YouSaid · the spoken record

Leah Sullivan

lines on the record: 62
first: 2025-03-20
most recent: 2025-03-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Chris Massini, Carla Estavez, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Catherine Cypher, Devin Schwartz, Neva Grant, and Sam Paulson. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my newsletter at guyroz.com or on substack. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues, or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-4331298 and leave a message there. And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Ramtina Rabui. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Robert Rudd.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we're scaling up, and we're also realizing that the product now in 2011 is 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.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. But here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 to get to that full North Star vision.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you think about what you wish you knew or what you might have told yourself early on in 2008, that knowing what you know now with all your experience, you've sort of seen hundreds of companies now as an investor. What would you advise yourself or told yourself back then?”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not worried about that. I don't have future members of the. New York Philharmonic. Oh well. All right 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. That advice turned it around.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they just wanted to play instruments. And I think there's some kids who are forced to do it, and then eventually they just surrender and they're like, I actually like this. And then there's some kids who just punishing, you know, but our kids were good at piano. The pandemic happened and then we tried online piano and. It just kind of fizzled away. So I failed. I failed as apparently”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some kids just get, you know, I do another show called The Great Creators, I interview a lot of musicians. And it doesn't matter who it is, Jeff Tweety or Bjork or any of these people that have been on the show, they all just something in their brains clicked when they were little.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That makes complete sense. Yes, originally we had design 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 and realized I'm really just speaking to the parents and need to message towards that. But yeah, I hear what you're saying and agree with it and we'll follow through with those changes.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whether it's keeping them away from screens or exposing them to different activities, and music is like number one at the top of that list. You get kids. But you get them doing that, it switches something on in their brains early in their lives. And that's also something I'd love to see more of on your website.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We usually give them to Title I schools around the country where kids don't have access to the same kinds of resources. So that's one approach. You can decide how you want to do it. Maybe it's for homeschoolers, however you decide it to do it, you can create a mechanism where kids 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's 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?”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We gift one to a classroom. So we're giving it away, but we're also encouraging people to use it with the hopes that some of the kids might come home and say, 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.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 in 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 a big bureaucracies. And they're also strapped. You know, they just don't have the budget. 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 podcast is we basically every time somebody buys a membership”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got it. Okay, so these are streaming videos. It's called Dinah Buddy because they're dinosaur characters that teach kids how to do these things.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Amazing. Okay, well, first of all, Mahalo So good to have you here Alan, thanks for calling in. I wish I was there You know, I'm in California, so it's not too bad. So, all right, so tell me a little bit about Dynabuddy. It is a online platform that teaches kids how to play instruments.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hello, Caller. Welcome to the advice line here on how I built this. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your business.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. Hey, welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ross, and today I'm taking calls with Leah Sullivan, the founder of the company TaskRabbit. So Leah, let's bring in our last caller.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got to have routine. It's good. It's got to be just, it's like a Pavlovian response. I don't even think about it. I make my coffee. I've got my vitamins. They put them down. I take them.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Laid on the shelf next to the can you hide them? And I said, If I hide them, I will not remember to take them. I will literally forget. That's how my brain works.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it drives my wife crazy. Maybe we should go use this app. It drives her crazy because she's like, people come into our house and they see your vitamins all.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you must know I'm pretty good at it. I do take a good at it. But I hate to say that. No, I sound self-righteous, but I have them. Here's my secret. I have them next to the coffee machine.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She's like the guru of it, probably the best known couple therapist in the world. I mean, it's cool. It's a cool idea, right? Because it's expensive for people to go and pay for any kind of therapy.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it seems like a great, right? Because couples therapies got, I mean, we've had Esther Peril on my other shows in the past, and I always think of Esther when I think of couple therapy because she, of course”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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're totally redesigned it and changed it for user experience. It's been in this 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.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. And are you, and you mentioned like doing sort of seminars and talking to people and giving them the opportunity uses for free, which I think is an interesting and smart way to go about it. And I'm looking at your website here, 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 interest, I mean, at the very least or users?”