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Hey, everyone. It's Guy here.
So this week, we're bringing you an advice line episode that we really, really loved.
It was with Leah Sullivan, the founder of TaskRabbit, and I was super happy to have Leah back on the show because she has a really interesting perspective on the growth of the digital sharing economy, which was really just taking off when she started TaskRabbit back in 2008.
Leah was so generous, sharing her wisdom and experience, and I hope it can serve as an inspiration for however you're trying to grow as well, so without further ado, enjoy the show!
Hello and welcome to The Advice Line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Roz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
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Alright, let's get to it.
Joining me this week is Leah Sullivan.
She's the founder of TaskRabbit, the online marketplace for services like cleaning, assembling furniture, running errands, and a whole lot more.
Leah, welcome back to the show, thanks for coming on.
It's great to be back, guys.
Thanks for having me.
Super excited to have you back on the show because today we're going to talk to founders who are all building app based or web based products or services and you're one of the OGs in this space.
When I mean, when when ideas like, like Airbnb and Uber weren't yet fully formed, you actually launched TaskRabbit in 2008.
And I mean, this was one of the first brands, it became part of what we now call the digital sharing economy.
And of course, in 2017, you guys were the company was acquired by IKEA.
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it was early days, and it's been awesome to see TaskRabbit and the brand live on.
I was just at an IKEA store a couple weeks ago, and I kind of got a kick out of seeing all the branding around the store as well.
Yeah. Lee, before we get to our collars, I suspect a lot of them are working on ideas that might seem a bit ahead of their time, like it might be hard to convince people why they might need that product or service.
And when you ran into this dilemma, you know, with TaskRabbit at the beginning, how, how did you work to convince people that this was a service that they would want or need, like they would actually have somebody come into their home and assemble their furniture or, you know, or, or go run an errand for them and bring it to their house.
I mean, it seemed insane at the time to invite a stranger into your house to do things.
And even stranger to jump into someone's car, right?
For a ride down the street, that was never gonna happen in 2008.
But you know, having experienced now as an investor and having talked to hundreds, if not thousands of entrepreneurs, I really think it comes down to three things, timing, technology and TAM, the three Ts.
And you know, for me with TaskRabbit, the technology was there.
The time was there.
And it was an idea that everybody understood immediately.
So I felt like there was a market there as well.
And it still took a lot of education and trust building.
And over time, you know, it really started to scale rather quickly.
So you don't always have all three of those things at once.
Yeah. And sometimes it's not the right time or the market or maybe the technology isn't advanced enough.
And so those are kind of the three things I would think about When you're looking at a new idea and can you make those three things converge?
When do you remember it?
Really starting to gain traction because it didn't it was not a it was not an immediate It wasn't like all of a sudden you flip the switch and people like yes, no, it really wasn't I mean we were this tiny company in Boston for you know Almost two years before we even opened the San Francisco market But you know, once we started opening new cities and we saw the people in every single city and every single market start to use the service, give us great reviews, tell their friends, it was a slow build but then you know, you kind of start to build momentum.
All right, why don't we take our first caller?
Let's do it. Hello caller number one, welcome to the advice line.
Hi Guy and Lia, my name is Kate Pitner and I'm calling from Los Angeles, and I am the founder and creator of the Puppy Notes app on the Apple App Store.
I designed Puppy Notes to be an e -cards and greetings mobile app that will let you easily send text and email greeting cards and instant invites and thinking of your notes from the ease of your phone.
Awesome! Well, welcome to the show.
Thank you for calling in.
Before we get to your question, let me ask you a couple of questions.
So this is an app that basically lets you send like a card to somebody, just a digital card. Yes.
Yes. And it's designed to be very simple.
That was the key. Right.
And tell me how you, I'm assuming you have a design background.
Yes. That's how it started, yeah.
Yes, I have been a commercial graphic designer for over 20 years and I partnered with companies like Hallmark, Phygology, Joanne Fabrics, Home Depot, but ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to have my own greeting card line.
And I used to sit in my room and draw and my poor family had to take all of my cards for all of those years.
many many cards and when 2020 hit and the pandemic hit and we all couldn't communicate like we were accustomed to and being able to stay connected to people, I started making greeting cards that I could text an email to family and friends and people really loved them and they kept going where do you get these?
