkins, and Y Combinator followed on in the round, according to Crunchbase. Algorithmia raised $25 million in Series B funding led by Norwest Venture Partners. Algorithmia, based in Seattle, is building infrastructure for the final step of the machine learning workflow: integrating a predictive model into a production code environment. Basically, what the company calls its “AI Layer” is a software environment that automatically produces a model-specific API the data scientist can call. DNA Script has raised $38.5 million in new financing to commercialize a process that it claims is the first big leap forward in manufacturing genetic material. DNA Script is focused on the manufacturing of synthetic DNA using a proprietary template-free enzymatic technology. The company aims at accelerating innovation in life science and technology through rapid, affordable and high quality DNA synthesis. The company said the money would be used to accelerate the development of its first products and establish a presence in the United States. Trendy luggage brand - Away, packs on $100 million funding and rolls past a valuation of $1.4 billion. The capital will be used to build additional brick-and-mortar stores, as well as add to Away’s portfolio of merchandise with an eye toward expanding into generic travel gear. To date, Away has sold more than 1 million suitcases. Moving on to acquisitions, HP enterprise announced it was buying Cray (a global supercomputer leader) for $1.3 billion, giving it access to the company’s high-performance computing portfolio, and perhaps a foothold into quantum computing in the future. VMware announced today that it’s acquiring Bitnami, the package application company that was a member of the Y Combinator Winter 2013 class. The companies didn’t share the purchase price. The company can now deliver more than 130 popular software packages in a variety of formats, such as Docker containers or virtual machine, an approach that should be attractive for VMware as it makes its transformation to be more of a cloud services company. Sisense announced today that it has acquired Periscope Data to create what it is calling a complete data science and analytics platform for customers. The companies did not disclose the purchase price. Sisense, which has raised $174 million, tends to serve business intelligence requirements either for internal use or externally with customers. Periscope, which has raised more than $34 million, looks at the data science end of the business. What else caught our eye last week? Fiverr files to go public, reports revenue of $75.5M and a net loss of $36.1M for 2018 Freelance marketplace Fiverr has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange. Their mission is to change how the world works together. They started with the simple idea that people should be able to buy and sell digital services in the same fashion as physical goods on an e-commerce platform. On that basis, they set out to design a digital marketplace that is built with a comprehensive services catalog and an efficient search, find and order process that mirrors a typical e-commerce transaction. Next, let’s take a peek at the Revenue based finance (RBF) model that’s on the rise. What exactly is RBF you ask? It’s a relatively new form of funding for tech companies that are posting monthly recurring revenue. Here’s how Lighter Capital, which completed 500 RBF deals in 2018, explains it: “It’s an alternative funding model that mixes some aspects of debt and equity. Most RBF is technically structured as a loan. However, RBF investors’ returns are tied directly to the startup’s performance, which is more like equity.”

Why is the "gig economy" more than what its moniker entails? What kind of thoughts does a young woman looking for her first job out of college have? On today's episode, Leah Busque, founder of TaskRabbit and venture capitalist at Fuel Capital, shares her journey. "Flexibility in the future work is one big pillar, one big category... Over the course of the last decade, we've just seen that pillar, that value explode across all these different companies and all these new ways of working." - Leah Busque Three Things We Learned Flexibility in new ways of working Leah founded TaskRabbit in 2008 because of the financial crisis that hit the US in September that year. With the catalyst that began the shift and change around how people perceived the future of work, she thought it was an incredible time to start a company based around new ways of working. With the instability of the financial markets also came the emergence of flexible ways of working which more and more people loved and appreciated as the years went by. Trade-offs of choosing flexibility The "gig economy" is a term that usually would feel demeaning for freelancers who choose to manage their own schedule and choose to work with people they want. But even the traditional benefits that come with secure jobs will have to marry this flexibility-driven economy in the future. All it's going to take is the consistent push of companies and workers for this to happen. Long-term jobs are now growing less possible and desirable The workforce is changing and companies are undergoing the same changes to meet the rapidly evolving demands and expectations of the next generation of workers. The past generations would commit to jobs for decades and then retire. But at present time, companies will be hard pressed to find a 22-year-old with a set goal of staying with them forever. Leah herself had her parents as her models when she was still starting out as part of the workforce. With IBM being one of the most nurturing companies for female employees, she had in her head to climb up the ladder and build her dream career within it. But long story short, that didn't stay true. Bio / Story: Leah Busque is an engineer turned entrepreneur turned venture capitalist at Fuel Capital. She founded TaskRabbit in 2008, which was then later acquired by IKEA in 2017. Links: https://www.fuelcapital.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/labusque/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Busque https://twitter.com/labunleashed https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/28/ikea-buys-taskrabbit/ We hope you enjoyed Leah Busque on this episode of Legends and Losers! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

Leah Busque is a General Partner at Fuel Capital, an early-stage venture firm based in SF. Before Fuel, she was the co-founder and CEO of TaskRabbit for eight years, and before that an engineer at IBM. In this episode, we discuss Leah's path to founding TaskRabbit, moving to SF, and partnering with Chris Howard as Fuel's second GP just over a year ago. We also dig into how she discovered and has navigated the LP community, how she expects to support the founders she works with as a former founder and engineer herself, and finally how Leah and Chris plan to grow Fuel as a firm in the years to come.

