Lauren Sherman - Taskrabbit

Full transcript: Lauren Sherman on London Real

0:00 In London, technology is the silicone roundabout. Introducing a new talk show dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. Silicon Real. Each week, interviewing entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, financial technology, accelerators, and incubators in an exciting three-person format. learn about the people behind the innovation. Locally filmed, locally sourced.

0:34 Silicon Real. It’s about the people. Okay, let’s do this. This is Silicon Real, the weekly talk show dedicated to the people of the London technology startup scene. I am Brian Rose. I also host London Real, which is a similar show. We’ve had fellow people from San Francisco on like Tim Ferriss from the Four Hour Workweek. We We had Kelly Starrett, who’s a CrossFit guy there, has the mobility wad, and I’m sure more of people that have come from Northern California.

1:04 We’ve also had a famous drug dealer, Howard Marks. We’ve had Max Keiser from Russia Today screaming about Bitcoin. It’s a crazy show, but that’s London Real. Today we’re here to talk about tech. My co-host is entrepreneur Colin Pyle, who runs online language school, Lingos.

1:18 You got the coffee company, Crew Cafe. Is your Kickstarter finished? No. No. You’re like 98.

1:25 I know that last little bit is okay. It’s quite difficult. So we just sponsored a really cool event to the end of January. Um, women in businesses. It’s a really cool event.

1:36 So we they’re sending some information out. So hopefully it will push out how much we talk and how much money 800 pounds pounds. Okay. And how much time do we have left? Uh, 27th. And so yeah.

1:47 Okay. Feel free to text me over Christmas if it’s getting close. Yeah. Yeah. Just be like rally. Well, you, you, there’s a point of no return. Okay.

1:54 So it will happen. Yeah, you’ll make it happen. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. All right. Best of luck with that Um, our guest today is miss Lauren Sherman who is the head of community for task rabbit Which is an online marketplace that allows users to outsource small jobs and tasks to others in their neighborhood. Oh, you nailed it Pretty good, huh? Really great. She is in London as we are right now. You’ve moved here recently I want to get to that but just a little bit about task rabbit You were founded in 2008 by a female entrepreneur. Her name is Leah busky. Yeah another woman with a dog There’s pictures of you with the dog.

2:26 She’s got the dog. She’s got the dog. I got the dog. We all have the dog. The dog is a huge part of our culture.

2:33 So… Hold on. This is just one dog we’re talking about? No, actually there’s two dogs. Okay.

2:38 Do you discriminate with people that don’t own dogs when you hire? You know what? I like… No. The answer is no.

2:44 Okay. Because our… Probably our HR woman Emily is watching. We don’t discriminate. Okay.

2:49 But do… I have a personal preference for people with dogs. Okay. with Leah and she had a dog and then I saw Lauren with the dogs. I just wanted to check on that.

2:56 Yeah, no, actually I could talk. It’s really important to know that we actually got a brand new Golden Retriever puppy like a week ago in the office. So I’ll show you guys some pictures. An office dog. Office dog, yeah. But the office is just like crawling with dogs.

3:07 All right. I want to get back to the dogs, definitely. But I just want to get through your funding. You’ve raised, I believe, about $38 million. You are in 19 cities in the US.

3:17 You have 20,000 Task Rabbits. Lauren, welcome to Silicon Real. Thank you. I’m really excited to be here. And you’re our guinea pig for the Ultra Live episode.

3:25 You’re cool as a cucumber. Thanks so much for being here. Yeah, no problem. I wanna know, how is London treating you? You’re over here, you’re about to move here permanently.

3:34 TaskRabbit is in 19 cities. You guys obviously know what you’re doing in the U.S. Why come to London? Yeah, so you know what? We’ve been wanting to come for a long time is really the long and short of it.

3:46 We actually ask our users, where do you want us to come next, right? So the way we determine where we’re going to launch next is we have people actually plug in, like, come to my city. And we do a pulse via Twitter. We have something on our site that says, if you want TaskRabbit to come, let us know where you live. And just the demand for London was so overwhelming that we actually got more demand for London than we did with some of the cities that we’ve already launched in the US.

4:11 So it really was the user, the anticipated user base here. And then also, just the rise of peer-to-peer startups in London was so big that we knew that it needed to be our next city. Was there any other international city that was close? Yeah, you know, we’re really excited that London is our first international city and we’re looking forward to launching in more but London was definitely the front runner. Okay, and was it important for you guys to go international just to kind of get that, you know, out of the way and to move on?

4:40 Or is this just another city in your mind? No, not at all, not at all, yeah, so. Global expansion is kind of, this is the first step. I mean, so obviously our London expansion holds a place in my heart because I’m one of a two-person team that launched our city here, launched London, and so London is super important to me, but it’s also really important to our team back in San Francisco. And Leah, our founder especially, when she first, I remember when she first came out to London to do, sort of get a pulse on things, she came back and was like, oh my god.

5:10 She was like, this is a TaskRabbit city. We’ve got to go. She’s like, I am just so excited. But her enthusiasm was fed by the enthusiasm of the people that she met here. And so when she got excited, she rallied the team.

5:25 We all got really excited. And that was about a year and a half ago that we really started thinking about it and getting ramped up. And most of the team in San Francisco is dedicated to making London successful at this point. When did you get here? Yeah, so it’s funny because people are like, oh, when did you get here?

5:42 And when I say September, they’re really, end of September, they’re really surprised because at this point, like, you know, we already have our inaugural task rabbit group, we’re launched, but, you know, mentally I’ve been in London for about a year. You know, we did a survey to people in London prior to coming. We’ve done a lot of research, a lot of like, you know, demographic testing, that sort of thing. So myself and my counterpart, Shishi, who does all of our customer service and user development have been working on this launch, but from San Francisco for quite some time.

6:13 So long, long answer short, I got here at the end of September and then spent between the end of September and the end of November ramping up to launch. Okay, I’m always curious what people think when they first get to London. I mean, I’ve been here 12 years. You’ve been here two? Two and a half.

6:27 Two and a half. But like when you fly from San Francisco to here and you walk around for the first week, I mean, you say it’s a TaskRabbit kind of town. What do you see like when you land? Like what do you see as opportunities and what do you see as things you’re gonna have to be challenging you when it comes from business. Yeah, yeah.

6:43 So from a business standpoint, the one thing I noticed, when I first landed here, I moved into a flat, and it was furnished. But there weren’t towels, and there weren’t sheets, and there weren’t any of the stuff that you need to live, right? And I’m very much accustomed to I’m our key demo. So whenever I’m in any of our US cities, I very much buy into and believe in the concept of if you don’t have enough time to do it, outsource it to someone else who does.