I want to text an email these too and that kind of started the whole process and that's take a couple years and and a whole lot of time and stress and development.
And I was able to launch two weeks before Christmas in 2022 on the app store.
And basically the app makes it easy to just like, write a message to somebody on a card, a really designed card and you could just text it to them or you turn it into like a text or an email or what.
Yeah. Yeah, so you go on the app and you select...
I have them categorized by different themes, so holidays or birthdays or thank -yous.
You pick your card you want, you scroll through the options, tap on it, type your message.
I've added some fun features where you can customize the font and color and the size and make it really personal.
And then you just click send and you can choose to just text it, to email it, you can social share.
It kinda has a lot of fun options.
Yeah. And did you have to make like a sizable investment to develop this, to get people to help you build it, or did you build it yourself, or yeah?
Luckily I could do all the designing of the artwork.
But I'm not a coder, and that was my first hurdle.
I asked a number of friends, got some mentoring on what on earth this coding thing is, and how to even do it.
It's a whole different language.
And I did find I've had a few different developers, I have a great development team.
And and that's how I kind of started.
I had to teach myself how to do the basics, like the UI UX design.
I did that myself. And then we built from there.
Got it. And and the app is for like a freemium model.
So it's like free. But then you pay for some stuff?
Yeah. So it's free to download.
And I have a welcome pack of cards that are free for everyone to use and start using right away.
I also have another category just added called spotlight where I'm partnering with nonprofits to create at their own line of puppy notes cards, like you know, breast cancer awareness, and then to receive full access to the entire library.
It's a low monthly subscription.
U .S. $1 .99 a month.
Got it. Okay, and before we get to Leah, tell me what question you brought for us today.
My problem is, or my biggest challenge is, finding and reaching my audience, particularly as a tech product.
And it's easy to get lost on the App Store, it's easy to get lost on Instagram.
I'm trying to reach my audience.
I know that was something you definitely dealt with Leah Yeah, all right before Leah before we get to to the question to Kate's question Do you have questions for for Kate and for what she's building?
Yeah Well Kate first off super impressive that you've been able to build this much You know basically on your own and all of the design work that you've done.
I mean, it's really really incredible And so, yeah, I mean, I think I understand the question just reaching that audience.
And I think, you know, my main, I guess, question and feedback, and I'd love to hear how you think about this, is I know that there's a lot of categories and a lot of designs available right now on Poppy Notes, which is amazing.
The App Store is super, super crowded for lifestyle apps.
I mean it's just like crazy how many apps are in that category and so it takes a lot to stand out It takes a lot to rise above the noise so I'm wondering how can we figure out what the wedge is that you can create that Differentiates you and what you're offering people and maybe it starts with how people are using it already or maybe it's something new and different That you know, we haven't tried yet.
So what are what are your thoughts there?
That's a very good question.
So So, in the category idea, you're talking about different themes and different types of cards, so maybe I wanna market a real specific theme to a specific audience so that I can hook that audience.
Is that kind of what you're asking?
That's kinda what I'm thinking, and I just wonder if you look at the competitive landscape of what's out there today, I think Paperless Post, I think eVite, I think these big apps You know that, you know have kind of built up their base over many many years even decades And they're kind of have this generalist approach where they're available across all these categories.
I wonder if Is there a category that maybe they're missing or maybe as an opportunity for you to focus on like, okay I have I have babies on the mind.
We're getting ready to have our fourth child I wonder like is there something around like gender reveal or Or something that is like a little bit more, you know unique different where you start to build that wedge you start to build an experience Through the app through your designs that is that's differentiated.
No, that's really good I actually am thinking too about babies and you know The idea of I I know when I was in that stage of life, too It's just all encompassing, but I do know a lot of my really popular cards are school age children cards Mom support cards those kind of those kind of things might be really perfect what you're saying And and even I would think through the full stack of how to reach your audience.
Are there influencers?
Are there you know mommy bloggers mommy influencers?
I mean that's a huge category that Paperless post is not partnering with them.
You could be the one partnering with them, right?
And it's differentiated, it's unique, it's custom.
I mean, there is so much noise, but I think if you can find the right ambassadors, the right influencers that align with your brand and values and voice, it can be really, really powerful.