Leah Busque is a General Partner @ Fuel Capital, one of Silicon Valley's leading seed funds with the most incredible portfolio including many previous 20VC guests Ryan @ Flexport, Florian @ Mesosphere, Alex @ Clearbit and Dan @ Convoy (episode Friday). As for Leah, prior to VC, she was a pioneer of the sharing economy with her founding of TaskRabbit, one of the leading online labor marketplaces in the US, raising over $37m in the process before their sale to IKEA last year. Due to this incredible success, Leah has been named to Fast Company's "100 Most Creative People in Business". In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Leah made her way from sitting on the couch discussing dog food with her husband to founding TaskRabbit and how that translated into the world of VC today? 2.) How did Leah's time in operations affect: Question from Sean @ Shasta: the founders Leah backs and why she chooses them? Question from Craig @ Collaborative: the business models and unit economics Leah backs and why she backs them? 3.) Leah has said before that "authenticity and transparency between VC and founder are now table stakes", what more can be done to improve the VC product? How did Leah select the investors she worked with on TaskRabbit? How can founders truly determine "founder friendly" VCs? 4.) What have been Leah's biggest surprises on her move into the world of VC? What elements has Leah found most challenging? How has Leah looked to scale that learning curve? 5.) What does a successful marketplace look like? How does one know when is the right time to really scale a marketplace? What is the inflection point? How can marketplaces be efficient with their unit economics from day 1? How does one balance the NPS of the supply side with the NPS of the demand side? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Leah’s Fave Book: Founders at Work  Leah’s Most Recent Investment: Bark: Parental Control Phone Tracker App As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Leah on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Leesa is the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Leesa have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is ordered completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10-inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com to start the New Year with better nights sleep! Zoom, fastest growing video and web conferencing service, providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to engage in an array of activities including video meetings and webinars, collaboration-enabled conference rooms, and persistent chat all in one easy platform. Plus, it is the easiest solution to manage, scale, and use, and has the most straightforward, affordable pricing. Don’t take our word for it. Zoom is the top rated conferencing app across various user review sites including G2Crowd and Trust Radius. And you can sign up for a free account (not a trial!). Just visit Zoom.us.

