Misstropolis

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Run My Errand - So I Can Do Something Better With My Time!

by Robin Hauck

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Many famous discoveries, inventions and businesses begin with an aha moment. Consider Sir Isaac Newton and his head-banging apple, said to have helped him discover gravity. Karl Bühler, the German psychologist credited with coining the term aha experience almost a century ago, described it as “a peculiar, pleasure-oriented experience within the course of thought that pops up with sudden insight into a previously intransparent context.” The lightbulb only turns on however, when the person experiencing that moment acts on it. Seeing a flash of genius through to execution is rare - we remember Newton, not the scores of others hit by falling objects before or after him.

Leah Busque’s aha moment came one cold, February night when she and her husband were getting ready to go out to dinner. Just before the cab was due to arrive they noticed a sadly empty bowl and the pleading eyes of their 100 lb yellow lab, Kobe. They were out of dog food, and out of time. Kobe would have to wait… but why? Busque and her husband surmised that numerous people in their Charlestown neighborhood would have been happy to run to the pet store for a small fee. Wouldn’t it be great to have an instantaneous way to connect with them? A way to post an errand request and hook up with a person willing to do it, right there on the spot, right when Spot needed it most?!

“Within five minutes of the cab arriving at our house,“ Busque, laughs, “we were developing a vision for a new company.“ She pulled out her blackberry and found that the domain name runmyerrand.com was available. And that was when the aha moment hit. All through drinks and dinner she says, she and her husband talked about the opportunity Kobe had helped them discover. Busque took the next four months to research every angle of the idea and test it out on her network. Then she quit her job and devoted herself to the idea full time. She knew that if she didn’t act, someone else would. In a matter of months, RunMyErrand.com (RME) came to life.

Busque is a math and computer science major who had worked at IBM for seven years. She “loves programming” and attacked the RunMyErrand challenge from a technological standpoint first. She was familiar with stories of failed instant service providers, the most notorious being Kozmo.com, and knew the goal was to build a web based tool which would put control in the hands of users, rather than the company itself. Kozmo, the New York based 24/7 service (they promised delivery of almost anything in under an hour) launched in the midst of the internet boom and folded soon after raising $250 million in venture capital.

Unlike Kozmo which hired a staff of runners and filled warehouses with a large inventory of goods in anticipation of delivery requests, RunMyErrand harnesses the web to allow the people who need something and the people who can provide it to meet, negotiate terms and complete the errand on their own. RunMyErrand is like an online dating service for your to-do list. It makes it easy to find who you need when you need them.

From their location in the Zip Car offices, where they were invited to incubate by Zip Car founder Scott Griffith, Busque and her marketing guru Rebecca Ast explain how RunMyErrand works. Users register and purchase credits which act as currency on the site. Once registered, a user can post an errand which then goes live to the RME network in order to connect with a runner interested in the job. Users check out runners who express interest via their site profiles and their linked Facebook accounts (more on that in a minute) and runners can count on payment since credits were purchased beforehand.

No errand is too large, too small or too strange, Busque and Ast laugh. One of their favorite errands was the airport pick up and Long Island delivery of a pug puppy named Mr. Peabody. Though that one cost more - most errands range between 10 and 15 credits (ten credits cost $13.00).

Busque likes to describe RunMyErrand as a Service Network - a social network completely geared toward matching people who need work done with those who can do it. “RunMyErrand harnesses the power of a community, by aggregating tasks in a people cloud. In this way, we are all able to live more efficiently, saving time and money.“ the founder explains. It is different than something like Craigslist because it can be used for last minute errands, spontaneous requests and quick hits. “Craigslist has no sense of urgency.“

The Craigslist comparison brings up another element core to Busque’s vision: trust. She built intensive security measures into the design to assure that the runners the company would be recommending were trustworthy. First RME does background checks on all applicants, then runners who check out are asked to create profiles with ratings, reviews and pictures. “You don’t know your pizza delivery guy or your mailman this well.“ she jokes. The background checks and personality profiles required for runners puts them through rigorous scrutiny so by the time they make it to the website they are as trustworthy as possible.

Facebook had its own aha moment when they discovered RunMyErrand in their search for companies to participate in the very first fbFund Rev competition. Out of thousands of companies from all over the world building Facebook-related social media applications, the social media giant chose RunMyErrand to participate in the 10-week company-building incubator program at the company’s Palo Alto, CA, offices. The user benefits of this relationship are that RME users can aggregate errands on their Facebook profile and share the service with their friends. Ultimately, Busque believes users will feel added trust knowing that errand runners have been used by friends who have had positive experiences.

The Facebook endorsement and positive word of mouth are helping RME spread quickly from neighborhood to neighborhood. Ast says that “RME is currently in Boston, but we have an aggressive roll-out plan that will take us national to multiple cities in the next 18-24 months. As for neighborhoods, we are finding success in all Boston neighborhoods from Beacon Hill to South End to Back Bay to Brookline and Charlestown. Not only that, but we’re experiencing increased demand in outlying areas as well.“ I wondered if there might be runners willing to come all the way out to Sherborn and tested the process out with a request for a large dry cleaning pick up. Much to my surprise two runners were up to the challenge. Give it a try in your neighborhood and before you know it, you’ll be dusting off your running shoes or your paints, leaving errands to someone else.
   
She likes to say her dog started it all by sparking her aha moment, but Leah Busque’s RunMyerrand is a great example of how a flash of genius must have a genius behind it to bring it to light.

MISSTROPOLIS DISCOUNT:
Most errands cost about $10 and there are limitless ways you can take advantage of RunMyErrand. Here are a few: pick up farm fresh fall veggies at the market, drop off items to Goodwill, get the dry cleaning, deliver a chicken soup to a friend. Or try one of these. Receive 40% off select packages using the discount code MISS at runmyerrand.com.