I would, just looking at the app on the App Store as well, it's just gonna get lost in the App Store.
Like, I don't, I don't know how much time I would spend trying to optimize that.
One thing you could do there though, is if you start to build a wedge in a category that is standing out, maybe you can try to get on some lists in the app store that are, you know like top five or top ten, like baby shower, you know, like, not just the lifestyle brand, but very specific because it's just so hard to be in that that big group.
I think you really got to hone in on something that's that's really differentiated.
To me, you know, a lot of these these different apps are, I mean, you know, we've had Canva on the show and and and, you know, some of these other companies in the show and brands the show and they're awesome.
They offer great products um not always super easy for somebody like me to figure out quickly because I'm sort of useless and so it seems like this is really this is like like super plug -and -play like yes I can teach my you know 82 year old dad how to use this in like five minutes the goal yeah and that to me seems like an opportunity that's just sort of maybe senior citizens to you know I talked to my dad every day and my mom and they want to talk to their grandkids and And maybe this is something that there's a way, especially on the blog, because I noticed you've got a blog, which I think is great,
because that's another way to reach people when they're doing searches.
To maybe think about ways to direct some of the message to seniors as well.
You know, hey, is this a way to send a message to your grandkids with just a funny photo and you're a funny message?
That's a great idea.
Actually, I mock up a lot of my cards in my marketing with that in mind.
So I love that you tapped right in.
That's, that's I need to do a little bit more of that, I think.
Yeah, what are the quick, quick thought, which is creating virality, right?
And it's not so easy.
But if you if you've heard the show before, you'll hear the steam pop up again and again, which is the number 1000.
And this is a this is a highly researched number, which is the argument that to start something to create momentum for a brand or product.
You need a thousand people who adopt it, and those thousand people become the force multipliers, right?
And so, is there a way...
And I don't know the exact answer, and I'm sure you've thought about this, but when you send this as a text, when you send it as an email, for there to be some kind of link that essentially says want to make your own, and you click it.
I mean, this is the story of Slack or Dropbox or, you know, um, these other viral products, which is in order to use Dropbox, you gotta set up a Dropbox.
So it invites you to do it.
And I wonder whether it's like, Hey, uh, this, do you like this?
You know, click here to, to, to make your own PoppyNotes.
Okay. That's a good idea.
And then you get every, every member of your family, distant family relatives, you haven't talked to for 25 years, people you thought you didn't to see ever again at Thanksgiving, get all of them to use poppy notes.
Everybody you know, because I'm sure if you think about it, you probably have hundreds of people, distant people all over, loose connections that you can just send this out to, shamelessly, and say, hey, try this and send it on to other people.
Tell them what you think.
Absolutely. Now you have two more fans right here, so.
Thank you so much. I just sent a poppy note right now at Aaliyah.
Yes, absolutely. I love it.
Thank you very, very much both of you.
All right, Kate Pintner, Poppy Notes, good luck.
Congrats. Thank you so much. Take care.
All right. Do you know, you probably had this experience, Leah, which is it's your birthday and your kids are trying to figure out what to do for you.
And you say to them, I just want you to make me a card. Absolutely.
That's all I want. Yes.
I have all those cards for my kids.
Yes. Yes. Now I'm going to say, make me a Poppy Note.
Make me a pop. You know you know the stick figures.
It's like there's something really special about that about a yeah So I'm thinking like Katos a little girl always wanting to have a grieving card company.
Yes the dream. I love the dream Dream all right, and we're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back another caller another question and another round of advice I'm Guy Ross stick around you're listening to need of ice line on how I built this Do you struggle to stay focused?
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Welcome back to the Advice Line on how I built this lab, I'm Guy Neiz.
And my guest today is Task Rabbit founder Leah Sullivan.
So, Leah, let's bring in our next caller.
Hello, welcome to the Advice Line.
Hello, Leah and Guy.
My name is Sharn Sorekli, and I'm from Sydney, Australia, And I'm delighted to be here talking to you today.
Welcome to the show.
Tell us a little bit about the name of your product and what it does.
Yeah, so along with my wife, I'm the co -founder of MyLoveYourLove, which is a couples coaching app, which is designed to take couples on a journey to unlock all the amazing benefits of long -term relationships.