No Task Too Big Leah Busque launched TaskRabbit and became a pioneer in the sharing economy. Now she wants to empower other founders as she transitions to venture capital. Picture this: You’re sitting at home on a February night in Boston, where winter temperatures dip well below freezing, and it’s snowing outside—not exactly a good time to find out your hundred-pound Labrador retriever is out of dog food. So what do you do? Do you don your boots and trek through the snow in pursuit of kibble? Do you ask your spouse to do it? To a 28-year-old Leah Busque, the solution should have been simple: Why not hire someone in the area to run that errand for you? “[My husband and I] were certain that there was someone in our neighborhood that'd be willing to help us out,” Busque recalls. “Maybe even someone at the store at that very moment, and it was just a matter of connecting with them.” After some geeky brainstorming with her husband, Busque grabbed her iPhone—it had come out a few months before—and bought the first domain that came to mind: RunMyErrand.com. Four months after that, she left her job as a software engineer at IBM and locked herself in her house for 10 weeks to build the first version of the site, all because a service she wanted didn’t yet exist. Thanks to Busque’s creativity and persistence, now it does—TaskRabbit. Think Big, Start Small: From Back Bay to the Bay Area In September 2008, RunMyErrand launched in the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown, where Busque was living at the time. “I was very targeted,” she says. “[I] really wanted to focus on one geography and create a peer-to-peer-network in that geography that was liquid, that would have high supply and high demand … and from there it just really started to snowball.” Word traveled fast. People in Charlestown started telling those in Beacon Hill about this new service that let you hire locals to run your errands. Word traveled from Beacon Hill to the residents of Back Bay and Cambridge. Soon enough, Busque was recruiting Taskers from all over the city of Boston. By the summer of 2009, Busque was invited to participate in an incubator program run by Facebook, leading her to change the name from RunMyErrand to TaskRabbit before launching in her second market—San Francisco. A Pioneer in the Peer-to-Peer Sharing Economy Here’s how TaskRabbit works: First, you post a task on the platform (mobile or web), such as, “I need help mounting a 32-inch flat screen TV on my wall.” Next, you get matched with vetted Taskers in your area, and you can view their ratings and hourly rates. Then, your chosen Tasker shows up, completes the task, and gets paid securely via the app. A simple enough idea for any smartphone user today, but you have to remember that TaskRabbit launched in 2008; most people were still rocking flip phones, and the term “sharing economy” hadn’t yet made it into the consumer vernacular. “These technologies were so new and so emerging, it wasn't an obvious thing to be able to utilize your mobile device to connect with people in real time,” Busque explains. “Certainly, no one was going to jump into a stranger's car off the street and grab a ride with Lyft or with Uber. And so the consumer mindset was completely different. Trust was a big barrier. Letting a stranger into your home to hang shelves, or hang curtains, or clean your house—these were all very big decisions that the consumer was making.” It’s been almost a decade since TaskRabbit’s inception, and the company’s come a long way from that neighborhood in Boston. The service has expanded to about 40 markets (including London), raised more than $50 million in venture funding, and last year was acquired by Swedish furniture giant Ikea. According to Busque, TaskRabbit gets more than 15,000 applications every month from people who want to be Taskers. And on the buyer side of that marketplace, people have hired Taskers to do errands as varied as waiting in line at a store, rushing a passport to the airport, and even retrieving keys from the bottom of a lake. Knowing When to Quit, and When to Keep Going As an entrepreneur, it’s important to know when to quit. Failing to realize an idea is a dud can lead to overspending and wasted time. So we had to ask Busque, especially given the novelty of the idea when it first launched: Did she ever feel like giving up? “I’m not someone who gives up,” Busque says. “I’m not someone who quits.” Given the dismal economy during TaskRabbit’s early days, one would have understood if she had. When Busque launched the first version of the site in September 2008, subprime lending had tanked the housing market and the stock market was crashing, ushering in the Great Recession—not exactly the best time to be quitting a steady job, or starting a business, or seeking investors. But still, Busque pressed on, choosing to bootstrap her startup for almost a year. “We had a mortgage on our house and we had bills to pay,” Busque recalls. “We basically did the math and thought, 'We've got about six months where I don't need to work. I don't need to take a salary to kinda make ends meet.'” When six months came and went and TaskRabbit still didn’t have an investor, it must have been difficult not to close up shop right then and there. “We were so close though; I felt like I was on the brink of something every day. I thought, ‘I just need 24 more hours, 48 more hours, one more week.’ And so every day was a question [of], ‘Should we keep going? Should we call it?’” Thankfully, Busque didn’t call it quits. In December 2008, three months after she had missed her self-imposed deadline to raise funding, Busque closed her first angel round of $150,000. That funding was enough to carry her fledgling business through to the end of 2009, when she raised a seed round of $1 million. As an entrepreneur, it’s just as important to know when to keep going as it is to know when to quit. Before You Automate, Do it Manually As Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham says, “Do things that don’t scale.” In his famous 2013 essay on this principle, Graham writes, “Startups take off because the founders make them take off.” “I definitely had to do things that weren't going to scale over the long term,” Busque says. In the early days, for example, Busque could often be found zipping around Boston on her little Honda scooter, completing tasks on her own. “I still am the master TaskRabbit,” she laughs. That firsthand experience as a Tasker proved invaluable, as Busque got to know her customers and gained a deeper understanding of how her service fit into the marketplace. That willingness to dive in and get her hands dirty proved to be a hallmark strategy for the founder. “Even as the company developed … I would say one strategy I used that worked pretty well was figuring out how to do things manually first, to really, really understand what to build, how to make it more efficient, and then start to automate layers on top of it over time.” Take TaskRabbit’s application process, for example. The first version involved an online application, an in-person interview (to start the site, Busque conducted 30 interviews herself over coffee in Boston), and a background check. In total, that highly manual process took three to five days. “But the time we spent,” Busque says, “for instance, doing in-person interviews, really helped us to understand what was important in finding the right Taskers, in the highest quality, most consistent Taskers. And so we then, from those in-person interviews, would figure out what questions we needed to ask, what the indicators were early that this Tasker was going to perform well on the platform.” Now? Every piece of that process is automated, and a Tasker can be onboarded in a matter of hours, not days. How to Get Comfortable With Competition Every founder knows that sinking feeling of learning a new business similar to yours is entering the marketplace. Maybe it’s why entrepreneurs are notorious for guarding their ideas with intensity, fearing one slip-up will allow a competitor to crush everything they’ve built. But the fact is, if you’ve got a good idea, someone else is either already doing it, or will be doing it soon. After nearly a decade in business, TaskRabbit has seen its fair share of competitors. At first, this rattled Busque’s nerves. “I remember early on stressing out a lot about the competition, but I think what I learned over time was that I just needed to stay focused on what we were building.” What inspired her shift from flustered to focused was seeing so many competitors rush in and then quickly fizzle out. “I would see competitors come out of the gate, raise multi-millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars, and burn through it in 18 to 24 months. And so after that happened a couple of times, I just realized that I was going to play a long game.” What was TaskRabbit’s competitive edge? “From day one, we were producing revenue,” Busque says. “From day one, we had positive operating margins. So for every job that went through the site, we were always making money on it. And we had to be very disciplined about how to build a platform that operated that way.” She also thinks that too many of her competitors caved to marketplace and investor pressures, something she as a startup founder was not immune to. “I remember getting a lot of pressure even from my investors at one point in the company's life cycle about growth, about the competitive landscape, pressure to move faster, to copy whatever it was that they were doing, but I knew my business better than anyone.” Repeat After Her: ‘This Is Not Rocket Science’ Many aspiring entrepreneurs let what they don’t know become a stumbling block to launching their businesses. But for Busque, what she didn’t know, she knew she could figure out. She recalls a conversation she had with herself just before leaving her job at IBM to pursue TaskRabbit: “I was thinking about all the things that I didn't know how to do. I was thinking, ‘All I know how to do is build this product. I’m a coder; I know how to code. I don't know how to raise money from investors, I don't know how to hire, I don't know how to fire, I don't know how to build a financial model.’ And then I realized that, to me it sounds funny, but I remember saying to myself: ‘This is not rocket science. … Just go figure it out.’” Busque cites confidence as a key requirement for every successful entrepreneur. “As an entrepreneur, you're doing something that no one's ever done before, and you're going to have to innovate and build new things in new ways.” Another key entrepreneurial quality? Adaptability. And having gone from engineer to entrepreneur to investor, Busque clearly has that in spades. Though she studied at a women’s liberal arts college, she works in the mostly male tech industry. Though she’s highly analytical and majored in math and computer science, she appreciates the arts and minored in dance. “The appreciation of those other aspects has really aided me in being able to adapt, and learn quickly, and jump into new situations, and have the confidence that I'm going to be able to figure out and learn whatever I need to as fast as I need to.” From Founder to Investor In 2016, Busque stepped down as CEO of TaskRabbit, and