The President And Co-Founder of TaskUs Reveals Marketing Secrets for Startup Success

Startups that seamlessly fit within pop culture have an inherent advantage in branding. In garnering visibility, companies that possess a certain “sex appeal” don’t need to try as hard in thinking creatively about their content, advertisements and voice as a whole. However, businesses that lack this intrinsic glamor must work that much harder in forming a brand that delights and engages a mass audience.TaskUs has not only achieved this, but has become a pinnacle of it. Boasting “Ridiculously Good Outsourcing” TaskUs has successfully created a unique voice that makes “outsourcing sexy." TaskUs’ President and Co-founder, Jaspar Weir, sat down with TechDay to explain how he was able to achieve this and offer his insights in developing your company’s brand.

How has TaskUs been able to successfully position itself as the 'go-to' destination for outsourcing?

TaskUs is a leading, global outsourcing company that delivers exceptional back office support and customer care services for some of the world’s most notable brands and disruptive companies. Our clients range from explosive growth startups that need an agile partner that can accommodate massive scale, to billion-dollar superstars that require operational rigor, to the most recognizable brands that need digital migration.We sit at the intersection of people and technology, resulting in a deep expertise in cloud-based, digital customer services, an intense attention to quality, passionate teammates, and a differentiated focus on transformational growth. We are flexible, agile and quick to respond to partners evolving requirements and desires.We do it by being smarter, better, and faster than any other outsourcer on Earth. We offer our partners: (1) Smarter solutions supported by digital mastery and cutting-edge technology, (2) Better experiences through our exceptional employees and process innovation and (3) Faster scaling and unparalleled agility to face unexpected changes.

What aspects of TaskUs' voice and branding allow it to appeal to the desired demographic?

In our early days, TaskUs was a very hungry startup that was growing quickly and needed to adapt like lightning to challenges, pivot on a dime when necessary and to be highly adaptable to best meet our partners’ rapidly evolving requirements.I encouraged my team to not “overthink things” and that it was ok to shake up established status quos so that the organization could quickly learn new things, develop core competencies and learnings from such experiences and rocket towards success. Bluntly: my team exceeded my wildest dreams!Our original partners - startups also - were much the same. We spoke and understood the same language of hard work, goal setting and treating our teams right. Organically, each side grew to trust the other; our partnerships flourished and we succeeded as a highly collaborative team.In a sense, TaskUs and our partners grew up together and were able to share best practices and learnings to raise the bar organically through mutual trust, transparency and win stories supported by hard data. Today, like our partners, we are process-focused. We believe that is what it takes to reach the next level. Because of our shared experiences and history, TaskUs can communicate with our partners and prospects on a very direct and personal level. There is not any smoke and mirrors. We are and believe in full transparency. Like any relationship, transparency breeds trust. Our partners believe in and trust us. We feel the same way.

Though TaskUs is an online platform, how important are face to face marketing tactics in acquiring new users?

Like any relationship, I’ve learned that having interactions in person are essential to success. Face time helps to transcend typical marketing tactics and foster organically driven relationships based on mutual respect, trust and understanding one another’s wants and needs. To be clear though - TaskUs is not an “online platform”. We are a full service provider, with all full time employees who work out of a TaskUs owned and operated facility.One tactic that we employ is to host “Ridiculously Good Dinners” across the United States. Guest lists typically include thought leaders, decision makers and executive leadership and are intended to be low-key events to learn from each other in a casual environment outside of a traditional sales meet and greet. Leaders discover they can let their “guard” down, share concerns about what they are experiencing in their businesses and pick up tips from other leaders about how to solve challenges.We also host CX Summits - our version of a conference. Guests have the chance to acquire customer experience best practices, learn from thought leaders in the field and network with other transformational leaders. They have been a huge success for TaskUs.

What strategies has TaskUs employed to reach users who may not fall within your typical demographic?

TaskUs has made the strategic decision to be laser-focused on our core targets. Like every organization, we have to be smart about how to allocate resources. No business can be all things to all customers. That would be a recipe for disaster.Instead, we focus on prospects that we know are in our wheelhouse. We provide an A-Z arsenal of customer experience and back office support solutions for partners who want to deliver superior customer service, achieve genuine innovation and scale quickly to reach operational excellence and increase revenue. In combination with a tailored, strategic approach to our services and thought leadership, TaskUs offers the transformation growth tools – people, process and technology – to businesses that are the new disruptors on the block, fully-fledged game-changers in their prime and the established icons that need reinvigoration so that each can achieve transformational growth.History and our explosive growth have proven that this approach works for our partners and us. We believe that this is the right course of action for our organization, our employees, our prospects and our valued partners.Not everyone is a good fit for TaskUs, but we do have a great network of partners we refer people to depending on their needs.

How can you attribute non paid social media tactics in growing the brand? What specifically proved successful?

TaskUs is quite active on social media. It has been a fantastic means for us to communicate with partners and prospects, recruit top talent through the communication channels that most strongly resonate with them and share our brand’s narrative.We maintain an active blog to share CX insights, TaskUs news and stories that have been proven to resonate with our readers, prospects and partners.Other non-paid social channels such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn help us to target specific users in an organic manner that connects best with each target group. For instance, we have found a lot of success in recruiting highly educated millennial talent through Twitter.One non-paid social channel that I’m particularly proud of is our Facebook page for the Philippines. Our followers and colleagues are lively, engaged and excited about our brand and working for us! In sharp contrast to competitors in the BPO space, we have well over 200,000 likes on our page. It seems impossible to those that aren’t familiar with what we do, but we’ve made outsourcing sexy!

How would you advise new startup founders trying to grow their visibility?

It might sound trite, but the best lessons a new startup founder can learn - lessons that I had to learn - are to be humble, be open to new experiences, learn from other startup founders whenever you can and to listen.Reach out to friends who have founded a startup - or find a mentor - and discover what worked and did not work for them. Every startup leader has a war story or two. Sure, the startup world can be considered glamourous, but failure is both inevitable and a critical opportunity to learn.

Anything we should look out for from TaskUs in the near future?

Absolutely! Huge things are happening at TaskUs!In addition to our world-class sites in the Philippines and partner sites in Latin America that serve our partners’ requirements for offshore and nearshore outsourcing capabilities, TaskUs now offers a fantastic onshore option located in San Antonio, Texas!Our San Antonio site provides white glove service for partners. Travel & Leisure Magazine recently named San Antonio as the friendliest city in the United States. We believe strongly that such friendliness translates into an empathetic workforce that will further help to drive our industry leading CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) scores.Further, it is a city that is 22% bilingual - English and Spanish. Its English-speakers have a very neutral accent that is critical for many organizations that partner with TaskUs.Due to the high cost of living in nearby Austin, San Antonio has experienced the nation’s highest growth rate amongst Millennials who seek a higher quality of life - and within budget. These Millennial workers are very educated too. Between 2000-2013, San Antonio was among the nation’s fastest-growing cities for college-educated graduates and was #1 in Texas. In fact, “only” 28% of Austin’s millennials are college graduates - it’s 30% in San Antonio!Stay tuned - we have huge plans for growing our onshore option in San Antonio even further to best serve our transformational clients’ evolving requirements.