Wow, I'm sure there's a lot to ask you about because you are, I imagine if you and your partner are doing a couples therapy thing then there's a lot to unpack here.
Tell me about how...
So how does it work?
It's an app you download and presumably designed for people who are having problems or what?
Absolutely. Actually it's designed for anybody in a relationship.
And one of the main reasons to create this app is because people come to therapy way too late.
And we know the longer you've had problems in your relationship, the more likely it is that you're going to break up and that interventions aren't going to be as helpful.
So this app is for anybody.
And if you do have problems, yes, it is going to help you.
It's really designed to make your relationship robust and deepen your bonds over the lifetime.
And tell me a little bit about you and your wife.
I'm imagining both of you guys are therapists.
We are indeed. So we're both clinical psychologists and we're both couples therapists as well.
And so it means that, I can tell you, we have a great relationship, but we've had plenty of conflict.
And part of the app is actually wanting to take all of our clinical knowledge, take all the research and distill it into an app.
Coming back to that question before, how does it work?
Well, both parties have to download the app.
It's fully synchronised.
You go on a journey together through a map, through many different interventions and strategies.
And as you move through that journey, two things happen.
One is you unlock your toolbox so that when problems arise in real life, you can go straight to your toolbox and access them in real time.
And on the other side, you actually build out your relationship profile.
So you get to learn about your own vulnerabilities, your vulnerabilities of your partner, your conflict styles, your values and your desires and there's more features to the app than that actually also.
Wow. So how did this idea come about?
I mean, imagine you guys were and are busy doing in real -life couples therapy in Sydney, so how did you guys come up with the idea of like let's make an app?
Presumably you wanted to reach more people because it's expensive to go Couples Therapy and you want a more affordable option, tell me about it.
Absolutely. All of those things.
I think Couples Therapy is universally expensive and separation and divorce is astronomically expensive.
Yeah. So we wanted to create a product that anybody can get access to and look, I've been a psychologist for 23 years now and I've seen the power of a positive relationship.
and sadly I've seen how devastating you know, conflictual and toxic relationships can be, not just on the people in the relationship but those around them as well.
And there's a lot of focus on curing disorders but there's not a lot of focus on preventing and promoting good mental health.
So, we thought how can we make the biggest impact and also there's not really a good guide or handbook about how to have a relationship.
So we thought we need to get these out there to prevent the problems before they happen.
So basically what based on your experience right and this seems intuitive but you know, it's so many things that seem so plainly obvious that we just don't do or ignore.
But essentially what you're saying is if you can...
if you can sort of focus on on conflict resolution quickly then that kind of opens up the possibility of strengthening a relationship and preventing it from spiraling.
Absolutely. So relationships and behaviors run in cycles and feedback loops, and the longer conflict goes on for, the more damage you do.
But more than that, we also know that you know, positive behaviors are protective of the relationship.
So for example, if you have a habit of being loving or kind towards what's your partner.
You're going to be more uncomfortable with conflict.
I want to go back to the status quo.
Now, a lot of people, great relationships have that habit and a lot of relationships don't.
So the app actually helps you identify what cycles do you have, which are good.
What are the patterns and cycles and vulnerabilities that you have, which you probably picked up from your family of origin, from past relationships.
How do we find the antidote to those as a couple, And then we put in the positive behaviours as well.
And what's the cost?
Okay. So, it's $108 per year, if you want to get the yearly version, or $17 .98 per month.
So, on the higher end of apps, but presumably a lot cheaper than going to a therapist?
Well, absolutely. It's a lot cheaper than just one couple therapy session.
And Shawn, what's the question you brought up for us today?
Okay, so my question is about user acquisition.
So we do have a social media campaign going, and we do have a monthly newsletter which has about 1 ,100 subscribers to it.
But user acquisition has been slow going.
And I guess one thing that we didn't think a lot about, which is the whole point of the app actually, is that you need two people committed to take the My Love Your Love journey.
me. And so my question is, how do we find our couples and drive up user acquisition, our committed couples that want to work on their relationship?
Because each couple has to every user pays the monthly or the yearly fee, right?
Yes, but to be clear, when I say $50 for $108 per year, it's $54 per person or at $17 .98.
It's $8 .99 each. So we like to advertise the total price per couple.
