Watch this interview with Jenna Raby, founder and CEO of Laborfair.com. Jenna talks about Laborfair with Steven Tse of eBay during the 2008 San Francisco Home Show. Learn about what Laborfair.com is, its free service to consumers, the range of service providers Laborfair.com offers and how it differentiates from other online marketplaces like Craigslist.
Do you want to give up your nice day job, your guaranteed salary, any free time with your partner or close friends, and devote any and all waking hours to your novel business idea for an indefinite amount of time? If the answer is an unequivocal “yes” –become an internet entrepreneur. You’ll do fine! While my partner, also an internet entrepreneur, adores the frequent vicissitudes and gyrations of startup life – an experience I equate with a log flume ride at an aquatic park with your mouth open--I hang on with clenched teeth and nails dug hard to the side of the boat. Just last week, I cracked a tooth from clenching my teeth repeatedly in my sleep for the past year. I’m serious. I haven’t had a dream that didn’t involve Laborfair.com in over two years. Intellectually, I was ready to be an entrepreneur. Emotionally, phewee! You take a serious beating. As he likes to say and says often, “Fear is a great motivator.” Without Sunday morning meditation at the Zen Center, weekly yoga classes, and my infrequent walks on Muir Beach with the dogs, I’d be a goner.
Starting a business that delivers on social mission and profitability is not for the faint of heart. You have to make tough choices. You need a combination of blinding innocence and a stalwart, unfailing belief in yourself and your business to pull through. Honestly, the hardest part has been growing the business, not starting it. By nature, I'm a human rights advocate and overall multi-faceted kind of gal- so business analysis--it's a steep learning curve for me. Have you ever had to do everything and learn everything simultaneously? I’ve learned not to “make perfect the enemy of the good” as Jim likes to say. Working alone, finding solutions for problems together with the team, raising awareness, being passionate about using business to create social change—I am all about that. But holy heck, put me in front of pie chart analysis, cost margins, average revenue per user, spreadsheets, cost per click, html code, non-disclosure agreements, seo, sem, linux vs. linus--Is that the Peanuts character? Well, you get the picture. I wish I had a twin sister with the MBA. I’d never talk to her but I'd sure like to know her. Like a lot of people, I learn best under pressure, so it's been going well. I'll check in later when I get a spare second to think about this again.
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