How I Will Be Rich

In anticipation of our new project, I have scoured the internet looking for everything and anything I can about outsourcing, virtual assistants and various firms that offer these tasks. Surprisingly, after the success of the Tim Ferriss book, “The 4-Hour Work Week“, there are still not many people or websites talking about all the benefits of outsourcing. Most people still believe that it is something better left to huge corporations who can afford to open manufacturing plants in third world countries and pay pennies to our dollar. That is just no longer true. So many people, especially in the United States, are benefiting from the tasks that foreign outsourcing can provide. We’re not talking just large companies either. We’re talking about people using virtual assistants to outsource their normal activities in their day to day life.

I have a list of sites that I have found that have been mentioned to provide assistance remotely. some of these are companies that just offer programming and web site creation services, some offer pretty much anything.

• Brickwork - Seems to be able to do pretty much any sort of task but tends to be aimed more towards helping with business operations (spreadsheets, powerpoints, and office work)
  
• ELance - Offers any sort of service you can ask for. You present your task at hand and various people will bid for the opportunity to help complete that task.
• Get Friday - Offers a virtual assistant that can pretty much help in any area of your life, from helping with office paperwork to reading bedtime stories to children.
• YMII (Your Man in India) - A company that offers remote services for people with needs in India. Not so much what we are looking for.
• Guru.Com - Another company that looks like it is capable of handling almost anything business related.
• Rent A Coder - A place where you post your software related needs and businesses will bid to code them for you.
• Global Solutions India - A company that offers design related solutions. They will do graphic design, website design, brochure design and more.
  
• FinTax Experts - Offers Tax preparation and book keeping services for a fraction of the price of domestic offerings.
• ScriptLance - Another company just like Rent A Coder. They allow people to bid on your software related needs.
  

If you have read The 4-Hour Work Week, you have probably heard YMII, or Your Man in India, and Brickwork. Those are the two companies that are discussed. Upon further research, I have learned that Get Friday and YMII are essentially the same company. YMII, for the most part, handles tasks that need to be accomplished in India. It is mainly for people from India that are currently living in the United States and need things done for them back at home. I believe the book kind of mis-states what their services are. This is a company that you would go through if you need to purchase real estate in India or if you need a ride from the airport in India and various other tasks of that nature. It is actually the company, Get Friday, that provides the Virtual Assistants that Tim Ferris describes in his book. If you were to contact YMII and ask for help with a research project that you are currently involved in, they will just refer you over to Get Friday.

These are the outsource firms that I have found to work with. We are making a list of tasks that we can send some of these companies so that we can get to know their processes and how well everything comes out. If anyone has any specific tasks that they would like to see performed, please let us know. Remember these places are pretty much capable of doing anything in which their presence is not required.

Let the fun begin…

-M

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