So people don't get a of with that.
All right Leah Salvin, I'm gonna bring you in here before we answer Sean's question.
Any questions for him?
I have so many questions Sean.
You are doing such important work.
I love it. It feels like the real question is how do you get people to take their vitamins every day?
Right it's like it's like all about prevention and healthy relationships.
I mean in technology we We always talk about, okay, is this product of vitamin or is it a pain killer?
And you've got a vitamin here.
So we got to think about, how do you sell vitamins?
Right? Absolutely. Are you tied to making both couples sign up at once?
At the moment, yes, it's the way the app works, but I can tell you we did get people saying, how do I get access to this information if my partner is not ready.
Yeah. I'm very excited to announce what we did in response to this after we're exhausted, finishing the app, is we wrote a book, and the books called the 8 love links.
That's going to be out any day now, and people can take the solo journey, and the book is a standalone product, but it does mention the app.
It says in parts, when you're ready, you can take the practical application with your partner.
That's great. That's so exciting.
I love that. Yeah. So I think if, if there are other ways to soften the onboarding because you're immediately shrinking your market down to couples, two people who are willing to both onboard at the same time.
So just, it's going to be a smaller market from the beginning.
Absolutely. So thinking through, can I soften this, are there ways to onboard?
Are there interactions that become the on -ramp to both couples?
I would think through that a little bit more from an app standpoint You know, I would think about where are the couples?
But where are they happy and where are they already doing some of this work?
Are there couples retreats?
Are their travel hotels resorts something that you could kind of partner with to You know offer this as part of their check -in process or part of their package, you know or something So I just think about, okay, where are the couples right now, today, at this moment, you know, that would use this.
They're probably not in therapy, right, because they're already feeling the painkillers.
They're needing the painkillers.
You need to sell the vitamins.
Absolutely. Would you recommend, for example, that we try and get in front of these couples and like maybe give them a free workshop, and then mention to you to that sort of extent.
That sounds like a good idea.
And then the other question I have, Sean up for Leah and Sean, I mean, you know, obviously, for couples therapy to work, you need both partners willing to do it.
But I think in a lot of cases, Sean, and you probably experienced this, it's one partner who really kind of drags the other partner in.
And the other partner is often kicking and screaming or, you know, just not interested.
But, you know, it can be really beneficial.
So I wonder whether there's a world where, you know, going back to Leah's analogy of the painkiller versus the vitamin, where this is a painkiller, where essentially you are pushing this towards to people who are struggling and are looking for ways to resolve, you know, the crises in their relationship.
and it may not be that you have to look for the couple, but you just have to look for the one person first. You know, I've got to say, Guy, like that definitely parallels what we see in therapy.
Don't get me wrong.
I always say when we have two invested parties, we're going to get the best results.
However, often there's somebody who over functions a bit for the relationship that brings a couple in and we still do get amazing results, so I think that's a really good idea.
We just need to really connect with that one person who will then kind of like be the encourager for the for the couple I would also think about along those lines are there certain I think you called them interventions or or interactions or certain modules that could entice the other person in the relationship and Can you you know give that the the other person who's kind of dragging the other one along?
some tools. Can you empower them through these interventions to kind of bring in the other person in the relationship?
Leah do you mean through the app like get them on the app first and then give them the strategy to do that?
You know I've never thought about that but that is a really fantastic idea for us to think about because we do get like we get registrations and we have reached out to people who have registered but not going on to use the app and sometimes of the feedback is my partner, I'm not sure my partner's ready.
So, that's a really good idea.
Yeah, just offer them maybe one module or one intervention, and just say, hey, could you just try this one interaction through that?
Yeah, great. I don't think that would be too hard. I think actually I haven't thought about it in this sense, but we could do like an extra module that is just for each partner to do on their own.
And even if they both connect at the same time, they can work through the introductory model first. And we can kind of really talk about some tips and insights to really try and get both people invested.
Right. And are you...
And you mentioned, like, doing seminars and talking to people and giving them the opportunity to use this for free, which I think is an interesting and smart way to go about it.
And I'm looking at your website here for your landing page.
And I see you've got some press coverage.
I mean, you've got coverage certainly in Australia and on podcasts and the times, I don't know if that's from the UK or from Australia.
