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Ask HN: What problem is REALLY bugging you?

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Re: Ask HN: What problem is REALLY bugging you?

#21

Post by thomaspaine »

rguzman wrote: post #19
thomaspaine wrote: post #7

I want a personal assistant for 5-10 hours a week. Not a virtual one because most of the things I want done are in meat space. Stuff like filling out forms, doing my laundry, waiting in line for me at the DMV, and dropping off my netflix returns in the mail. It sounds petty, but I really hate running errands and filling out forms. I'm considering hiring someone off craigslist.

I've often wanted the same. The main problem seems to be that it is probably hard to make a living as a personal assistant at the prices you and I are willing to pay. There is also the trust issue: would you really trust a stranger enough to do sensitive things?

It didn't occur to me that I could hire someone until I saw this: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/bipan/i_used_to_have_a...

It just so happened that the previous day when my girlfriend asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I gave her a list of errands to run, people to call, and forms to fill out. She says I should just pay her instead of hiring someone, since she admittedly does do a lot of this crap for me anyways, but something doesn't feel right about hiring my girlfriend to be my personal assistant.

Regarding the business side of things, it might be feasible if you had a central service that could distribute the load of multiple clients among a stable of assistants. You sign up for X hours per week, and you get an assistant on retainer. Maybe you pay a premium if you prefer to work with one person exclusively. Locality could be a problem though, because you would ideally want your assistant to be pretty close to where you work/live.

Re: Ask HN: What problem is REALLY bugging you?

#22

Post by mstevens »

Something I was looking for recently (slightly UK specific).

I like to buy FSF-level free hardware and software - ie no binary blobs, free software bios if you can get it, no binary only video drivers.

I couldn't find a store clearly focussed on selling this to me in the UK. Existing linux related online vendors often provide software that requires binary drivers, and don't clearly indicate the details of this sort of thing.

Existing stores like kd85.com are in the direction of what I'm thinking of.

Re: Ask HN: What problem is REALLY bugging you?

#24

Post by tomh- »

mstevens wrote: post #16
tomh- wrote: post #4

I would pay to outsource the risk of being a PayPal merchant. I want to be able to serve my users with the option of paying with PayPal, but PayPal for merchants is totally unreliable. Especially in the virtual good/currency industry they seem to have the tendency to lock your account for no reasons at all, and you can be without money for over 180 days.

An obvious alternative is to pay to be with another payment service provider who sucks less.

Unfortunately thats not an option, if you don't offer paypal, it will cost you users..

Re: Ask HN: What problem is REALLY bugging you?

#26

Post by mstevens »

tomh- wrote: post #24
mstevens wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An obvious alternative is to pay to be with another payment service provider who sucks less.

Unfortunately thats not an option, if you don't offer paypal, it will cost you users..

I was cheating a little, clearly a payment provider who sucks less will be just as popular with users as paypal, or they wouldn't suck less!

Re: Ask HN: What problem is REALLY bugging you?

#27

Post by wlievens »

mstevens wrote: post #13

Thought from last night - we need a HN "problem registry". Not that new software ideas are hard to come by, but it'd be interesting to build up a list of specific pain points with eg) email.

There's a google spreadsheet somewhere that circulated a few weeks ago.

Re: Ask HN: What problem is REALLY bugging you?

#28

Post by mstevens »

wlievens wrote: post #27
mstevens wrote: post #13

Thought from last night - we need a HN "problem registry". Not that new software ideas are hard to come by, but it'd be interesting to build up a list of specific pain points with eg) email.

There's a google spreadsheet somewhere that circulated a few weeks ago.

Can't find it on a quick look at searchyc, do you remember any more details?

Re: Ask HN: What problem is REALLY bugging you?

#29

Post by petercooper »

rguzman wrote: post #19
thomaspaine wrote: post #7

I want a personal assistant for 5-10 hours a week. Not a virtual one because most of the things I want done are in meat space. Stuff like filling out forms, doing my laundry, waiting in line for me at the DMV, and dropping off my netflix returns in the mail. It sounds petty, but I really hate running errands and filling out forms. I'm considering hiring someone off craigslist.

I've often wanted the same. The main problem seems to be that it is probably hard to make a living as a personal assistant at the prices you and I are willing to pay. There is also the trust issue: would you really trust a stranger enough to do sensitive things?

The main problem seems to be that it is probably hard to make a living as a personal assistant at the prices you and I are willing to pay.

I'm not sure it's the actual rate of pay. I'd pay $20 an hour for these services no problem, and that's far above minimum wage. The problem is I'd ultimately be paying far more to do all the paperwork, have this person treated as an "employee", taxes, and red tape. If it was just handing cash to someone "under the table" the rate isn't too prohibitive.

Labor laws hurt employees as much as they protect them.

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