Founder: Colin Milligan
Website: sydetasker.com
What it does: Connects homeowners with local “taskers”
Founded: 2020
Milwaukee entrepreneur Colin Milligan and his company Sydetasker are helping homeowners tackle their to-do lists.
Milligan, who is chief executive officer and co-founder, created Sydetasker to help homeowners complete everyday tasks that they are too busy or unable to do. Sydetasker’s software helps connect users in need of services to local and independent contractors.
The app provides a labor force of verified “taskers” that users can browse for hire. The customer assigns a task, and payment for that task is held secure until the job is marked complete by the customer. Businesses using Sydetasker get alerts when a service they can provide is needed.
Sydetasker generated $90,000 in revenue in 2021, pocketing approximately 17% of each paid job that was completed.
“One morning, me and my college roommates got up and realized, ‘Oh, the house is kind of dirty,’” Milligan said. “We didn’t really want to clean it, and we thought a college student could probably do it at a lower rate than a professional cleaner.”
This was his initial exposure to the odd jobs market. Noticing high demand for cleaning and handiwork services, Milligan began putting flyers up around Oshkosh, where he attended college. He took on different tasks as a side hustle until realizing there was another way to serve customers: developing a platform.
“I didn’t really know anything about the industry until I started cleaning on my own,” Milligan said.
Once he knew he wanted to develop a platform, Milligan sought help from Zaid Altahat, professor of computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Altahat is now co-founder and chief technology officer at Sydetasker.
To date, approximately 4,000 users have downloaded Sydetasker. Those users have mostly come from Craigslist, where Sydetasker ads have been strategically placed, and social media.
“People feel safe using our platform,” Milligan said. “They know that there’s a person behind it who makes sure that the jobs get done.”
Aside from $10,000 won recently on a recent episode of “Project Pitch It” on WISN-TV Channel 12, and $5,000 awarded through the Titan Accelerator at UW-Oshkosh, company leadership has been bootstrapping up to this point.
Moving forward, Milligan said, he’ll seek further guidance from area accelerators and financial assistance from angel investors.