And are you finding those, I mean, have those generated interests at, I mean, at the very least, or users?
Yeah, absolutely. I think when we've had good press, we get a spike in registrations and users.
One thing I'm really delighted to say is between 70 and 75 % of all people who do the free trial, I don't know if I mentioned that actually, you get a seven day free trial before you get charged.
70 to 75 % of those people go on to subscribe to the app.
So I think the thing with media is it is hard to get and some of the, unfortunately, I think we went to market a little bit too early and some of the great media we got.
The app was not in its current form.
We've had many iterations of the app.
In fact, we totally redesigned it and changed it for user experience.
It's been in the best form probably since about March of this year.
But with the book, we are hoping to generate more publicity around the book and then secondary publicity for the app as well.
Well, the book is a great excuse too to take it on the road, right, do a book tour, get on the road, do some seminars that are connected to the book and that seems like an awesome opportunity.
Yeah, absolutely. For sure.
The project is called My Love Your Love, But love it's an app.
Sean! Thanks so much. Good luck.
Thank you both for having me.
I am a big fan of the show also, and it's been an absolute delight.
I feel very privileged.
Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it seems like a great...
Right? Because Couples Therapy is...
I mean, I... We've had Ester Perel on my...
On my other shows in the past, and I always think of Ester when I think of Couples Therapy because she, of course...
Love her. She's like the...
you know, sort of the, the guru of it, you know, probably the best known couples therapist in the world.
I mean, it's, it's cool, it's a cool idea, right, because a lot of it's expensive for people to go and pay for any kind of therapy.
It is no, it's a great idea.
I mean, it's. It like I said, it's really important work.
I mean, how good are you though at taking your vitamins every day?
Well, you must know I'm pretty good at it.
Are you? Yeah, I'm pretty good at it, but but but I but I hate to say that.
No, I sound self righteous, but I have them.
Here's, here's my secret I have them next to the coffee machine yeah and and it drives my wife crazy maybe we should go use us out it drives her crazy because she's like people come into our house they see your vitamins all laid on the on the shelf next to the gun and I and what I say she's can you hide them and I said by hide them I will not remember to take them I will literally forget like that's how my brain works so I love that so yeah that's the point it's like you've So, you've gotta have a routine, right?
You've gotta have a routine.
It's good. It's gotta be, it's like a Pavlovian response.
I don't even think about it.
I just, I make my coffee, I've got my vitamins, I put them down, I take them.
I'm gonna try this tomorrow.
Yeah, it's the way to go.
I wish I could do that with everything.
Like with meditation, because I forget to do it.
Yes. Or stretching.
When I stretch every night, it's great.
Maybe I should put my stretching next to the coffee machine.
Coffee machine, coffee machine.
That's the answer. That's the answer, you know, all right.
Stay with us, because after the break we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level.
I'm Guy Ross, and you're listening to The Advice Line, right here on How I Built This Lab.
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Hey, welcome back to the Advice Line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Roz, and today I'm taking calls with Leah Sullivan, the founder of the company Task Rabbit.
So, Leah, let's bring in our last caller.
Hello, Collar. Welcome to the Advice Line here on How I Built This, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your business.
My name is Alan Ward and I'm calling from Honolulu, Hawaii.
I'm the co -founder of DynaBuddy.
DynaBuddy is a streaming service that helps kids learn to play music.
Our goal is to give more people access to high -quality music education at an affordable price.
Amazing. Okay. Well, first of all, Mahalo.
So good to have you here.
Thank you, Alan. Thanks for calling in.
I wish I was there.
You know, I'm in California, so it's not too bad.
So alright, so tell me a little bit about Dynabuddy.
It is a, it is an online platform that teaches kids how to play instruments.
Correct. Yeah. So it's a streaming service, so online play along videos.
videos. And the videos are carefully sequenced to teach kids from day one who may have never held an instrument like how to play, and we'll work them through about the equivalent of the first two years of band instruction.
My wife helped me design it.
She's a musician too.
And we carefully set up our scope and sequence our whole curriculum to align with standards and we have videos and curriculum for all standard band instruments.
So all of the woodwinds brass and percussion instruments that kids may typically learn in public schools.
Got it. Okay so these are streaming videos.
It's called Dynabuddy because they're dinosaur characters that teach kids how to do these things.
