When I open Honey's file, I have this reaction: America is f*cked. There are charts. There are section headers
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If all Bangalorians are like Honey, I pity Americans about to graduate college. They're up against a hungry, polite, Excel-proficient army.
Apparently, they're not all like Honey. Here's my recent experience with this same firm. Last Thursday night, I requested a quote for a fairly simple project, the creation of a couple of spreadsheets of stock information. I got an e-mail back a few hours later, telling me they would get back to me by Sunday night with a quote. Still no word from them.
My guess is that Brickwork didn't have much bench strength, and when the inquiries came in from the readers of Ferriss's best-selling book (Brickwork's website asks if that's how you heard of them), the firm had to lower its standards in order to staff up.
Last Thursday I also contacted another Indian outsourcer Ferriss mentioned, Your Man in India. First I tried to request a quote via the "ask us" feature on the company's website, but got a server error, so I e-mailed the company instead. They referred me to their sister company, Get Friday, and someone from that company wrote back to say my request was beyond the scope of their abilities.
India is still in the running though, as I'm currently corresponding with an Indian individual about this project via Elance (in all, I received 5 proposals from India, 2 from North America, and 1 from Eastern Europe for this project).
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I wonder if Feriss was an owner/investor in any of the outsourcing firms he plugged.
Did the Ferris's 4-Hour Workweek have much substance, or was it mostly "inspirational" (like most best selling entrepreneurship books)? Would you recommend it?
Sounds like one of your websites is a stock recommendation website...Do you have an approximate launch date/deadline?
I don't know if Ferriss has any financial interest in those firms. My guess would be not, because I think he'd disclose it if he did. He also listed several different outsourcing options in his book, including Elance. I don't know for sure though.
The 4HWW actually did have a lot of substance. I would definitely recommend it, though the relevance and applicability of what he writes will vary depending on the reader.
Regarding the two websites I'm developing, I've deviated from some of the principles Ferriss writes about in the 4HWW. His M.O. (at least the one he recommends) is to test the demand for a product first with very little investment up front. I was wary of that approach for my two websites, because I didn't want to give the ideas away before I got a chance to launch them. The other area where I've deviated from the M.O. is that I've eschewed the lowest-cost, DIY approach.
Part of the reason for that is that my sites require some hardcore programming, so I needed to hire professional developers anyway. But the other part of it is that quality design is a credibility indicator, IMO. My lead designer has designed sites for Showtime, Mercedes, Wachovia, and CNN Money, etc. Costs money, but if you've already spent money on the engine, might as well make sure the car looks good on the outside as well.
The website in question will be more of a stock information site. Should launch early next month.
Dave, hey. Can you push me your e-mail address/Twitter name? I've been following your outsourcing adventure on the 4HWW forum and here and there's something I want to give you that should help.
Cheers,
David
dw[at]muselife[dot]com
twitter: @dvdwlsh)
My e-mail address is in my profile, David. Feel free to e-mail me.
I picked up the book tonight on my way back from borders. You are right, it is a good book. My head is literally swimming with ideas right now. Thanks!
*on my way back from work
No problem, J.K. Glad you liked it. The book also gives you access to the forums David Walsh described here.
Quick update: I awarded the job to the particular Indian candidate from Elance that I referred to above. He turned it around in a few hours and did a pretty good job. It still required a number of hours on my end to check the data, but he got the vast majority of it right. Still no word from Brickwork.
Elance seems like it could be a phenomenal tool. If this company were public I would buy its stock. I have had projects on the mental backburner because I needed either expertise I couldn't find locally or want to/feel safe to pay for. This site, with its global reach, competitive bid process, public feedback*, and results-driven payment system could make more things possible for me. We'll see...I signed up today and may dip my toe in the waters soon, after I'm done with the project I'm having developed currently.
Can't wait to see your site. I've had an idea for a stock market that basically simulates my personal research process, but any such thing would have to wait to come to fruition, instead I'd prefer to concentrate on products that don't require massive initial expenditures (for little ole me, anyway). I agree with you on the value of a professional web developer though, the pages people decide to put up on their own are usually pretty crappy. I have taught myself HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver etc but I would only use a career IT guy for anything serious. And as far as expertise goes, you website dev can be inexpensive compared to other expertise-for-hire.
*a lot of the feedback -for certain handles especially- looks like it is just people gaming the system, hiring themselves for work and giving themselves five stars. Especially with some of the Indian companies that have crap reviews interspersed with numerous 5-star 300 dollar jobs.
Yeah, Elance looks pretty impressive when you drill down. I'd heard of it, of course, before reading Ferriss's book, but I'm more impressed with it after using it and seeing the little details (escrow accounts, etc.).
Re the feedback, the guy I ended up using was a newbie who didn't have any feedback. But he demonstrated by the questions he asked that he understood what I was looking for, and demonstrated it further by sending me a small sample. And he probably offered to charge less and do it more quickly because he was trying to get his first sale on the board.
If you're thinking of starting a site to automate your investment process and offer it to others, for starters you ought to set up one of those accounts (at Covester?) that verifies your performance. Then you'll have some track record to use as a selling point for your site. Alternatively, you could back test your method if it doesn't require any subjective assessments. Elance could come in handy with that.
Incidentally, click on commenter David Walsh's name when you have a chance. He seems to have come up with a cleverly meta idea, targeting readers of Ferriss's book: Ferriss writes about starting a mostly automated business to act as a "muse" financing your other pursuits; Walsh's muse seems to be a service telling you how to create your muse.
"the guy I ended up using was a newbie who didn't have any feedback. But he demonstrated by the questions he asked that he understood what I was looking for, and demonstrated it further by sending me a small sample. And he probably offered to charge less and do it more quickly because he was trying to get his first sale on the board."
Yes, the guy I hired to put up one of my website ideas* was one of the lowest bids also (I used Craigslist) for pretty much that reason, to build up a portfolio.
*I won't reveal the nature of it yet because it is one of those quirky ideas from left field that will either look genius or stupid 6 months from now.
"If you're thinking of starting a site to automate your investment process and offer it to others, for starters you ought to set up one of those accounts (at Covester?) that verifies your performance. Then you'll have some track record to use as a selling point for your site. Alternatively, you could back test your method if it doesn't require any subjective assessments. Elance could come in handy with that."
Good advice. I have actually wanted software that does what I do on my own for some time. I just have the hunch it would be marketable, but if not I'd be content to use it for myself. It wouldn't be a stock-picker per se, but basically a glorified stock screen.
I clicked on David's link. Interesting "muse". (I really cringe using that terminology. It's fine when it stays in the book, but outside of that...ehhh. Feels hokey. 4hww was an inspiring read but I don't think the concepts were that profound to warrant a whole new vocabulary. Maybe its just me though.... OK vent over.)
I too really don't like the word muse. It rubs a lot of people the wrong way for some reason.
I have used Elance and was not 100% satisfied, but not dissatisfied enough to strike them from my 'list'. We will see what comes through the next time I put a project up there.
Don't do much outsourcing, but recently I also requested a quote and some information from a company in Vancouver, never to hear back from them again. I think in general all of those places are hit and miss. Especially YMII and the others listed in the 4HWW. They are just tired of tire kickers. One company even had their lawyers send Tim a letter demanding he take them out of his book because of all the unqualified people who called them. -Kam
If Brickwork and YMII are tired of tire-kickers, they should drop their "ask us" features on their site, where they request bids for one-off projects, and just focus on longer-term arrangements. That appears to be the model that another outsourcing firm has taken (I forget the name of it, but it was mentioned on the 4HWW forums by someone -- it's the one run by guys based in San Francisco but using mainly Filipino VAs).
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