How to Start, Sell a Million-Dollar Company: TaskRabbit Founder [Video]

Leah Solivan was an IBM engineer, working on business collaboration tools like Lotus Notes, when she found her million-dollar startup idea: an online marketplace connecting customers with “taskers” who could run errands or do household chores for them at a price.

The idea arose from Solivan running out of dog food one night and asking why she couldn’t connect with someone at that moment who could pick it up for her. It was 2008 and the first iPhone had come out a year prior. Solivan saw the potential in her iPhone for a location-based business.

^{Leah Solivan. Photo: Chance Yeh/WireImage}

In an interview with entrepreneur Jeff Berman last week, Solivan said when looking at the problem as an engineer, she saw these three technologies: social, location, and mobile.

“I thought, there’s a lot here,” she said.

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