7:11 And I was getting ready to launch a startup in our first international city and had very little time. So I was running around trying to get all these things done and navigating the tube for the first time. I was like, I now understand what Lee was saying, but this is a test grab at city where London is a very do-it-yourself culture, right? I might not have all the time to do it myself, but I’m gonna get it done anyways and I’m gonna just get it done and take it all on myself.

7:35 And that’s when I really resonated with me And I was like, I don’t have anyone to help me with these things. And I am working 60 hour weeks and I’m getting ready to launch the startup that I realized that there was really a need for it here. I never thought in London as a do it yourself type city but it is kind of like get on with it. And how come I can’t have this food delivered? Well, pick it up.

7:55 It’s like, it’s weird that extra layer of service isn’t implied like it is in the States. I think in the States and Canada too, I often find service in general is just at a much higher level and probably because tipping is quite part of the culture so 15 to 20 percent tip is kind of what people normally get and here and in other cities in Europe often tipping is not not normal so I find the surface really gets hit hard. You see that in restaurants, you see that at pubs where there’s no kind of waitress or waiter culture so you will wait into it and align 50 people to get a drink at a pub and you’re like how can this inefficiency in the market exactly.

8:34 Yeah, yeah. And I think it’s just a matter of peer-to-peer startups really became popular five or six years ago in the US with the rise of Zipcar, Airbnb, those types of startups. And so that’s when you start to realize what we think of as relying on your neighbors and saying, well, I don’t want to stay in a hotel when I travel to Brazil, as you say, as you are probably doing quite frequently. I’d rather stay with the local. I want to meet someone in my neighborhood.

9:01 And for us, it’s all about meeting someone safe and reliable that lives in your neighborhood that can help you with these things. So whereas TaskRabbit is a service, it’s also about getting to meet your neighbors. So let’s break down TaskRabbit. We always ask people that sit here, as far as TaskRabbit, what have you done and what are you guys going to do? And then why do you think you’ll win in this space?

9:21 It’s a very kind of a unique business model, but it’s quite a niche business model. I mean, neighborhood is a big thing and your vocab is nice. Right. being neighborly to us. But for people that don’t know anything about it, what do you guys do? Yeah, so you know, you did it, you kind of hit the nail on the head, but TaskRabbit is an online and mobile marketplace where you can outsource your tasks to vetted, verified people who live in your neighborhood. So that’s on the client side of things, right? And so our clients are typically 25 to 45 year old women who typically have kids in the house or really busy careers, right? So they’re doing it all themselves and you know, our motto is, you know, every a superhero needs a sidekick, right?

10:00 So we’re trying to develop a way in which you feel comfortable once again, relying on your neighbors for things. If you think about times where I remember when I was a kid, my mom was out of eggs, she would call our neighbor and send me over to their house, and I would go pick some up rather than running through the grocery store. That, you can probably point at a few things why that isn’t the case anymore. I think the internet is definitely one of them, right?

10:24 So we’re so used to not having these in-person interactions. But we’re trying to create a world in which we can create online interactions and bring them offline. And it’s this really beautiful thing when it happens, right? But then on the other side of things, I work most closely with our taskers here in London and also in the US. And the really cool thing about that is it’s a group of entrepreneurial people who have decided nine to five is not really for them.

10:53 They would rather choose when they work, who they want to work with, and choose the jobs that they do and it creates these really beautiful offline interactions where you’re getting to meet people that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to interact with. What are some typical transactions on TaskRabbit? Yeah. You mean task-wise? Yeah.

11:11 Yeah. Just so people get an idea like what would someone do for you? Totally. Yeah. So our three main categories, right, are handyman, house cleaners, and then just general PA work.

11:22 But these aren’t like your typical house cleaners or handyman, right? So some of my favorite stories are Chris Ma, who is an ex-VP of marketing at Macy’s in the States. When the recession hit, he lost his job and was looking for something to do on the side. And he just started doing TaskRabbit just to make a little bit of money, get money rolling in. He never self-identified as a handyman.

11:47 He knew he was generally handy, but didn’t ever say, oh, I could go be a professional handyman. was getting hired on the site by women who were either too busy to hang photos in their flats or to build things around the house. IKEA furniture is really huge, Assembly. Yeah, because we all hate it. And so then he started doing it and realizing, wow, I’m making really meaningful income doing this.

12:13 And I’m getting to meet really awesome people and then made the decision that he was going to be a full-time TaskRabbit. And we see this over and over and over again where you have this entrepreneurial spirit that you didn’t know was there before. And the TaskRabbit really gives you the ability to tap into that. So you breed entrepreneurs. Yeah.

12:32 And do the TaskRabbits get paid through TaskRabbit? Yeah. Or do they just receive cash or get paid outside of TaskRabbit? Yeah, so the way that’s another benefit of TaskRabbit compared to a lot of other services that are out there is that, let’s say you and I work together, the money is securely transferred from the client’s account to the TaskRabbit’s account. and then we take 20% of every transaction.

12:53 So is it like an Airbnb type thing where you pay ahead of time or do you pay after? You don’t pay until the test is completed. Okay. Yeah. So to give you an idea of like kind of what the product experience looks like, is that you would go to our site, we give you an option of three categories and a tiny man house cleaning and then right now we’re doing Christmas help because that was one thing that we found during our initial research was that Londoners are definitely strapped for time, especially around Christmas because Christmas is such a big deal around here.

13:18 Is it more than the States? Oh my God. Oh my God. Really? Yeah.

13:23 Toronto. It’s a big deal in Toronto. I’ve never done Christmas in Toronto, but I will say that the Christmas spirit for me started here around the first week of November. The trees were going up, lights were getting lit. One thing I’ve noticed that was way different is when I leave work in the last three weeks, when I’ve left work at 6.30, 7 o’clock, every bar is overflowing with people and they’re all in their Christmas outfits because they’re having Christmas party, Christmas party.

13:49 But then like there’s people outside with clip to clip board so you can tell that like it’s a company or event or like a holiday Event, I don’t see that as much as in the states where it’s just like the streets are overflowing with like Christmas spirit And so we’re doing like wrapping gifts Christmas shopping help me with my Christmas events is a huge one You know, we just had taskers at the Twilio Christmas party Which was last weekend that the the three beards co-sponsored and they were checking people in at the door So, you know, there’s there’s really no end when Christmas time comes around work when you could actually like use some extra help Now that will probably become something more along the lines of like PA a PA category like general PA work once the holidays are over But those are the three categories that we launched Okay, and where are you guys headed in the future?

14:33 Do you want to be in all these cities in the UK is expansion a key thing? Are you thinking of the continent already or not? You know, we are we definitely have this expansion top of mind I can’t name what our next city might be. I’m really excited for further international expansion. Is language an issue?

14:55 I wouldn’t say it’s an issue. I was personally a little bit nervous about coming to London because being a hyper-local company is super important to us. We’re not the type of company that launches in a new city, even if it’s a city in the states where we just are saying, oh, okay, we’re going to San Diego, we’re going to to launch it and leave it. We want to become a part of life in San Diego. We want to totally agrain ourselves.

