Task Rabbit

Many of Diane Fitzpatrick friends and family take her for granted because she works from home in task rabbit full time as a blogger and writer. When anyone needs any favor, they turn to her because they think she’s got nothing to do with her time. Many organizations such as churches, NGOs, etc are always targeting people like her whenever they need volunteers because she doesn’t have a typical 9-5 job. She complained that whenever people are busy, they want to use her services without any form of payment because she’s always at home but at task rabbit she is getting paid in advanced by the website payment system. She’s had to babysit the kids of other parents for so many years and says she feels like a dog in her neighborhood sometimes.
There is an increasing number of stay-at-home workers everyday as a result of retiring, unemployment, etc. Reports by The Telework Coalition indicate there are 35 million people working most of their time from home, which is an increment of 15 million people from the number 10 years ago with about seven million US residents out of jobs in just the first part of the year.

Many people are calling on people who work from home to do various jobs such as errands, pooling of cars, volunteering with NGOs, churches, etc.

However many people who work from home say they are tired of being taken advantage of as a result of their availability at home most of the time. They have taken their grievances online and starring in campaigns to avoid their exploitation by other neighbors, family and friends through chartrooms, etc. they have been discussing ways to prevent their exploitation on a couple of websites with some people being readily available for chores at the right price.

You can prevent your exploitation by people always asking you for favors by learning to say no. if you are busy, just tell them you are unavailable in a short sentence without any explanations.

Many people who work at taskrabbit are not entirely opposed to the idea of helping others out, they just want to be appreciated and not taken advantage of. Other stay-at-homers have joined websites that pay you hourly rates for running errands.

Many stay-at-homers believe that corporate workers should try to understand what they do and how their schedules are like before asking for burdening favors. You could also ask for a few dollars for errands run for the typical 9-5 workers who might need your services when they are away.
Chatting with the folks at Acquia yesterday, CEO Tom Erickson rhapsodized about “super seed capital,” the hot new venture capital (VC) trend.

“I’m on the board of TaskRabbit, using super-seed financing. These firms only specialize in small rounds of a quarter-million or a half-million. The idea here is they’re a lot more patient. Smaller amounts lent over longer periods create more patience.”

Cool, I guess. The question came up because I have become doubtful about standard venture capital financing as a vehicle for open source. Growth rates on even the best companies (like Acquia itself) aren’t enough for a VC who needs a good shot at a 10-1 win to justify his investment of money and time.

Of course, as is the way of these things, even super-seed looks headed for a crash, writes Paul Kedrosky. This prediction has Always-On pulling out its sad angel, it has Fred Wilson pushing back, and it has reporters watching the show.

It also has me ROFLMAO. Because I don’t know if either the VC community or those anxious start-ups have noticed it right now, but money today is essentially free.

Take a look at what the U.S. government is paying for money. They can get three-year loans for less than 1%, and 30-year loans for barely 4%. They say now is a great time to refinance.

Of course, the way to get those cheap rates is to not need the money. But if you’re rich money right now is not a problem. And you shouldn’t need a 1,000% return to justify an equity investment, either.

The world is awash in capital, and what was once considered a modest return can justify the investment. Even open source can get new financing in this environment.

All we need is a working model for how that cheap money gets paid off. Turn debt into equity, get a modest return on the equity, pay off the debt. Rinse, repeat.