Here's a tip for when you first get started: practice giving the throttle very small amounts of gas.
In fact, when you first start out - don't even touch the gas. Idle the car on a flat parking lot in neutral and just let out the clutch very slowly and smoothly after shifting into 1st - you'll start moving forward.
Everyone always tries to learn how to perform a powered start right off the bat and that's a recipe for disaster.
For what it's worth, people who drive stick are conditioned not to help other people drive stick, because new stick drivers are murder on clutches, and clutches are notoriously expensive to replace.
Lots of our customers are using Exec as a way to provide their team members with more leisure time. The way I normally pitch it is that if you want to go grocery shopping to get ingredients for a special meal you are going to cook and you will enjoy, then by all means, go for it. If grocery shopping is a chore that you don't look forward to, then outsource it. You should outsource the things you don't want to do to leave more time for the things you want to do.
Personally, I dislike having errands that require me to physically leave the office disrupt my work day, especially on days where I need solid chunks of time programming. Our goal with Exec for Companies is to help teams spend more time doing what they want to do.
"Lots of our customers are using Exec as a way to provide their team members with more leisure time."
This. I hate waking up early, work very long hours, and find the majority of the time I have for running errands falls outside of traditional "business hours". That means these errands either stack up until I have to take an entire day or two away from the office every few months, or I have to leave my desk and do them midday.
My take on it is that less time doing fiddly errands = more relaxation time away from work, which results in happier workers who are more productive when they are at work. If I knew that every second of my free time was open to possibility, and that I didn't have to set aside two or three hours a week to do the "grown up" stuff, I would absolutely be a happier and more productive person overall.
That's why I started out by saying it's a nice perk.
What I objected to was that it sounded more like "instead of grocery shopping after work, now you can stay at work longer" whereas "we will do the tiresome parts of life for you so you have more free time outside the office" is what I want.
The very few errands I can't do outside of working hours can't be outsourced: going to the dentist, etc.
I really like the approach of trying to reduce friction as much as possible. The main problem that I have with TaskRabbit, fiverr, etc is that while those services might be able to help me outsource things I don't want to do myself, they create additional, new work for me in making me draft a proposal, vet people, and so forth, which is (partially) self-defeating.
That's pretty much the precise reason that I don't tend to use these so-called "collaborative consumption" services more: it takes a lot of effort to ensure you get a quality experience. It's great that Exec is doing all that work up front so I won't have to.
It seems to me that a lot of startups go the two-sided marketplace route because they're unable (for fear of becoming a party to the transaction, as well as often lacking the resources) to take control and directly manage the supply side. Airbnb is a great example of this: while they provide a platform to connect hosts and guests, that's pretty much where it ends. They don't even require their hosts to keep their availability calendar accurate, which kind of defeats the point. At least when I go to hotels.com I know that I'll have a room waiting for me when I arrive.
The other main point of friction I've encountered with AirBnB is the whole checkin process - it's rare that people lay around their apartments all day long, so there's always a bit of scrambling as both parties try to sync up their schedules.
Its funny the Y-Combinator mafia (and I mean that lovingly) can really be such a great tool for these personal services companies like ZeroCater and Exec. I doubt they're forced to participate but its such a great source of initial users. I think for some of these companies this may be a bigger Y-combinator benefit then the mentoring/cash or VC intros.
A large part of our success thus far is due to that at Mixpanel as well. The founders in our batch gave us tons of feedback for everything they could want.
In fact, 60-70% of every new Y Combinator batch is generally using Mixpanel prior to launch - Exec being no exception ;)
I would be weary of relying on Exec for anything substantial to my company because if they get acuihired, they could disappear overnight and leave a gaping hole in my business that could be very difficult to fill.
I definitely understand this given all the acquihiring going on in tech right now -- it makes it hard to rely on something for your business.
