Outsourcing Myself – Decisions

Kane — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:26:38 +0000

Time Tracking & Analysis

So I’ve religiously logged my time for a couple weeks now (using a desktop widget from Paymo.biz), and come to the following conclusions -

I waste too much time switching between tasks. I need to focus more on completing things before moving onto something else
I waste too much time with social media. I need to outsource Ping.FM, Facebook friend maintenance, Twitter follower upkeep, etc.
I waste too much time checking email. Rather than checking my personal and multiple business accounts 50x per day, I should set a schedule and check maybe 4-5x.
I waste too much time doing internet shopping / research. Whether it be a gift for my mom or a new laptop for myself, I always feel the need to find the best value product out there, and spend hours doing so. I can definitely outsource some of this research.

Virtual Assistant Providers

I’ve also been busy research sites / companies to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) from. Here’s the options that I’ve come up with -

Job posting boards

Craigslist Manila – http://manila.craigslist.com.ph
oDesk – http://odesk.com

Outsourcing companies

Your Man In India – http://www.yourmaninindia.com
Get Friday – http://getfriday.com (sister company of Your Man In India)
Catch Friday – http://catchfriday.com
First Page Web Search - http://www.firstpagewebsearch.com/

From my research the job posting boards are time consuming because you have to interview people, and you also don’t want an individual because they’d be a single point of failure in your business (ie. if they got sick a lot of stuff would stop getting done).

First Page Web Search is by far the cheapest of the outsourcing companies, and even though they specialize in SEO VA’s, they can do solely admin work too, I’ve already asked them. Only $300/month for a full-time VA! So that’s where I’m currently leaning…

PeopleString: Like Facebook, but shares 70% of its revenue with its members

Kane — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:02:55 +0000

Interesting service…it’s FREE to signup and you get paid to receive mail & email, check out special offers, and social network. You also get paid for referring other people.

PeopleString ‘Where You Own the Web’. It is the new wave in relationship and social communities; it has the Creativity, Culture, Expressive Forums and places to meet new people and network; but now it combines all that with giving you a share in the revenues that are created by the users of the website.

The ‘other’ social sites keep all of the money for themselves and never give any to their users. They are making millions off of your actions and keeping it all. PeopleString shares the revenues that are generated by its members. This is unique for online social communities. Who other than PeopleString gives its members back 70% of the revenues?

I’ve talked to people that have received money from this, so it’s definitely legit.