Startup companies, even those with the greatest and innovative ideas, struggle with launching their businesses off the ground. And it’s not necessarily because they don’t have the talent and the skills to make it happen—especially if they believe they have something valuable to offer, rather because they don’t have the money, the time, the manpower, and the talent to operate other functions a business needs to run smoothly.

Customer service, finance and accounting, marketing, information technology (cloud services), data management, and analytics are just a few of those operations that come to mind, and here comes various BPO companies to prove their worth and value. Outsourcing services that are not part of your core business allows you to bring experts to your team while reducing operation costs and saving valuable time.

Here are ten start-up companies that outsourced some of their services to qualified BPO companies, which have proven to be the best decision they’ve ever made.

1. Slack

Considered as Silicon Valley’s hottest startup based on a very simple concept that applies to every enterprise—a workplace chat platform, Slack outsourced their solution development during its earliest days. Now valued at nearly $3 billion, it clearly shows that the decision to outsource to the right provider paid off, even greater than what they invested in.

2. Skype

Skype is a preferred communication medium for chat, video, and voice calls from computers, tablets, and mobile devices. Based on Sweden, they initially outsourced a team from Estonia to develop their platform.

3. Fab

This e-commerce company founded in 2010, worth over a billion dollars was open to the fact that they hired developers in India to ensure they maximize their funding while expanding their operations during their biggest growth spurt.

4. Staff.com

An outsourcing company itself comprised of talents and freelancers for other companies, Staff.com’s founder, Rob Dawson used the same principle building his company into a successful business as he hired offshore staff to start his company. He also developed Time Doctor, an accurate time tracking software, using remote staff developers.

5. AppSumo

This daily deals website founded by Noah Kagan has over 700,000 active subscribers today. It employs numerous freelancers to take care of its marketing, content, and IT necessities. Read its amazing outsourcing story here.

6. Klout

Klout is a huge success in the digital marketing world, often raised when it comes to finding influencers. Founder, Joe Fernandez, knew his idea wasn’t a popular one to have people leave their jobs for it, so he relied on many outsourced developers before its launch.

7. JPay

A corrections-related service provider in Florida, JPay outsourced their developers for their technology, quality assurance, engineering, and even hardware.

8. AlertBoot

This company offers cloud-based data and mobile device security devices for enterprises that need a scalable, but easy to deploy solution. They decided to outsource their infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and cloud hosting so they can meet the growth of their operations at several locations.

9. Basecamp

A project management tool, Basecamp outsources some its staff and believes in working remotely. After all, it’s why their tool was developed—to help remote teams work closely together.

10. MySQL

From the start, this database management system incorporated outsourcing as one of its strategies to grow and expand its operations rapidly. They employ outsourced staff in different countries to help ramp up operations in those locations.

These Startups Knew the Value of Outsourcing

Whether it’s the talent, the team of experts, or the money they save, these start-ups were able to successfully take advantage of what good outsourcing partners provide—valuable manpower and skills at a reduced cost.

When these startups launched, they knew that they’re also going against one huge factor that is the time. They needed to start quickly and even ramp up rapidly if they want to take advantage of the innovation they want to offer. By outsourcing, they are reducing the time needed to train in-house employees so they can develop services faster and launch sooner.

The biggest factor is finding the right and qualified provider to outsource to, which was the number one advice from the founders of these successful startups. Partner with someone who believes in the same core values of your business, who can bring their own expertise to the table, and has excellent work ethics that you would base for hiring your in-house employees too.