15:18 And so doing that equivalent of London is obviously a little bit difficult because of the localization. And so it’s really important to us that we are hammering that, that we have local people representing our business here, and that when you read it, it feels local. And that our taskers are local. They’re all from London. You’re working with someone else from London, so we need to be a local company.

15:40 But luckily, there’s no shortage of copywriters and really amazing people that are happy to help you get more custom translators. So yeah, I think that translation is a little bit of an issue, like if we were to go to Paris, obviously it’s gonna be a little bit more difficult than translating into the UK English, but I don’t think it’s gonna be a huge problem. Okay, so scale intelligently, it sounds like what you wanna do. I was checking out your Wikipedia page.

16:08 First of all, they have a Wikipedia page. Where’s the London Real Wikipedia page? Will somebody help me up? They have a Wikipedia page. Yeah, so Wikipedia is actually an interesting one.

16:18 I don’t have a Wikipedia page. Yeah, it’s kind of funny. You should have one, I shouldn’t. I would recommend it. Yeah, you guys definitely need one.

16:24 I can help out. I helped with our Wikipedia page, but it’s got to be completely from a third party perspective. So you have to get someone from an outsider’s perspective, and everything has to be based off sources. So you’ll notice that we have like paragraphs of citations below it. But I can definitely help you get yourself a tax grab.

16:42 I’m gonna spend my money here. Yes, I have to tell you, you know what? Yeah, so I gave these guys. Can you explain this card? Yes, absolutely.

16:48 So I gave these guys 25 pound gift cards to try out tax grab it. That’s hot.

17:04 Yeah, it’s awesome. 25, it’s like Christmas. But I have to tell you, I have a perfect tasker for you to do your work with P2PH. So Bonnie, I don’t know if you guys should just read the kernel. Two for one deal?

17:14 The kernel, it’s a. That’s Milo, yeah? Yeah, Milo writes a tech blog here and they did a great piece on TaskRabbit where they had Bonnie come in, basically they trashed her office, created an account on TaskRabbit, posted a task for someone to come and clean it up just so they could experience the service. And Bonnie is one of our best taskers and she’s ex-BBC for the past three years, and she’s a great writer, really intelligent, so I’m gonna get her on your Wikipedia page.

17:39 Love it, love it, love it. You’re buttering me up here, you know, the hard questions. No, seriously, those are, that’s just like I’m speaking kind of to the character of the community. It’s like, we have really intelligent people on our site. With, it sounds like highly specialized knowledge bases.

17:54 Right, but they’re highly specialized knowledge bases, but they’re also generalists. So what’s really cool about them is like, they’re entrepreneurs, right? And so they’ve got what we call the entrepreneurial hustle, right? where, yeah, she’ll help you build your Wikipedia page, but cleaning is not above her either. She’s happy to do it.

18:08 How do you find these people? Yeah, that’s a really interesting, mine’s my favorite question, Colin, because that’s really how I’ve spent my last two months of my time. It’s like a planted question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s written on the back of my card.

18:20 Oh, come on. That’s funny. That’s a good question. How do you find these? You call them taskers.

18:26 We call them taskers. Okay. Yeah. So we played around with like a variety of user acquisition techniques when we first came here. And what we found really works well is Facebook ads.

18:38 And so I just did like highly targeted Facebook ads. And we left them running for, I don’t know, like a month. We got 7,000 applications. Here in London. Here in London.

18:49 7,000. 7,000. Just from Facebook ads. Yeah, just from Facebook ads. And what we did is we put up a survey where we said we were just trying to get a feel for what it is that you’re interested in doing, how many hours a week you want to do it, What tools and resources do you have meaning?

19:04 Like, do you have a tool kit? Do you have your own cleaning supplies? Do you have a car? Do you have a scooter? How do you get around the city?

19:09 So that was our first vetting criteria. The most important question, though, is why are you excited about being an inaugural member of the Task Traffic Community here in London? And that is where we really vet people based on their enthusiasm, because it’s really important to us that they’re enthusiastic about the site. So you turn people down? Yeah, yeah, we do.

19:27 And require a video interview and all sorts of stuff? Yeah, so actually the vetting process in the UK is a little bit different. We designed it because it was really important for us to get the cream of the crop here in London when we launched. We wanted only the best of the best. So from those 7,000, we looked at it and we were like, all right, so we’re going to probably invite 200 of these people to an in-person two-hour orientation session at our office that I lead.

19:55 So of those 200 people that we invited, we have about 70 people show up. And then from that 70, 50 people made it to our inaugural group that we launched with. So they go through a two-hour orientation session. They go through test tasks. We had a beta group of people putting them through the ringer where we just like made sure that they can communicate well with our clients and that they were the best people for the job.

20:17 Wow. All right. The last part of the question I first asked, and that’s why I looked at your Wikipedia page, is it has some of your competitors. So why will you win in this space? What makes you different from the list of like eight other companies which I’m sure have slightly different business models, but why?

20:31 Yeah, you know, I’m biased because I work so closely with our community, but there’s a few reasons why we’re going to win. One is that we’ve been doing this the longest. So we’ve been at this since 2008. We’ve had a lot of wins, but we’ve also had a lot of failures as well, right? Were you the first people in this space?

20:48 Yes, we were the first. And I will say that I’m a huge believer that you learn a lot from the times that you fail because we get up, we dust our news off, and we go back and try something new, right? And then our community, we have the most amazing people running these tasks, right? And they’re the type of people where if you have a house cleaner and they show up at your task, do you want to sit there and have a conversation with that person? My thought is likely no.

21:17 That’s different with TaskRabbit. These are interesting, awesome people that like you feel comfortable having in your house and that you want to spend more time with and that way the service becomes addicting where you just want to use it over and over and over again. So because we put so much time and effort into picking who we want to be part of our organization, it really reflects well when the clients use the service. Okay, fair enough. Well, this is silicone real, so it’s time to get real.

21:40 So Lauren, we’re going to hit with a couple of hard questions. I’m going to go first. You guys charge 20% of the total tax. Someone say that’s a lot of money. What do you guys say?

21:49 Why do you charge that and why is that necessary? You know, because you got to keep the lights on. You know what I’m saying? No. Like, it’s true though.

21:57 Like, that has not always been the case. We’ve played around with different service fees and that’s just what we’ve decided on is 20% is really the sweet spot. We don’t take it from the Tasker. We charge it to the client. So the Tasker says what they want for the job that they’re going to do.

22:12 So they say, I want 20 pounds an hour. And then we just add the 20% on top of that. And what we found is that clients are happy to pay for it, and the taskers don’t think it’s too much. I haven’t heard that it’s too much in London thus far. And you found that that doesn’t deter people, or at least not significantly, at that price point.

