How Outsourcing Can Help You Build A Better Startup

1
How Outsourcing Can Help You Build A Better
Startup
2

Introduction

• The revenue of the global outsourced services
  industry rose steadily year over year from 45.6
  billion U.S. dollars in 2000 to 99.1 billion in
  2012.
• Paul founded Macphun in 2008 and released their
  first wildly popular application Cartoonatic.
• Macphun applications receiving awesome
  recognition, grew to over 22 million customers
  worldwide.
• Kevin, VP of Macphun considered outsourcing to
  support their customers in a professional manner
  and free up the internal employees previously
  working to help business grow and be more
  productive.
• Each sub-category of the smallest niche of
  outsourcing share the same purpose, bringing us
  to the core of this guide.

3
Outsourcing

• Outsourcing is when a company contracts with an
  outside person or company to provide some product
  or service, such as bookkeeping or payroll
  processing, or more complicated functions like
  marketing or IT services.

4
How Can Outsourcing Help You Grow?

• Outsourcing has recently been popularized as a
  growth strategy for many lower-level startups
  required to prioritize more important areas.
• Startups like Skype, Slack, Uber, AirBNB, etc.,
  are known for their use of outsourcing processes
  from coding and development to marketing and
  customer support.
• High-quality outsourcing services is becoming
  more and more popular with small businesses, due
  to the increasing accessibility to technologies
  making outsourcing smoother and more efficient.
• Outsourcing is blowing up due to excess of
  qualified professionals that have chosen to leave
  the corporate world in favor of working in a less
  stressful environment like their homes or small
  startup offices.

5
Which Business Processes should be Outsourced?

• Easier than ever to outsource nearly any task
  that you see necessary, but doesn't always mean
  that you should outsource just because it is easy
  for you.
• Many processes are better off being taken care of
  in-house, depending on what your priority is.
• On the other end of the spectrum, if your
  priority is customer support, then it's probably
  okay to outsource something like graphic design.

6
List of Tasks

• Outsourcing positions (Highly skilled expertise
  tasks, i.e CFO, COO, CIO, etc.), can help get
  your startup off the ground, for much less than
  it would cost to have a full-time employee do it.
• Repetitive tasks, can be anywhere from outbound
  sales calls to conduct customer satisfaction
  surveys to very common troubleshooting issues.
  Outsourcing these tasks can save company's time
  and resources.
• Basically almost any routine task you can think
  of can be outsourced by freelancers/virtual
  assistants/call centers.

7
Tasks that require unique talent or knowledge.

• If there is no knowledge or expertise, no matter
  how great of a idea and capital is there to fund
  its development, only outsourcing can help
  develop your app.
• Easily employ an IT expert through freelancer
  sites like Elance-Odesk or Guru, if lack
  resources to employ full time IT support
  personnel to manage your IT systems.
• Easily and effectively outsource nearly any
  business process with minimal attention from your
  in-house team, or any tasks that you're not
  comfortable performing yourself.

8
When Should I Take The First Step?

• Macphun decided to outsource when became too much
  for their staff, but it isnt same for
  everybody.
• The time to decide on outsourcing may come very
  early for somebody whose product development
  depends on it.
• The time to decide on outsourcing may come at a
  later time for those companies that just need a
  little support.
• Chris Devor of Macroplant Inc., made a decision
  to outsource after about 1 year into starting his
  company. He hired a freelancer or two to help
  with support emails.

9
Where Should I Outsource To?

• In the world of tech and IT outsourcing services,
  the most well known countries to outsource to are
  India, Philippines, Central America, and Eastern
  Europe with a total workforce of nearly 1.5bn.
• Due to the poor economies of third-world
  countries, many companies choose these regions
  simply because of the cost-savings.
• Should avail recruitment service with an
  individual's unique talents/skills in mind.
• Ultimately focusing on quality and not just
  prices. Freelancers can be viewed on sites like
  Elance.com or Guru.com to pick and choose which
  ones will fit your needs best.

10
Why would your normal Silicon Valley CEO hire
software developers for 100k a year, when he can
hire equally qualified offshore workers for less
than 15 an hour?

• This question may bring up some ethical concerns,
  but it's important to remember that your typical
  CEO's job is to do what is in the company's best
  interests. And more times than not, saving money
  and time by outsourcing is usually a CEO's best
  interest.

11
Concerns with Outsourcing

• Concerns such as security, quality, management,
  poor work environment, transparency, etc.
• Language barriers and cultural differences is
  another concern, but by following a strict
  training and recruitment process this one can be
  overcome easily.
• Finally, communicate your expectations clearly
  and even write up a contract before hiring
  outsourced members to make sure there is no
  confusion anywhere.

12
Here's what to look at when choosing the right
contractor...

• Do they take data privacy and confidentiality
  measures to ensure the safety of your customers'
  personal info?
• Will they be available to communicate with
  whenever you have a question or concern?
• Do they protect your best interest by taking
  legal measures?
• How do they handle the management of their team
  can you routinely review your outsourced
  employee's performance?
• Are they performing a job that your in-house team
  genuinely can't perform effectively?
• Can you see/visit their office and evaluate
  working conditions?
• Do they have reputable clients they already
  provide service for?

13
Risk Vs. Reward Of Outsourcing

• Outsourcing is widely known as one of the best
  solutions to cut costs and many studies have been
  carried out to verify this fact.
• However, effective outsourcing being
  cost-effective yet still has the potential to
  harm a company's reputation.
• The word "outsourcing" brings to mind different
  things to different people.
• Outsourcing if done right and professionally, can
  be one of the biggest assets to your company and
  be beneficial by lifting excess of work from your
  plate, often overshadowing the negatives.

14
Time to Rake in the Benefits

• Outsourcing remains one of the best methods to
  maintain or grow your company.
• If you have a plan set out, today's technology
  and resources allow any business owner to employ
  a completely efficient outsourced staff.
• When you outsource, you allow yourself and your
  company the freedom to focus on the core business
  areas while saving a lot of money.