Dynabuddy yes you got it.
the name of the company is a play on words and so we we wanted to take the word dynamic d -y -n -a and which is a musical term and like fuse that with dinosaur to sort of imply music friend and my cousin was the graphic designer for this and he described the whole project as sort of a Trojan horse for music education where the kids are just having a fun time doing this thing and they walk away being able to play and understand music a whole lot more.
Got it. Okay. So tell me what your question is for.
Yeah! So Guy and Leah from your perspective, how can we recruit early adopters and find our ideal product market fit?
Alright, okay. Lots to unpack here.
Leah, questions for Alan?
Alan tell us a little bit more about the specific target age group that this is best for.
Yeah so ideally the target age range is you know about the fourth to sixth grader and would support them.
Currently what we have up would support them for about two years and we have our curriculum map to support students all way through the end of high school.
Okay, got it. And you know it seems like the idea and the strategy and sort of the go -to -market plan has been through the school system, is that correct?
Are you really tied to that as the strategy?
That was the original idea.
And one thing I've been paying attention to is the rapidly changing educational demographics in our country.
and especially the prevalence of home schools, micro schools, charter schools and the increasing number of families that are looking for alternatives to the public school experience.
And so yeah, I'm not tied to the public schools as our market.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's good to hear just because I do think that, you know, from a venture investor standpoint, which is where my brain works, You know, the industry is so fragmented, it's slow, it's underfunded, and there's not a lot of room, you know, to innovate.
And so I think thinking through, you know, other strategies of getting dino buddy, into the right audience, into, you know, that that early adopters, as you said, that's really gonna grasp what you're what you're doing here and take it and run with it, I think, is what you want.
I mean, one idea I have for you, Alan, is, have you thought about there are a lot of, I think, music teachers or people that are passionate about teaching music to kids?
You know, I just wonder if there are ambassadors or people that could utilize this as part of their curriculum and kind of helping to streamline you know what they're what they're teaching and how they're teaching it and can you make this kind of a standard for music teachers who want to want to help kids at that at that age?
That is a phenomenal idea and something we thought of and I'm trying to actively set up at the moment.
I have been doing clinics in local public schools and would love to get this into a teacher training program, say for example, at a university where they're sending out the next generation of music teachers, and those people are much more open to new ideas, usually than established teachers on the ground.
And we see that as a huge opportunity.
One of the things, Alan, that you probably have come across, And I know that you have been kind of seeing if you could connect with homeschoolers, a lot more kids being homeschooled, which is a really interesting phenomenon on the market.
And I have a kids' media company.
We make kids' podcasts and other kids' books, Science Around Science.
And we have a lot of homeschooled kids who listen to Wow in the World or read our books.
But the challenge, as I'm sure you've faced, is schools.
It's really hard to get anything into schools.
there's big bureaucracies.
And they're also strapped.
They just don't have the budgets.
But one thing that has been successful for us at Tinkercast, we have an online platform that teaches kids critical thinking skills using our audio podcasts, is we basically every time somebody buys a membership, we gift one to a classroom.
So, you know, we're giving it away, but we're also encouraging people to use it and with the hopes that some of the kids might come home and say, how can we get this too?
And so there's an opportunity here, I think, for you to create a way and certainly starting it in Honolulu, where you're based, but trying to expand it from there, where somebody could buy a membership and then you will gift one to a classroom, or that they can gift one to a classroom.
Like I think that you might want to experiment with these kinds of tiers, because what you really want to do is get it in, and I know you're doing this, but you really need to get it in front of as many eyes as possible, and you won't be able to go all over the country to do that.
You need it to grow without you being there.
And so one of the ways to do that, I think, is to try this gifting subscription model.
I love that idea. Yeah.
And the way you have that structured is the person who's purchasing the product and then electing to give the gift, are they choosing where the gift goes or is that an internal decision?
We usually give them to like Title I schools around the country, you know, where kids don't have access to the same kinds of resources.
So, you know, that's one approach. You can decide how you want to do it.
You know, maybe it's for homeschoolers, whatever.
However you decide it to do it, you can create a mechanism where kids are get exposed to this.
I mean, look, we know there's so much research behind this.
And I'd love to see you push this a little bit more on your website, because your website is nice.
