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I suspect TaskRabbit never really made it big because of some combination of transaction costs I was a TaskRabbit user. I'd say that they had a problem with qu

I suspect TaskRabbit never really made it big because of some combination of transaction costs I was a TaskRabbit user. I'd say that they had a problem with quality control and maintaining a really good user experience. Too many of their workers were kind of meh. This was especially apparent with moving. I would be unpacking and something from storage and think to myself, "She did that!?" I also made the mistake of using them to hire someone for a move-out cleaning. Their interface was seemingly designed to generate misunderstanding.

ghaff 9y ago
I'm sure they also have the same business issue that a lot of these personal services firms do. If I come across a particularly good handyman (or whatever) when using the service, you can be sure that we'll trade cards and I'll probably be calling him directly for any relevant task in the future.
- panda88888 9y ago
  This. Uber works because the need to get somewhere is time critical and drivers(mostly) are more or less commodity. For more personal, repeat services that are not time sensitive, uber-like middleman service doesn't make sense beyond 1st contact.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    And at that point, the business is essentially just an electronic yellow pages with ratings. Which is fine. But, at that point, the business model is probably just charging a listing fee. Which is fine but is never going to have the potential revenue of getting a cut from each transaction.
mLuby 9y ago
When you say interface to you mean app UI/UX or more generally what TaskRabbit does?
- stcredzero 9y ago
  UI/UX. It was only after the booking was done, and I contacted the TaskRabbit person the day before to confirm, that she realized it was a move out cleaning, and that I should have put my request in the "Intensive Cleaning" section, or something like that. To be fair to TaskRabbit, she didn't read my job description at all. But still, I felt kinda slimed by the interface.

ghaff 9y ago

I'm sure they also have the same business issue that a lot of these personal services firms do. If I come across a particularly good handyman (or whatever) when using the service, you can be sure that we'll trade cards and I'll probably be calling him directly for any relevant task in the future.

panda88888 9y ago
This. Uber works because the need to get somewhere is time critical and drivers(mostly) are more or less commodity. For more personal, repeat services that are not time sensitive, uber-like middleman service doesn't make sense beyond 1st contact.
- ghaff 9y ago
  And at that point, the business is essentially just an electronic yellow pages with ratings. Which is fine. But, at that point, the business model is probably just charging a listing fee. Which is fine but is never going to have the potential revenue of getting a cut from each transaction.

mLuby 9y ago

When you say interface to you mean app UI/UX or more generally what TaskRabbit does?

stcredzero 9y ago
UI/UX. It was only after the booking was done, and I contacted the TaskRabbit person the day before to confirm, that she realized it was a move out cleaning, and that I should have put my request in the "Intensive Cleaning" section, or something like that. To be fair to TaskRabbit, she didn't read my job description at all. But still, I felt kinda slimed by the interface.