22:28 Not significantly, no. And the thing is is that. Does the customer see that markup? So do you see the tasker fee charge, and then your 20%, or is it just all one? It’s showed to them as one.

22:38 So I will say that I haven’t heard that it’s too much. Again, to me, it’s worth the price of having someone who’s verified, vetted, and has been put through the wringer from. And that’s the reason why we charge it. So these are the very best people. And like I said, our main demographic is moms and busy women.

23:03 And one thing that we always think about when we’re interviewing tasters is like, is this someone that you would want at home alone with your wife? Is this someone that you’d want home alone with your sister and her kid? And we want to make sure that we have the safest, best people possible, and we think that the service fee reflects that. I like that. You shouldn’t be embarrassed about making a profit or charging a certain fee.

23:25 It’s very American to come in and say, this is our business model. As long as you provide the service to back it up. Totally. And I think that we very much do. So with the 20%, so I guess one of the biggest issues with business models like yours, where you sort of get in the middle of the transaction, is circumventing.

23:42 So how do you sort of, first of all, do you find it as a problem that if I hire Brian to do a task for me and I like him and I just contact him directly next time for a different task? That’s a great question. Yeah. So that’s what we at headquarters call taking tasks off-site. And so what we do is we’re able to offer our taskers a lot of security.

24:06 And one of which is that you are going to be securely paid within five business days of the transaction. So let’s say you and I work together and you say, like, Lauren, next time, let’s, you know, take this off-site. So, and we agree on 20 pounds an hour. And then I say, okay, like, I’m going to, I’m going to do that. And then, you know, you’re like, Oh no, we agreed on 15.

24:26 The Tasker knows that the guarantee and the security that we can provide them is no longer there if they take the task off-site. And the same thing goes for the client, right? Like we advocate on both, on both sides. So if something happens on the, on the task, like we’re the middleman, like we’re responsible. So we make sure we have an escalation team in San Francisco who are incredible.

24:45 And when you have people on both sides of your product, things do happen. And so we want to play that middleman role for a reason. And we’ve created the platform so we can solve these issues when they do come up. So yeah, sure, I’m sure it’s only human nature to be like, let’s circumvent the 20% service fee. But the taskers don’t do it because their security blanket is gone.

25:06 And they’re guaranteed that they’re going to get paid as gone. And if they get caught doing it, they’re kicked off site immediately. So then, that way, any other further income that they could have made on the site is gone. Is there a minimum amount that taskers need to do in order to stay sort of active on your account? Yes.

25:23 We ask them, you know, one of our guidelines is just general availability. So we ask them to be available for at least five tasks a week. Okay. But the cool thing about our taskers- So they start taking stuff offline. All of a sudden, that’s going to be tough to do that five.

25:35 At this point, like I said, we’ve been doing this since 2008. like we have like what we call a Spidey sense, where we just kind of just, you see, you know. You guys have a ton of data too. We have a ton of data behind this. We, you know, it’s very easiest for us to tell.

25:49 And most importantly, like right now in London, we’re so small, there’s only 58 taskers. So I talk to most people every single day, whether it’s on email or, you know, via SMS or on chat. And so if I don’t talk to someone for two days, they’re gonna hear from me or they’re gonna hear from Shishi, my colleague. And so we have a really tight read on it. You know, we’re at 20,000 TaskRabbits in the U.S. at that point.

26:08 So that’s when we do rely, like, on the data and everything that we’ve learned. What’s your read on VA’s virtual assistants? Both Colin and I have had some experience with people, you know, that do VA’s. There’s people in the Philippines, for example, that speak very good English, and they might be able to do some tasks, like you said, like a Wikipedia page, things where you’re not actually on site. Do you compete with those people or not?

26:26 Yeah, like Mechanical Turk, those sort of things. No, I wouldn’t say so. TaskRabbit is very, like, it’s a very personal thing. So when, first off, virtual assistants is not one of the categories that we launched with originally in London. So right now we’re not doing virtual tasks, but we will be very soon.

26:45 In the U.S. we don’t compete with them because, you know, you’re able to say, like, if you were one of our task rabbits, you were able to say, like, okay, well, I’m getting to work with this person who has 20 years of experience. I get to see their resume. I get to watch a video about them. I get to look at samples of their previous work.

27:01 That, you might be able to get a little bit of that, but it’s not really coming with the guarantee that we’re able to provide. So you guys really vet. Really vet. I mean, our TaskRabbit profiles in the U.S. are so robust at this point.

27:13 I mean, there’s a video of them, there’s samples of their work, there’s a section that acts as essentially a cover letter, so you get to really pick who you want to work with. So like for example, personal assistant work, like I had an experience where I needed some flights changed in the US and the way it works is you say, I need someone to help me get this flight changed. It would be great if you could get it done for free, if anyone knows any workarounds with the airlines.

27:41 And within five minutes, I had a guy that was like, I’m a 20-year airline veteran. I know exactly what to say to them to get this done. Where else would that exist? So they’re able to put in a bid on the offer and then sell themselves while they do it. Fair enough.

27:55 You have venture capital money behind you. We’ve had a bunch of VCs on here, and one of the qualities they always look for in a startup is scalability. But for you guys, scaling is not as simple. You have to get people like you on the ground, you have to vet these rabbits, and so to take a mobile app and scale it globally is one thing, but it’s tougher for you guys to scale. So how do you remain attractive to VCs and investors that way?

28:18 Well, I’d like to think that we are quite scalable. We figured out a formula that really works. I mean, in the last, we’re alive in 19 cities at this point, and just adjusted London, and we’ve done like five cities in the past two months. So at this point, we’re able to do it really quickly. It’s HR heavy though, quite a bit.

28:37 No, not really. Not too loud? Yeah, so we actually don’t, in the US, everything is done through headquarters. So what we do is we don’t have community managers on the ground, our operations team will take a quick flight meet our inaugural TaskRabbit group there, but at that point is when we really turn it to the community and say like, listen, this is your thing to run, right? So like you want to run tasks on this platform, like we need your help, you know, it kind of, it takes a village, so they say.

29:06 So we provide them marketing materials, we provide them support, we provide them with training materials, but then we have what we call our TaskRabbit elite in the US where we kind of turn it over to them and say like, help us build this thing. And they take a lot of the onus on themselves. And it’s really great because we have a 20,000 person workforce right that that is part of our platform that can help us grow this business And really we’re doing the same thing in London where you know there has not been a day gone by That I haven’t used a Tasker in London to help me build the business somehow like a for example We just set up a partnership with Yelp where we have they’re throwing this awesome, and I don’t want to to kill their, take their, steal their thunder, but they’re throwing this awesome event where they’re rewarding businesses for just being great in London.