But it's very simple.
And I understand that you probably are limited in your budget, but there are things you can do, even on a limited budget to get that message across, which is to say, parents and Leah, I think you can attest to this.
We're interested in enhancing our kids brains.
Right. Yes, whether it's keeping them away from screens or, you know, exposing them to different activities.
And music is like, number one at the top of that list, you get kids playing an instrument.
And I'm sorry, my kids just, I couldn't get them to keep practicing piano. But, you know, you get them doing that.
It switches something on in their brains early in their lives.
And that's, that's also something I'd love to see more of on your website.
I agree with that too.
And I think to Guy's point, just the homepage of your website too, making that more geared to parents or who the decision maker is going to be.
Because it looks super fun for the kids, which is awesome.
But as a parent, I want to come here and I want to be compelled to, oh yeah, I'm going get my little guys signed up for this because it's going to have x, y, and z benefits and look how fun and easy this is going to be.
So I would think a little bit more too about who the decision maker is, who is the buyer and kind of reposition the brand and the ask to those people.
That makes complete sense, yes.
Originally, we had designed things to make it fun and appealing for the young ones and yeah as the more I've thought about it and gone through things it realized I'm really just speaking to the parents I need to message towards that but but yeah I I hear what you're saying and agree with it and we'll follow through with those changes Alan Ward Dinah buddy thanks so much for calling in good luck man thank you so much been a huge fan of the show listening for years thank you thank you well Leah did you get your kids to any your kids instruments?
You know the middle guy right now, he's just really, we started a piano. Yeah.
Now he's into guitar, you know, anything, yeah.
Awesome. Percussion.
Yeah. Some kids just get...
They just, you know, I do another show called The Great Creators, I interview a lot of musicians.
And doesn't matter who it is, Jeff Tweedy or, you know, or Bjork or any of these people have done a show.
Yeah. They all just something in their brains clicked when they were little yeah and they just wanted to play instruments and and I think there's some kids who are forced to do it and then eventually they just like you know surrender and they're like actually like this you know right and then there's some kids who just it's it's punishing you know but our kids were good at piano we just the pandemic happened and then like they would try to online piano and it just kind of fizzled away so I failed I failed as a parent.
Well I'm sure you're succeeding meeting in many other ways, guys.
I'm not worried about you.
I don't have future members of the New York Philharmonic.
Yeah. Well. All right.
Well, Leah, hopefully we can check back in in a couple years with some of these folks and they'll be like, yeah, that was it.
I would love that. That advice, turn it around.
I would love that. I would love to see it.
I think all of these companies are doing something so unique and really special.
So it was really fun to talk with them.
When you think about what you wish you knew or what you might have told yourself early on in 2008 that, you know, like knowing what you know now with all your experience and I mean, just, you know, you've sort of seen hundreds of companies now as an investor.
What would you have advised yourself or told yourself back then?
Yeah, I mean, I think it really is.
And we saw this today with all of these founders and companies, it's about focus and prioritization.
I think as a founder you have so many ideas, you see all the possibilities and really you have to pitch all of those possibilities to kind of bring people in and inspire them and get the company off the ground.
But when it comes down to execution and customer acquisition you've really got to be focused.
You've got to create that wedge in the market and you've got to understand you got to build brick by brick baby steps, you know to get to that full North Star vision.
Yeah, totally, totally agree.
Leah Solvan, founder of TaskRabbit, thank you so much for coming back onto the show.
Thanks so much for having me, guys.
A lot of fun. And by the way, if you guys haven't heard Leah's original How I Built This Episode, you have to go back and check it out.
You can find a link to it in the podcast description.
But here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.
So we're scaling up and we're also realizing that the product now in 2011, is it's just not working, it's just not working.
And at this point, there are competitors coming out that are launching mobile -first mobile only.
And we've been on the web.
I mean, honestly, it's like the entire consumer market and expectation just changed underneath us and we missed it.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week.
Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show.
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This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music composed by Romptina Rablui.
It was edited by John Isabella.
Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez.
Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Chris Messini, Carla Estevez, Elaine Coates, J .C.
Howard, Katherine Seifer, Devin Schwartz, Niva Grant, and Sam Paulsen.
I'm Guy Roz and you've been listening to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
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