TaskRabbit is scampering into five new towns today and announced that it will gain 1.25 million new customers this year. The peer-to-peer marketplace for outsourcing obligations is now in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Spokesperson Johnny Brackett stated this expands its “geographical footprint,” employing 50 percent. Existing markets include Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, the S.F. Bay location, Austin, Texas, and Portland, Ore.
The five new cities have over 2,000 new TaskRabbits, and TaskRabbit’s army is now 15,000 strong. These TaskRabbits carry out responsibilities and run errands for users, including constructing Ikea furnishings or choosing your dry cleaning. The marketplace allows users to accomplish duties they don’t have the time, motivation, knowledge, or assets to do on their own and provides TaskRabbits with an additional circulation of profits.
TaskRabbit was founded in 2008 by former IBM engineer Leah Busque. The tale goes that she ran out of dog food on a cold February night and didn’t have time to buy more before a dinner date with her husband. She realized that a service that linked human beings in conditions like this would be extremely beneficial, and thus TaskRabbit was born. It has grown into a national phenomenon, one of the hallmark examples of the “sharing economic system.”
The sharing economy takes advantage of the Internet to make use of underutilized assets. People with time, understanding, or belongings, including a vehicle or spare room, can position their property to paintings. Even five years ago, the concept of letting a random man or woman on the Internet live in your private home or get in the car with you appeared loopy and doubtlessly dangerous. However, the rise of social networking and crowdsourced information adds a layer of identity verification and accountability that enables human beings to consider each other.
TaskRabbit became one of the first companies to enter this sector. Building out a vibrant-sided marketplace is a task, particularly when services need to be had on-call. The organization has been steadily included in new markets and offerings over the past five years, helped along by way of $37.7 million in mission capital.
Since then, several competitors have cropped up, including Postmates, Exec, TaskHero, and extra-interest vendors like Zaarly. The recognition of these offerings represents larger trends within the tech world and beyond.
With high unemployment prices, humans are increasingly looking for alternative methods to make money. Many of the TaskRabbit, Lyft drivers, or Airbnb hosts you meet are in-between jobs or use those offerings to make extra cash while they follow different hobbies, like faculty or a song profession. There has also been lots of dialogue about the following wave of the Internet, all approximately using offline interactions. Social media dominated the remaining decade, and now, human beings seek online platforms to provide significant reviews in the real world.
Rachel Botsman wrote an e-book called What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. She estimates that the purchaser peer-to-peer rental market will become a $26 billion region and that the sharing financial system is a $ 10 billion marketplace. It is growing quickly as Internet penetration will increase around the arena, and those end up extra at ease with the idea of “disownership.” TaskRabbit won initial traction in early adopter markets like San Francisco and New York but is now making it deeper into the mainstream. The corporation has also made a massive push on cellular and is currently working on a revamp of the iOS app, a local Android app, and an app for TaskRabbits by using the give-up of the 12 months.