29:51 And there’s about 400 businesses that they’re sending invitations out to. And they were planning on just doing it themselves and reached out to us, and they were like, do you guys have any taskers that might be able to help us do this? And so tomorrow we have four taskers going out delivering 400 invitation boxes to different businesses in London, you know? So like, the taskers kind of become your marketing workforce. Like we can use them for, you know, however, they want more tasks.

30:16 So they see it as like the more that they can get out there wearing their TaskRabbit shirt, wearing their TaskRabbit jacket with cards in their hand, like they know that means more tasks for them. Well-spoken. She passed out of the flying colors. She said, I respect her to say, I’m head of community. Ask, you know, ask Leah, but boom, boom, boom.

30:33 All right, you passed. Thank you. That was very good stuff. Did I get an A? Or did I pass?

30:38 Yeah. Oh yeah, I know. Passing is average. That’s the American. That’s the American A.

30:42 It has to be an A, I just get a B or a B plus. I’d say that’s like A minus. You mentioned your elite, your TaskRabbit elites, and you guys use gamification in your business model. Maybe you don’t like that word. I don’t know.

30:55 Yeah, gamification is totally… It’s all about like you have to do a certain number of tasks right and you get the t-shirt and then like there’s a certain number of people that vie for like the task or the month and it’s this whole like game that people play and it’s, I don’t know, I thought it was fascinating when I read about it. So tell us about it. Yeah, so that’s part of, I just wanna be pretty clear, so that’s part of our U.S. product.

31:13 So right now, since we just launched in London four weeks ago, everyone is kind of on the same level in London, so I wanna speak to a little bit of how it works in London first, where basically the taskers are really just buying for positive reviews. What we’ve realized is you get picked to work on a job because of your reviews and because of your previous work experience. So here, it’s working really well where we just say, thumbs up, thumbs down, would you work with this person again, write a review about them.

31:42 In the US, it does work a little bit differently. We have our TaskRabbit Elite, where if you run a certain amount of tasks, you get brought into this program or you get an Elite badge that just shows like, hey, Lauren is a TaskRabbit Elite, meaning like she is the cream of the crop on the site. And it kind of gives our users the insight of like, okay, this person is someone that has a lot of experience on the site. So we do these things to provide an excellent level of customer service for our clients, but it also makes it a little bit fun for our taskers as well.

32:13 Now, yes, there’s a little bit of competition to it, and yes, it is gamified, but I will tell you that again, these people are entrepreneurs, so at the end of the day, what they really care about is making money. They wanna make money on the site. That’s why they’re part of the platform. So if you’re like an elite tasker, you can charge more, presumably? That’s the trend that we actually do see.

32:33 So when you first join the platform, you might have like a one hourly rate. And as you become more senior and more of a veteran, you’re like, okay, well, and it’s same way in the traditional workforce where you’re like, okay, I started out in an entry level salary, but I’ve been around the block quite a bit, so I’m gonna increase my rate. And they know that they can do that because they provide a different level of service than other people can. So yeah, the gamification is something that it’s really, it makes it fun for the task rabbits, but really it’s all about at the end of the day for the task rabbits making money, And then we do these things to make sure that the clients have an awesome experience and can really decide who they wanna work with based on a set of criteria.

33:11 Is that used much as a gamification? I sure haven’t seen it much in the UK. Yeah, not as much for sure in the US. I’m just trying to think where you do see it. Well, you see it, so I’m not sure if Busu uses it, but someone like the online language learning sites.

33:27 Right. Use it so once you learn a certain amount and you get to a certain level and you can compete with friends and how fast you’re learning and all that sort of stuff. Slightly different. Lauren, you’re in a unique situation because you basically just landed in London three months ago. So I got to get your take on this city and what it feels like as a tech community.

33:46 You’ve been to the Silicon drink abouts. Bryce Keene is a big part of this show. We started going to the drink abouts when this started. And it was just different for me because everyone’s really friendly. They try to include new people, but they’re not pitching their business model and pulling out their prospectus while you’re talking to them.

34:02 It’s kind of got this laid-back English feel, but still quite a friendly vibe. And what does this city feel like when it comes to a tech community? Because you’ve seen East Coast, West Coast, you know. Yeah, yeah. And do you live, is your office is in shortage?

34:16 Yeah, so we work out of Central Working. Okay. Yeah, so it’s like I said, at this point we’re a two-person team. It’s myself and then my- Central Working Rapists at Google campus? Yes. Okay.

34:25 Yeah, so James, I feel, you guys know James. He’s big in the, yeah. So he’s been really, and that’s, that’s that’s. Or new. Smiley nod.

34:35 Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. James. James. Of course, no, but so. Jay dog.

34:39 No, it’s, I mentioned James just because like, he’s one of the people that have just been, and so the whole entire central working group have been so supportive of us. And you make a good point with like, with Bryce, for example, like when I landed in London, when I was moving here, I, you know, dropped my bags off at my new flat, and the first place I went was drink about, so I had done a little research, and knew that that’s where people in the technology scene hang out. I didn’t know much about it.

35:06 And I knew about the three beards. I’d been following them on Twitter for a little while but didn’t really know what to expect. And I actually brought myself and two members of my team who were here as well. We showed up and they were so nice to us. And I don’t mean just they, the three beards.

35:23 Everyone was so nice to us. They’re like, oh, you work at TaskRabbit. I’ve heard about TaskRabbit. We’ve been wanting you guys to come to London forever. Are you launching?

35:31 Is that why you’re here? Oh, my God. We’re so excited. The enthusiasm was almost overwhelming. I had followed Bryce on Twitter, and Bryce was like, oh, you’re Lauren from TaskRabbit.

35:41 You followed me on Twitter. It’s really nice to meet you, and I was like, this guy, yeah, right? They took us- He’s got 4,000 Twitter followers, and he’s saying thank you to each one. Exactly. That’s what I need to do.

35:53 He’s probably got a TaskRabbit working for us. There we go. He did. He definitely, yeah. I just was so impressed by the community here.

35:59 That night ended up going out to dinner with Bryce and Joe and just nerded out for a few hours about startups and what we’re doing in London and what our plans are and how we can work with the beards. That was just such a nice introduction into the London startup community that it got better from there. That’s not what San Francisco’s like? That’s not what Silicon Alley’s like? I think that it’s a matter of the amount of enthusiasm that’s in London.

36:26 Right now, it’s small. It’s tight knit. Everyone is kind of working together. They’re trying to partner with each other to make sure both businesses are as successful as possible. And you even said it yourself, when you go to these events, no one’s pulling out their resume or pitching you to them or telling you how much investment they ran.

36:42 And I’m not necessarily saying that’s how it is in Silicon Alley or Silicon Valley. I’m just saying that because it’s newer here, there’s a lot more enthusiasm and it just feels a little bit more genuine. Okay, fair enough. What’s missing here, do you think? Do you think there’s anything where there’s a barrier there to the business getting bigger, or London getting bigger.