in September 2017, the company was sold to Ikea. (Interestingly, in a TEDx Talk six years prior to the acquisition, Busque said the most popular task posted on the platform was Ikea furniture assembly.) “TaskRabbit is my first baby, my first child,” she says. “The one thing that you would hope for your child or for your company is that it has a full life, right? And is happy, and grows up, and moves on from you. And so I feel very fortunate that I got to be on that journey and see that happen all the way through.” Even after the acquisition, Busque has her feet firmly planted in the startup world. She serves as executive chairwoman at TaskRabbit and has transitioned into the role of investor as general partner at Fuel Capital, a seed-stage venture fund in San Francisco. It’s a natural transition, given her background as the founder of a venture-funded startup. “Building things has always been my passion,” she says. “I love the early stages of a company, when there is a seemingly impossible-yet-pressing problem to solve. I couldn’t be more excited to work closely with early-stage founders and their teams as they take on world-changing ideas—much like I did during my early days at TaskRabbit.” Given her years of experience building a peer-to-peer marketplace, Busque as an investor has chosen to focus on consumer businesses and marketplaces. “I’ve also focused my attention on meeting and supporting the ‘outsiders,’” she says, such as women founders, those who don’t fit the typical mold, and those who aren’t based in Silicon Valley. “It’s been awesome to meet so many awesome entrepreneurs who don’t look like the typical founder. … I certainly didn’t!” Her new role and focus couldn’t come at a better time. According to the Crunchbase “Women in Venture” report, in 2017, only 6 percent of all seed dollars went to female-only-founded startups, while male-only-founded startups received 83 percent of all seed dollars. Those figures have remained remarkably static since 2012. Busque’s first investments reflect the type of impact she hopes to make. Werk is a women-founded career platform helping women find flexible job opportunities. Feather is a Brooklyn-based startup that provides affordable furniture rental with quick delivery. “As I thought about what I wanted to do next, I just started getting pulled in the direction of venture from a lot of different angles,” Busque says, “from investors that I highly respect, from friends that were in the industry, and so I made the decision that I wanted to do investing full time as the next stage of my career.” And if the previous stage of her career is any indication, there’s no task too big for Busque. Key Takeaways: The two traits Busque says all entrepreneurs need to have to be successful (it has nothing to do with skills or industry knowledge) The stumbling block that keeps many aspiring entrepreneurs from launching businesses How Busque eventually got comfortable with competitors entering her space Why Busque's "never quit" attitude was the key driver of TaskRabbit's early success  

Summary:In the early 1990s, Brad Silverberg was one of the key champions of the Internet within Microsoft. As the first ever Senior Vice President of the Internet Platform and Tools Group, he essentially led Microsoft’s efforts to embrace the Internet and the Web beginning in late 1995. As the senior Vice President of the Personal-Systems Division, Brad also led the development of Windows, from the launch of Windows 3.0 through Windows 95, which he helped establish as Microsoft’s greatest ever product. Today, he is a venture capitalist with both Fuel Capital and Ignition Partners. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

*Leah Solivan* ( https://www.fuelcapital.com/our-team ) *is General Partner at* *Fuel Capital* ( https://www.fuelcapital.com/ ) *, an early-stage venture fund focused on consumer, SaaS, and cloud infrastructure companies dedicated to giving outsiders the inside edge through unrelenting commitment, authenticity, and hustle. Some of their investments include* *Bark* ( https://www.bark.us/ ) *,* *Flexport* ( https://www.flexport.com/ ) *,* *Crowd Cow* ( https://www.crowdcow.com/ ) *. Previously, Leah was the founder and CEO of* *Taskrabbit* ( https://www.taskrabbit.com/ ) *, which was acquired by* *IKEA* ( https://www.ikea.com/us/en/ ) *.* *You can follow Leah on Twitter @labunleashed. You are also welcome to follow your host* *@mikegelb* ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ) *and* *@consumervc* ( https://twitter.com/consumervc ) *for updates.* *A book that impacted you personally and professionally is* *Founders at Work* ( https://amzn.to/2QNQnVJ ) *by Jessica Livingston* *On this episode, we discuss:* * *Why Leah left her job at IBM to start Task Rabbit? Her learnings from founding Task Rabbit and why she became a venture capitalist? Some of Fuel Capital's strategic advantages and what makes Fuel unique?* * ** * *The differences when analyzing consumer vs. enterprise businesses. Qualities in founders that she is focused on. How do you know when a company know they have found product-market fit? When should a company have product-market fit in relation to the fundraising round? How she thinks about traction and milestones.* * ** * *In a pitch deck, an element that's very important but often overlooked. When a fund says they need a lead investor, does it automatically mean bad news for the founder? How she thinks about online customer acquisition costs in today's landscape? Consumer trends she's focused on?* * ** * *One thing she would change about venture capital and advice for consumer startups.* * **