Listen to this articleStatus Labs is a digital reputation management agency that goes beyond just making a good first impression for the leading brands and high-profile individuals with great variety of techiniques in it’s arsenal. The company offers creative solutions to help its clients engage audiences and improve their digital footprint. To learn more about the companies mission we sat down with Jesse Boskoff, COO and co-founder of Status Labs:
Q: Jesse, what’s your professional background?
A: I’ve been an entrepreneur since college and all of my businesses have been online businesses. I’ve always been really interested in marketing, which I also happened to major in at school. Most of my work for the past decade has been marketing-based, and I’ve also done some work in product development.
In 2007, I founded a sports startup called RootZoo that grew to over 100,000 registered users and 5 million monthly page views. While the site had great traction and a rabid fan base, monetizing the business was a major challenge and we unfortunately had to shut it down in 2010.
Through my RootZoo experience, I learned a ton about SEO and PPC advertising, which led to my own internet marketing business and eventually a job at FanDuel. I was one of FanDuel’s first marketing hires and from 2012-2016, I oversaw the company’s PPC, social media, SEO, and content marketing strategies. I was also heavily involved in the writing and production of their TV and radio ads.
While at FanDuel, I co-founded Status Labs, which actually started out as a side project without a name. Once we recognized the demand for our services and a growing client base, it quickly grew into a company and we made our first hires in 2013.
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Q: Could you tell us something more about your role at Status Labs?
A: I currently serve as the company’s COO and CMO.
As COO, our operations are incredibly complex and every department depends on one another in some way. My job is to help the company function at its best, and that involves being there for everyone on our team as best as I can. It also involves a constant effort to improve everywhere since the digital landscape changes so quickly. If we aren’t moving forward, you can be sure that others are.
As CMO, I oversee our digital marketing team. We run online ad campaigns (Facebook, Adwords, etc.) for a small handful of clients and I help the team execute on these campaigns with new ideas and insights. And since a good amount of our business comes from advertising, our own marketing program is really important to us too.
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Q: What have been some major milestones over the last 24 months?
A: Opening up a New York office has been a major milestone. 24 months ago we had no presence in NYC. Now we have a robust NYC team and they’re a crucial part of our business. More recently, we opened up in LA and look forward to growing there too.
Ranking #349 on the Inc. 5000 list last year was a pretty big deal to me. It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture when you’re in the weeds every day, but seeing it in those terms makes you take a step back and recognize what we’ve built these past few years.
The launch and growth of our digital marketing business is definitely a big milestone. Spinning off a new service is never easy, especially in such a saturated market – but thanks to the hard work of our marketing team, we’ve managed to grow this business line considerably in less than a year’s time.
The growth of our team – in both size and quality – is probably the most meaningful one to me. We have some truly amazing people on the team. Some of them include former peers of mine at FanDuel and other personal connections of our team members. It’s been flattering to think about the fact that so many of these people saw the company as interesting enough to dedicate the next stages of their careers to. And even more meaningful is the professional growth I’ve seen on an individual level. People who’ve grown with us as the company has.
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Q: More generally, how do you see the digital marketing landscape developing, and where do you place yourself in the industry?
A: I see the lines blurring even more between advertising, social media, PR and SEO. Think back to 10, 20 years ago. Whether it was a banner ad, a TV commercial, or a print ad, it was always obvious that it was an ad.
We’re moving way too quickly these days. Most people don’t recognize (or even care) whether what shows up in their Facebook Newsfeed is organic or an ad. Take a look at the visual history of Google Adwords ads and you’ll see how much more they blend with organic search results than they did a few years ago. There’s sponsored content and influencer marketing, both of which are often mistaken by readers for organic endorsements. And PR these days increasingly revolves around what people see in their Newsfeeds (paid ads) or in Google search results (SEO). All of these things factor into a company’s digital reputation.
Given our understanding of all of these areas, I think we’re uniquely positioned to handle the needs of companies in a far more integrated way than your typical agency can.
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