37:01 No, not at all. I think London is in, the London technology scene is exactly where it needs to be. I think that it’s right where New York was a couple years ago. Courtney Myers was on the show a couple weeks ago, and we worked really closely with her, and she was just kind of talking about the difference between Silicon Alley and the London started seeing it. I feel like I take similar approaches as she does.

37:25 It’s very exciting to be here right now because you’re getting to be a part of this amazing growth. So I don’t think, the only thing that I really would like to see there be more of is there’s a lot of really amazing companies here, like London born and raised companies, and I think that a lot of them deserve more venture capital than what they’re raising. And I think it’s kind of a shame that a lot of companies that are from London originally feel that they have to go to San Francisco or have to go to the Silicon Valley to raise capital.

37:54 I wish there was more of those opportunities for companies here, but that’s something I can’t really speak to, it’s just something that I’ve observed. Fair enough. Yeah. Colin, what am I missing? Well, on the fundraising, where did you guys, who’s backing you with VCs?

38:07 Yeah, so First Run Capital, Founders Fund, we are, Founders Fund did our series C, so those are our two big ones. At this point, we’re at a series C, so we’ve had a lot of people contributing to our different rounds of investment, but those are the big guys. And is it true that Tim Ferriss was like an original contributor or advisor? I mean, you guys started as a Facebook incubator in like 08, right? F.B. Fund?

38:35 F.B. Fund. Yeah. They’ve been incubated back. Interesting.

38:39 I didn’t even know that existed. Yeah. So it’s really interesting. So Leah, Leah Busky, who is our founder. And she’s from San Francisco.

38:45 She’s actually from Boston. So she was an engineer at IBM. And her and her husband, Kevin Busky. Actually, little known fact, they started the company together, like a lot of people, Kevin is a little camera shy. Hi, Kevin.

38:59 I think he’s probably watching. But… Behind the camera again. There we go. Yeah.

39:04 He’s like saying, damn it, Sherman. Calling me camera shy in front of all these people. Oh, no. Hashtag camera shy. Yeah.

39:10 But no, they’re so great. And Kevin and Leah started TaskRabbit out of the second bedroom in their house in Boston. Like Leah was working at IBM, and she met with Scott Griffith, who at the time was the CEO of Zipcar, and he had said to her, you know, just see how far, every day, see how far you can take this, just see how far you can take it. And she took that advice. She quit her job.

39:31 She built the first version of TaskRabbit herself. And then she was going back and forth to San Francisco, meeting with different people. And she had told me once that, you know, she had an opportunity to meet with Tim, but they were really strapped for cash at the time. Really strapped. This is like, oh wait, oh no.

39:50 Yeah. We just raised cash in some tough years. We did, yeah. And so she was, and I think it was a hard decision for her, because she was like, this guy could definitely be an integral part of the business if I can get out there and talk to them. But I don’t, you know, we were running out of money at the time.

40:06 And when I say we, I mean Kevin and Leah, because that’s all it was. She like took a huge chance and booked a flight, even though didn’t have the money to do it, met with Tim. And she, one thing I love about her, she’s just like, you know, she goes for it. And she’s super enthusiastic about the business and she believes in it. She asked them right then and there, like, will you advise my company?

40:26 And he said yes. And then from there, it was just a series of things. They moved the company out west, did the FB fund. I personally met Leah. I was ex-ZIPCAR for four years.

40:40 I was working out of the ZIPCAR San Francisco office. And Scott Griffith, the CEO of ZIPCAR, was nice enough to give Leah their CMO at the time and Brian Leonard, who’s still our VP of engineering at TaskRabbit, a little bit of space in the office. So I met her when I was working at Zipcar. So Zipcar gives her free office space when she steals her employees? No, no, yes.

41:03 That is exactly what, no, no. Going offline? No, no. So what ended up happening was actually like my, you know, Zipcar was the best, like I did Zipcar straight out of university. So it was like the best experience that it could have been, But I was really interested in more of the B2B side.

41:19 So I went to Lewis PR, which is actually a London-based PR agency, and did business development with them for a year. But TaskRabbit, I had met Leah, and I was just really enthusiastic about the idea. And so I ended up emailing her and just saying, like, a year after doing this business development role, I was like, I see you’re hiring marketing people. And I interviewed, and the rest is history. but it was definitely like very serendipitous that like she met Scott, Scott believed in the idea, she was working out of Zipcar and then next thing I know, Kobe, her golden retriever is sitting on my feet at an interview in the San Francisco office.

41:56 Yeah, I wanna ask you a little bit more about crossing the Atlantic, you know, we had Courtney Boyd Myers in here, she’s kind of advising Y plan, who are gonna be a guest on our show soon, who have gone from London to New York. And we’ve seen a lot of yanks go to invade Europe and you know, take it over and fail. And I was just wondering if there’s any like things thought about or companies you modeled before you came over here, I mean, knowing Lauren, she probably researched the hell out of it, you know, knowing what you need to do and not do, you know, when you, when you take your American business model and your American, you know, entrepreneurism and come and come to a place like London.

42:26 Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s, I think it’s a really important thing to, to down, to downplay, it sounds terrible, but to kind of to downplay how American your business is, right? We are an American company coming to London, that does not mean that we know more than anyone else here and that we’re better or different in any other way. Bryce Kean, I remember he sent me an email once because he gave me a really awesome idea for something. I was stuck on something, I couldn’t remember what it was, but he sent me this email and I just wrote him an email.

43:01 I was like, Bryce, thank you so much, you have saved me. This is awesome. And he was like, see, us British entrepreneurs can teach you Americans a thing or two. Says the Australians. And that’s what I said.

43:11 I wrote them back. I was like, would have been a good joke except for you’re an Australian, but like, no, but it just to, I wanted to, it was very important to me as an American coming and representing the company that we, like I said, completely ingrained ourselves in the culture here. It’s so, so important. And that’s why, you know, I was really a little bit nervous early on with like localization, making sure we’re nailing that and making sure that we’re like, we are aligned with the people that we’re gonna be working with because it’s really important not to come and like overpower people.

43:42 And so like when we came, like I just tried to get involved as many groups as I could, meet as many people as possible. You know, like Drummond from Go Car Share was like a huge person in the peer-to-peer collaborative consumption space here in London and it was incredibly helpful in like getting us linked into those types of groups. So I would just say that like when you’re, as an American coming to London, like it’s really important to just make sure that you realize that you’re not playing by American rules anymore.

44:13 You’ve got to be respectful of local culture. I think it’s really important. And nobody wants to be the ugly American. It doesn’t go over well. Don’t pit-freeboreau.

44:19 No, it doesn’t look good. It’s not a good look for anyone. Don’t pit-freeboreau, yeah. But I would say, Courtney has been actually working with Audience I.O. as well, because they know, Courtney, she launched GA here, a New York General Assembly, a New York-based startup.

