Featured in “Influential Business Leaders to Watch in 2024“
Founded in 2016 by university friends Joseph Black and Oliver Jacobs, UniTaskr is an innovative task-outsourcing platform on a mission to simplify workloads so users can focus on what truly matters.
“We want to help people reclaim their time, energy, and potential by making task delegation seamless,” shares co-founder Joseph Black.
With a desire to help students manage financial constraints and gain work experience, UniTaskr has grown into a thriving global community that connects businesses and individuals with vetted, affordable talent to take care of to-do list tasks and projects.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” For UniTaskr co-founders Joseph Black and Oliver Jacobs, this rings true!
In the vast wilderness of entrepreneurship, Joseph and Oliver discovered that combining their passions and harnessing each other’s strengths could lead them on an extraordinary journey – one that could truly transform lives.
Long before UniTaskr came to be, Oliver’s keen eye for design and Joseph’s grit honed in the wilds of Africa laid the foundation. Though from different worlds, both felt a deep urge to uplift others.
When they witnessed the plight of students struggling financially at university, unable to gain experience, something stirred inside. Determined to pave a new path, these kindred spirits joined forces.
The road to launch was arduous, full of slippery slopes. Technical snags and funding woes tested their will. But resilient as lions, Joseph and Oliver bounded back stronger. Their pride in the product, and each other, roared loudly.
Swept away by early waves of users, euphoria soon met reality’s riptide. Core features malfunctioned, eroding user trust. Lesser leaders may have retreated, but Joseph and Oliver charted a new course.
With open ears and empathy, they rebuilt from feedback. Communication and agility became their compass.
As the word spread, students swarmed to their vision – an oasis of opportunity. Businesses seeking capable hands joined too, and collaborations flourished across continents. Joseph and Oliver’s journey of constant growth and care had only just begun.
Gazing ahead, the possibilities seem endless. But for these bold explorers, the mission remains simple – to guide students smoothly toward their dreams.
Joseph and Oliver show that with a shared purpose, the steep summits of entrepreneurship need not be conquered alone. With compassion as fuel, the entrepreneurial wilds can be tamed.
So, to all trailblazers, dream big, but take the first step together. The road less traveled is often the most rewarding.
The Rise to Fame
UniTaskr’s founders discovered their shared passion for entrepreneurship as students struggled to balance their studies with jobs to cover living expenses. Witnessing peers drop out of university due to financial instability, Joseph Black and Oliver Jacobs sought solutions.
“We believed that with the right platform, students could earn money and build relevant experience without compromising academics,” Black explains. In 2018, they built a peer-to-peer platform called UniDosh to connect students for hiring opportunities.
However, users were hesitant to pay fellow cash-strapped students. In 2018, a pivotal realization struck – they had to open up their platform to a broader audience. After months of grinding to rebuild UniDosh as UniTaskr, the founders finally unlocked the right model.
By expanding to include everyday people and businesses seeking task delegation, UniTaskr gained incredible traction. “It was a challenging yet invaluable lesson in adaptability,” remarks Jacobs.
Today, the fully revamped UniTaskr features seamless task management, robust vetting, and user-friendly functionalities to facilitate efficient outsourcing globally.
Company Growth
From humble student-centric beginnings, UniTaskr has rapidly expanded into an award-winning task outsourcing leader.
“Empower Your Focus. Outsource the Rest.”
This message encapsulates the essence of efficient task outsourcing. It highlights the transformative power of UniTaskr to delegate non-core tasks, allowing individuals, and businesses to channel their energy and attention towards what truly matters—their core objectives and high-impact activities.
“Empower Your Focus” emphasizes the liberation gained by freeing oneself from the burden of mundane or time-consuming tasks. It signifies the empowerment that comes with strategic task delegation, enabling individuals to concentrate on their strengths, passions, and the aspects of their work that drive meaningful progress.
“Outsource the Rest” serves as a call to action, encouraging the audience to recognize the value of outsourcing tasks that lie outside their expertise or consume excessive time. It prompts individuals and businesses to leverage the expertise and resources available through outsourcing, thereby maximizing productivity and efficiency.
#1 on the Apple App Store in both the ‘Lifestyle & Business’ categories. “We had brands approaching us, left right, and center asking how we were achieving such growth. So much so, that we launched SHOUT, a creator performance agency with a focus on nano & micro influencers”, Black remakrs!
Through SHOUT, they provide volumes of students with creator-based opportunities providing them with a new way to earn an income and build experience working with brands.
Today, SHOUT has over 150,000 youth-based creators on its books with a combined following exceeding 1 billion followers. UniTaskr been fortunate to work with brands such as Uber, Amazon, Spotify, and Red Bull, amongst many other large household names.
From the Entrepreneurial Trenches
Joseph Black and Oliver Jacobs’ journey as young entrepreneurs has been filled with invaluable lessons. Early on, a major platform feature failed to meet user expectations, rather than seeing this as a failure, they pivoted quickly based on their user feedback.
“It taught us agility and adaptability in business,” remarks Jacobs. This experience shaped their user-centric approach – focusing on rapid iterations and transparent communication.
For the founders, resilience and grit have been vital. In 2018, after realizing their initial peer-to-peer model wasn’t gaining traction, they grindingly rebuilt their platform from scratch.
“It took us 4 painful years of development, but we didn’t waver in our belief,” Black shares.
This tenacity and their appetite for calculated risk-taking has powered UniTaskr’s rise. The founders have also learned to embrace uncertainty and avoid analysis paralysis. As Jacobs notes, “We take imperfect action over perfect inaction.”
Above all, they’ve gleaned that staying customer-focused is crucial but so is looking after their team. As Black explains, “A company is only as successful as its people. We’ve realized our role as leaders goes beyond targets. It’s about enabling our team to thrive.”
Through the highs and lows, UniTaskr’s founders have emerged wiser and grounded by the lessons from their entrepreneurial journey. Their eyes are clear – success is a moving target, the quest for innovation never ends, and people are at the heart of it all.
Founder’s Vision
As UniTaskr continues rapidly expanding its suite of outsourcing solutions, founders Joseph Black and Oliver Jacobs are driven by ambitious long-term aims grounded in the company’s origins.
Their goal is to build UniTaskr into a “one-stop shop empowering anyone to outsource tasks seamlessly, economically, and ethically.”
The founders remain committed to helping students earn income, gain skills, and achieve their goals through the platform.
One profound lesson they’ve learned throughout their journey is the transformative power of efficient task outsourcing. It’s not just about delegating tasks; it’s about reclaiming time, focusing on what truly matters, and unlocking your potential.
Through UniTaskr, their goal has always been to simplify your workload so that you can focus on what truly makes a difference.
As Jacobs shares, “We want to solve problems, open doors, and bring ambitious ideas to life. And we’re only getting started.”
Community Impact
UniTaskr’s community-focused ethos powers impactful social responsibility and philanthropic initiatives. Countless students earn through UniTaskr, and gain professional skills, and financial stability while studying.
On the environmental front, UniTaskr is ramping up sustainability efforts including going paperless and offsetting carbon emissions. Diversity and inclusion programs feature prominently through mentorship for women entrepreneurs and underrepresented groups.
From local volunteer events to disaster relief fundraising, UniTaskr leverages its platform for social good.
“We built UniTaskr to empower students. But our mission to empower reaches far beyond our original niche.”
Joseph Black
