In 2008, @labunleashed pitched every VC in Boston with an idea called TaskRabbit. Every one of them passed. So she bootstrapped it herself for 18 months, running the whole thing out of her apartment. She was the first engineer and the first task runner all the way through. The company grew, and @IKEA eventually bought it for over $100 million+. Now she runs her own fund, Precedent VC, and she's built it as the exact opposite of the system that rejected her back in 2008. Cold decks get scored on the same rubric as warm intros. If a deal scores high, the founder is on the phone within six hours. The full arc from bootstrapping alone in Boston to running her own fund and writing a book about it is in the new episode of The Luba Show. Timestamps 00:00 Trailer 01:12 Intro 01:21 Ballet background and SF Ballet board 06:12 TaskRabbit's origin story 10:52 Move to the Bay Area 23:00 Selling TaskRabbit to IKEA 33:03 Letting go of founder identity 35:37 Launching Precedent VC 38:26 AI-powered deal scoring system 41:26 Investing philosophy and founder fit 54:30 Founder green and red flags 58:26 Why she wrote Breaking Precedent 01:07:12 Parenting and work-life balance 01:10:46 Defining success 01:12:20 Outro Loved talking to Leah! Episode available on all platforms.