44:32 So when I saw how successful their European launch was, It’s like, well, what can you, how do you do that? Like how do you make sure, how can we make sure that we’re doing the same things? And I think a huge advantage point that we have is that we actually have, like our taskers are all from London, you know? So we are inherently, you know, our community. 50 of us are our locals.

44:54 Yeah, if anybody has to get that right, you do. Right. Because your people are interacting with other people. Yeah. You can’t ship 50 yank rabbits over here.

45:01 No, we would never do that. You know, it’s like, that’s, you know, that is our business, is when we come, we bring on locals, and then we learn from them. So like I said, I work with our taskers on different types of tasks, helping to push the business forward every day. So it doesn’t matter what the scenario is, it’s on the phone, like yesterday I was working with one of our taskers stepping gift boxes, and I just ask a million questions, because I don’t know anything about this.

45:26 I’m learning every day, but have definitely had a lot of fun doing it. All right, I’ve got to ask her the questions. This is a question we ask everyone that comes here, and I’m gonna hit you with it Lauren. If you had to make a phone call to the 20-year-old Lauren Sherman and give that young lady a bit of advice, I don’t know what she was doing at that point, and give her a bit of advice about what she should do with her life, what would you tell her? I would tell her to trust her instincts because every time I’m about to make a really big change in my life, I get really nervous, like really like, almost like sick, I’m so nervous.

46:00 Like when I was about to move to London, I was terrified. When I was about to move to San Francisco, I was terrified and I get so scared and every time it has worked out for the best, like unanimously. And so I think I would save myself a lot of heartache and a lot of making myself worried sick if I just trust myself a little bit more. Like I know the right inside of me know the best decisions to make and I just need to trust my instincts a little bit more.

46:23 Good advice. On that same note, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received? You know, Leah, I think, as far as TaskRabbit goes, Like Leah has a saying, which is every day she wakes up and decides what she can do in the next 24 hours that will push the business forward. And I think as an entrepreneur, that’s a really, really good advice. And like building this business in London has been the most entrepreneurial experience of my life.

46:48 And I do try to do that every morning, wake up and decide like, what are the like four tactical things I can do today to just push this business forward in the next 24 hours? What were your four things today? Yeah. Well, this is a big one. Kill London Real.

47:04 Yeah, I know. There’s a lot of, there are a lot of people watching right now, so I think doing this is a big one. Hopefully. Yeah, let’s hope so. Maybe just two people.

47:14 Yeah. So getting the word out there. Yeah, getting the word out there and like, you know, just, we had some press opportunities today that, you know, are going to be coming out in the next couple of days. Some really big partnerships that I’m really excited about. And just like, I can’t say much because I would be, you know, Disclosing.

47:32 And that 24-hour thing is so you don’t get caught up in too many long-term plans that you can’t manifest in a day. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. You know, it’s just like about like living in the moment and saying like, you know, we are a brand new business here.

47:45 We are approaching London very much as like we are a brand new business and a brand new market because, you know, the model that we built here is not the same that it is in the U.S. Like the product is completely different. And so we’re treating it very much that way. And so I think that it’s really important to have things that you can wrap your arms around and say like, these are the four things that I can think of at 9am and accomplish by 10pm and then I’m going to move on to, I’m going to move the things I didn’t accomplish back onto the list in the next day, but I’m going to just have a few really tactical things.

48:16 It’s kind of like Martin’s… Beer Guard, yeah. I call it the today list, not the to-do list. So I’ve got a list of 20 things, but I try to get the fresh thing out in the morning, just three things. writing it down is really important too, you know, I definitely subscribe to the knowledge of like the secret and that sort of thing where like, if you write it down, it will, it will manifest, you know, I find I sometimes during the day I’ll just kind of like zone out and just not know what to do next. And if I have a listener, I’ll just be like, Oh, that’s next. And so your downtime, I’m just kicking off next, next, next, next. And it feels so good to scratch it through.

48:49 Yeah, that’s the best part. Yeah, it really does. It’s weird that way. Um, The last bit of that question is what’s your advice to the 20-year-old who’s listening to this right now or watching us live on YouTube that wants to be like Lauren one day, that wants to grow up and be part of a very exciting startup or be part of something new. What do you tell them?

49:08 Yeah. Well, first of all, if you’re 20 years old and you’re watching this podcast right now, I’m really, really impressed. Why? Well, because you know … We don’t resonate with the younger generation?

49:17 No. And I don’t think I caught the entrepreneurial spirit until I was at Zipcar, which was like 22, 23, which is when it really caught on for me. I was never really that into school. My professors never really lit the fire for me, but when I started actually doing it myself was when I got really excited. So I would say to those people, go out and meet as many people as you can.

49:39 Talk to as many people as you can and just get inspired by the people around you. And if you starting to feel like you’re not inspired, then you are doing something wrong. Good advice. I like it. Anything I missed?

49:53 I mean, I know we could be talking for another hour, delving into business nuances. One quick question. It’s already been 45 minutes. It’s been a long day. Oh, wow.

50:02 Quick, quick, quick. Yeah, yeah. One quick question. What’s the average rates people charge, taskers charge, in London? Yeah, it’s about 12 pounds an hour.

50:10 And is that competitive with exchange rates to the US, or do you find people charge more here. It’s competitive. It’s competitive. Yeah, it’s pretty much the same. Yeah, and so is what we call the average daily take-home.

50:20 So if you look at the amount of money a tester can make in London and the amount they can make in the U.S. and the amount that it’s comparable. Okay, now we’ve got these cards for 25 pounds. Yes. And you’re saying anyone that goes on your website can get the same value.

50:32 Yeah, real 25. R-E-A-L 25, 25 pounds off. What would you recommend that they try? What’s something that probably people aren’t thinking of that they could get on your site with that discount? So right now, when I was over here, I was emailing with my sisters who are in the US that were talking about Christmas gifts at this point.

50:47 So I think unanimously, everyone is a little bit crazy and stressed with Christmas. And Christmas shouldn’t be stressful. It’s a time to spend with your family and your friends. So I would say think of the gift shopping, gift wrapping, the events that you have coming up. Think of your to-do list that you guys are all writing down.

51:04 And look and see the things that you can outsource. And try to outsource something, Because when you realize that there are people out there that can help you with your to-do list, it’s a sort of magical moment where you’re like, wow, I don’t have to do everything myself. There are people out there that can help me. So I would recommend Christmas, but if not, just like take a look at your to-do list for inspiration. And they can shop for you?

51:23 They can wrap up. They can shop for you, yeah. How do they shop for you? Do you just put it up online? Like, so if it’s shopping, right?

51:29 I’m looking for someone to shop for me and then someone bids on that. Is that how it works? Yeah, so the way it works is when you go to our website, there are three categories. So it’ll say like Candyman house cleaner or Christmas help. And then when you click Christmas help, it breaks it down for you.

51:41 So it’s like Christmas shopping. You’d start typing and then we pop up a little bubble. It’s like, remember to include these details that helps the Tasker get a better idea of what it is that you’re looking for. And then you type in your postcode and then you hit submit. So on the Tasker side of things, they fill in the things that they want to do, the types of tasks, and then they draw a map really of where they want to work in London.

52:04 And if where your postcode is corresponds with the category that that person wants to work and in the area that they’re willing to work, that would be a match. So then we’d actually surface taskers for you. So then you can take a look at their profile, you can take a look at, you know, the past experience that they have, their past reviews, and then you pick who you want to work with based on their hourly rate, and you hit, like, you would pick your tasker.

52:24 So you submit, I want to work with Lauren, and then it’s done. And then they get a ping on their mobile device that says, Colin wants to hire you, and then you’re launched into a live chat. So then you’re just like, hey, Tasker, can you come by, you know, Monday at 5 p.m. I have X, Y, and Z to do for you, and they can type back for you. You guys determine a place and a time, and then you’re all set to go.

52:43 Well, you guys, is mobile app important for you? Yeah. So right now, the mobile experience, the Tasker experience is completely mobile. We do not have a consumer mobile app, but that’s going to be coming early 2014. We just, our mobile team, just had a off-site, they locked themselves in a cabin in Lake Tahoe for a week and banged it out and now we’re ready to go into beta and alpha mode pretty soon here so it should be should be coming soon awesome what do you miss about the US and what don’t you miss about the US yeah you know so I’ve gotten this question quite a bit because I’m heading back to the States on Friday but I obviously you know miss my family very much I miss my boyfriend a lot but one thing I really miss is a Phil’s coffee have you guys ever had Phil’s no you’re going to San Francisco you’ve got to try Phil’s it’s the most amazing cup of coffee you ever had. Phil’s coffee. Phil’s coffee. So I just started a coffee company so I’m a coffee customer. Yeah. What’s so good about his coffee? Yeah, so it’s just like really rich and really just like it’s it’s delicious and they have this they make and I don’t know what they do do it but like you can order it Phil’s way and it’s like comes with like homemade cream, a little bit of sugar, fresh brewed coffee And it’s just really, really delicious.

53:59 All right, so you’re missing that. I’m missing, yeah, I’m missing that. She hasn’t tried your coffee. Yeah, I need to try your coffee. He was, you know, I did get this.

54:05 He did make me an espresso while I got here. Startups should be helping startups. Yes. I was just saying, you know, when you were talking about your, yeah, we should help, we should think about how we can work together. More importantly, First Action is donating to your Kickstarter when I get off.

54:18 Kickstarter, there you go. Yeah, that’s true. And my other question, you can’t avoid it, Lauren. What, don’t you miss it by the states? Huh.

54:24 Um, that’s such a hard question. Um, you know, what don’t I miss about the States? You know, I just, I find baseball, uh, yeah, you know, I don’t miss baseball that much. No, I don’t miss like, I feel like very much, you know, at home in London and London and I feel like London is a great place to start a business because you can kind of like be in your own world and there’s not a lot of outside distractions like I feel very much like I don’t miss like kind of the rat race mentality I would say I don’t I don’t miss that.

55:04 Okay, good. I think you really identified something that I feel about this community and like everyone you know I think it’s kind of like it’s it’s our first real go at this you know maybe it’s five years behind or four years behind the alley or eight years behind the valley but I feel like everyone’s kind of in this together and everyone wants to see somebody succeed big or everyone gets to succeed big. Absolutely. It doesn’t seem to be that many people that have had the success that can look down on you.

55:27 Everyone’s just like, you know, we have degrees of success and we hope everyone gets there. We want to show the world that London’s going to compete and excel and beat people in certain sectors. And I think that like the fact that I’ve been here for three months and just and I’ve already feel like very much connected to it and like want to see everyone that I’ve been working with and everyone that I’ve met succeed, it’s just like the overall mentality is one of support here and that is why you know I think that London is in a perfect, the London startup community is in a perfect spot to be super successful. I think it will be and I am just so thankful that I get to be part of it. That’s why we’re here. Yeah. To share these stories. Yeah exactly and it’s so much fun. Lauren, how do people get ahold of you? How do they get to your website? Is it Tascrabbit.com? Yeah no it’s Tascrabbit.co.uk.

56:11 Okay cool. If you’re in London, if we have any U.S. visitors, it would be TaskRabbit.com. And then if you have any questions for me, I’m just at Lauren Sherman. You can reach out to me directly on Twitter or Lauren at TaskRabbit.com. You can send me an email.

56:25 Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. Is that it? Did I miss anything?

56:30 First live kind of episode. So hopefully it went well. Hopefully it’s working well. If this is the first time they’re tuning in live, I mean, could it get any better? Oh, you guys are sweet. Thank you. I had so much fun. Thank you so much for having me.

56:42 Yeah, no, our pleasure. You know, it’s just great to have everybody with a new story. It’s really nice to hear Americans’ perspective coming over here, and yeah, it’s great to get your idea. It’s kind of what we see in the community, like all these crazy positive things going on. So that’s why we’re doing the show.

56:55 We’ve got a brand new website, siliconreal.com. This will be out in about a week or so on the site in a fully edited version. So if you’re watching us live, it is more than a webcam. It’s a little more than a webcam. They can see all the cameras.

57:08 They can see. I think people are like, oh, what’s all the lights about? So yeah, check us out there. If you’re listening to us on iTunes, you can come see all of our lovely faces on our YouTube channel, Silicon Reel. We’re at Silicon Reel Twitter.

57:21 Looking for people to help us out in the background is all sorts of things going on. Come be part of the show. It’s so much fun. You get to hang out with super cool dudes like me and Colin, right? Yeah, we’re looking for help.

57:31 Maybe taskers for Silicon Reel. We got lots of tasks. Yes. You guys, we will talk offline. I’m going to get you so many tasks.

57:36 Is it Bonnie that’s going to hook me up with a Wiki page? Bonnie is going to do your Wikipedia page and she’s going to do it. He’s like, Bonnie, we need six Wikipedia pages. Yeah, I know. We’ve got some people who can definitely…

57:48 Is Bonnie watching? Do you think? You know, actually, Bonnie is not watching. I talked to Bonnie when I was on my way over here, and she’s… Yeah, she’s working.

57:55 She’s been out tasking all day long, and her phone’s about to die. Fair enough. I can just see Lauren just cracking the whip with all the disaster happens, but… No way. They’re so good.

58:03 It’s not necessary. Looks like you like self-starters. Awesome. As we say on this show, it’s about the people. Lauren, thank you so much.

58:08 Thank you. And all the best with you guys. I hope you kill it over here. It’s all right, take care guys.