That being said, for a few reasons I don't think we're likely to go away through an talent acquisition:
1) The majority of our headcount won't be engineers and product, it will be operations. This is necessarily the case because we are such a local service. This means that anyone who wants to buy a team to work on product is paying a massive premium for all these other people they probably don't want (at least, traditional tech firms won't want them).
2) I think Justin.tv / TwitchTV will already make me very wealthy. I didn't start Exec to make money. I started Exec because I want to build something that will take over the world. I want to be Facebook of labor -- not as in "a company that opens up your social graph around work" but as in "a company that fundamentally changes and expands the category it is in, and becomes ascendent in that category".
That said, it is easy to talk. Watch what we do and draw your own conclusions.
As a side note, if any readers are interested in contributing to this vision check us out: http://iamexec.com/hiring
I forsee a near future where employers offer Exec/TaskRabbit credits or dollars alongside other standard benefits such as healthcare, 401k, etc. Good work guys!
Any chance you'll have an API for this in the future? I can see amazing potential for new business and experiences to be build on top of Exec. If nothing else, in some sense you can "automate" tasks that occur at less predictable intervals, such as "clean up my condo after my airbnb guests have left" or "need virtual assistant when workload exceeds X".
Congrats guys! I look forward to seeing this grow!
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 89.3 ms ] threadOne of the things I've always wanted to learn is how to drive a stick shift.
I'd definitely pay someone $25/hr to learn.
In fact, when you first start out - don't even touch the gas. Idle the car on a flat parking lot in neutral and just let out the clutch very slowly and smoothly after shifting into 1st - you'll start moving forward.
Everyone always tries to learn how to perform a powered start right off the bat and that's a recipe for disaster.
I'd take this kind of thing a lot more seriously if it was at least not pitched as a way to spend more time in the office.
Personally, I dislike having errands that require me to physically leave the office disrupt my work day, especially on days where I need solid chunks of time programming. Our goal with Exec for Companies is to help teams spend more time doing what they want to do.
What have been biggest challenge to get it working so far?
This. I hate waking up early, work very long hours, and find the majority of the time I have for running errands falls outside of traditional "business hours". That means these errands either stack up until I have to take an entire day or two away from the office every few months, or I have to leave my desk and do them midday.
Is this a viable area for such a service?
What I objected to was that it sounded more like "instead of grocery shopping after work, now you can stay at work longer" whereas "we will do the tiresome parts of life for you so you have more free time outside the office" is what I want.
The very few errands I can't do outside of working hours can't be outsourced: going to the dentist, etc.
It seems to me that a lot of startups go the two-sided marketplace route because they're unable (for fear of becoming a party to the transaction, as well as often lacking the resources) to take control and directly manage the supply side. Airbnb is a great example of this: while they provide a platform to connect hosts and guests, that's pretty much where it ends. They don't even require their hosts to keep their availability calendar accurate, which kind of defeats the point. At least when I go to hotels.com I know that I'll have a room waiting for me when I arrive.
> Unlike other services, it doesn’t make users manage a bidding process and vet offers.
There is a pay-it-forward mentality -- Justin.tv serves as an early customer for many YC startups.
In fact, 60-70% of every new Y Combinator batch is generally using Mixpanel prior to launch - Exec being no exception ;)
That being said, for a few reasons I don't think we're likely to go away through an talent acquisition:
1) The majority of our headcount won't be engineers and product, it will be operations. This is necessarily the case because we are such a local service. This means that anyone who wants to buy a team to work on product is paying a massive premium for all these other people they probably don't want (at least, traditional tech firms won't want them).
2) I think Justin.tv / TwitchTV will already make me very wealthy. I didn't start Exec to make money. I started Exec because I want to build something that will take over the world. I want to be Facebook of labor -- not as in "a company that opens up your social graph around work" but as in "a company that fundamentally changes and expands the category it is in, and becomes ascendent in that category".
That said, it is easy to talk. Watch what we do and draw your own conclusions.
As a side note, if any readers are interested in contributing to this vision check us out: http://iamexec.com/hiring
Congrats guys! I look forward to seeing this grow!