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 gone on to use the app. And sometimes the feedback is not sure my partner's ready. That's a really good idea”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, I've got to say, guy, 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 nobody who overfunctions a bit for the relationship that brings the 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 couple.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then the other question I have Leah and Sean, I mean, 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 experience this, it's one partner who really kind of drags the other partner in. And the other partner is often kicking and screaming or just not interested. But it can be really beneficial. So I wonder whether there's a world where going back to Leah's analogy of the painkiller versus the vitamin, where this is a painkiller, where essentially you are pushing this towards people who are struggling and are looking for ways to resolve 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”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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's not ready? So I'm very excited to announce What we did in response to this after we were exhausted finishing the app is we wrote a book. And the book's called the Eight Love Links. So 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.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So basically, based on your experience, and this seems intuitive, but there'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 sort of focus on conflict resolution quickly, then that kind of opens up the possibility of strengthening a relationship and preventing it from spiraling.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow, and so how did this idea come about? I mean, imagine you guys were and are busy doing in real life couple therapy in Sydney. So how did you guys come up with the idea of like, let's Presumably, you wanted to reach more people because it's expensive to go to couples therapy and you want a more affordable option? Tell me about it.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wow, I'm sure there's a lot to ask you about because you are, I imagine 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 design for people who are having problems or... More or what”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A dream. All right, we're going to 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 the advice line on how I built this. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is TaskRabbit founder Leah Sullivan. So Leah, let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the advice line.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Make me a poppy note. You know the stick figures, it's like there's something really special about that, about a, yeah. So I'm thinking about Kate as a little girl always wanting to have a greeting card company”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right. 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. That's all I want”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then you get every member of your family, distant family relatives you haven't talked to for 25 years people you thought you didn't have to see ever again 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 and tell me what you think.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Love that And you click it. This is the story of Slack or Dropbox or these other viral products, which is in order to use Dropbox, you got to set up a Dropbox. So it invites you to do it. And I wonder whether it's like, hey, do you like this? Click here to make your own poppy notes.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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, but 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 Essentially says want to make your own”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One other quick thought, which is. Creating virality, right? And it's not so easy. But 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 highly researched number, which is the argument that to start something, to create momentum for a brand or product, you need a thousand.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can teach my 82 year old dad how to use this in like five minutes Yeah, and that to me seems like an opportunity to sort maybe senior citizens too. You know, I talk to my dad every day and my mom and they want to talk to their grandkids and maybe this is something that there's a way, especially on the blog, because I notice 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, hey, is this a way to send a message to your grandkids with just a funny photo and you're a funny message?”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Me, you know, a lot of these different apps are, I mean, we've had Canva on the show and some of these other companies on the show and brands on the show, and they're awesome. They offer great products. 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 super plug and play”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're saying, yeah, and even I would think through the full stack of how to reach your audience, are there influencers? Are there mommy bloggers, mommy influencers? I mean, that's a huge category. Paperless post is not partnering with them. Like, 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, you know, just looking at the app on the App Store as well, it's just, it's going to get lost in the App Store. Like, I don't, I don't know how much.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is Now that's really good. I actually am thinking too about babies and the idea of, 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 things might be really perfect what you're saying.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's kind of what I'm thinking. And I just wonder if you kind of look at the competitive landscape of what's out there today, like I think paperless post. I think Evide, 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 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 is an opportunity for you to focus on like, okay, I have babies on the mine. We're getting ready to have our fourth child. I wonder, is there something around like gender reveal or something that is like a little bit more unique, different where you start to build that wedge, you start to build an experience through the app, through your designs, that is differentiated.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. I think 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”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. All right. Before Leah, before we get to the question, to Kate's question, do you have questions for Kate and for what she's building?”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And did you have to make a sizable investment to develop this to get people to help you build it, or did you build it yourself? Yeah.”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And basically, the app makes it easy to just write a message to somebody on a card, a designed card, and you could just text it to them, or you turn into like a text or an email or what?”
2025-03-20 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Leah Solivan of Taskrabbit (September 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT