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Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

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Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#61

Post by backpropaganda »

ironic_ali wrote: post #44
ztratar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! Founder & CEO here. Love the emotional response. Hey -- some people have to think it's incredibly stupid for it to be a good idea, right? #vclogic ;) Anyways, we don't see this as just an advisor/coach that you use once or twice a year. That's thinking by the old school rules of how career coaches work. But Boost is very, very different. The vast majority of our users use Boost to analyze internal workplace situ…

This was years ago now, but I said the same thing about that "milliondollarwebsite.com" (or something like that?), that sold pixels as advertising space on a single pahe. "What a bloody stupid idea" I said, and said to my flat mates at the time, that if it makes the money I'll run round the block naked. Fast forward a year or so later, I got sent a link (by my now old flatmate) to a BBC article saying they'd made the…

The milliondollarwebsite idea was a much more stupid idea than OP. In fact, OP should probably add more stupidity, to increase success probability. I'm only half-kidding.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#62

Post by ztratar »

backpropaganda wrote: post #61
ironic_ali wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was years ago now, but I said the same thing about that "milliondollarwebsite.com" (or something like that?), that sold pixels as advertising space on a single pahe. "What a bloody stupid idea" I said, and said to my flat mates at the time, that if it makes the money I'll run round the block naked. Fast forward a year or so later, I got sent a link (by my now old flatmate) to a BBC article saying they'd made the…

The milliondollarwebsite idea was a much more stupid idea than OP. In fact, OP should probably add more stupidity, to increase success probability. I'm only half-kidding.

Only half-kidding you say?!

:) - legit curious what you mean by that.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#63

Post by ztratar »

runT1ME wrote: post #47
ztratar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! Founder & CEO here. Love the emotional response. Hey -- some people have to think it's incredibly stupid for it to be a good idea, right? #vclogic ;) Anyways, we don't see this as just an advisor/coach that you use once or twice a year. That's thinking by the old school rules of how career coaches work. But Boost is very, very different. The vast majority of our users use Boost to analyze internal workplace situ…

I think the idea isn't bad. There are people who want to mentor and people who are in need of mentors, makes sense. However, I have two main questions: Does having a person to talk to offer a compelling alternative to a blog post/book etc. that emphasizes the things you just mentioned: "brand that exudes quality, land speaking engagements, push to hit goals" etc. ? The second question is: what about people who alread…

Hey there runT1ME!

If you look at people who tend to say they're going to do something vs actually do it, the #1 signal is social support and encouragement.

For many, their networks aren't doing these things either. Boost can be that encouragement and constant feedback mechanism to stay the path and make the changes.

For people who already take a lot of these actions... surprisingly, they are using the product as well. Often they'll say "I always want a 2nd opinion on everything I do, but I worry about annoying my friends constantly."

The top performers in the world all have executive coaches. The President (eek, perhaps bad example) has numerous personal advisors. Feedback loops always help, and this is a way that everyone can have that... 1 message away.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#64

Post by ztratar »

cookiecaper wrote: post #53
ztratar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are aware of bubbles and are proud to say we help people across many different industries and socio-economic statuses.

But what are you doing about your bubble? The bubble that colors your bias on what makes good career advice? That's what the parent was talking about and you talked straight past him. That doesn't bode well for your bot's performance! I don't think this is the right format, but I do think computer-assisted political strategy is an interesting prospect. The problem with trusting other humans for political advice is th…

So first of all, this isn't a bot. I don't think a bot would be able to help with complex political situations very well.

As our customer, you're our sole focus. Your needs, desires, goals, etc. We succeed when you succeed, so I don't think it's valid logic to have to worry about what Boost is looking to get out of the advice.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#65

Post by _9vpl »

I didn't look very deep beyond the main graphic at the top, basically did a quick 5 second test on it. Personally, even though I'm a typical person who avoids phone calls most of the time, I can't imagine texting some stranger for career advice. Some sort of network tool to match with a mentor for a long-term relationship sounds like something I might become interested in once in the shit storm as a founder. Ideally, the match would lead to phone and/or in-person conversations and advice.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#66

Post by posixplz »

ztratar wrote: post #56
tIONTamINariciA wrote: post #35

In the "Communicate Better" section, did the imaginary employee really attach business confidential information in a Boost topic? i.e. "I've attached a PowerPoint full of sensitive information that I'd love you to read and profide feedback. Soon afterwards I'll be needing job search advice since my employer will fire me for having such terrible judgement." Sounds like a terrible idea and a poor example of how to use…

Boost is 100% confidential. People talk about complex power grabs and political situations all the time. For Boost to work well, people need to be able to trust it with Information thy want confidential.

> 100% confidential

Are your coaches licensed professional counselors, therapists or psychologists? If not, those conversations are not actually privileged; any disclosure of legally protected information (like a company's sensitive internal documents) would be highly improper.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#67

Post by sjg007 »

skylark wrote: post #24
rezashirazian wrote: post #19

Roll eyes . I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous idea. I can see potential use for this once or twice a year, and even at that I wouldn't reach out to anyone unless I know them personally. How insecure and in need of validation someone needs to be to seek career advice from a chatbot four times a month?

My gut reaction was the same as yours because I would personally never use a service like this. That said, the existence of career consultants proves that there are people who do enjoy this sort of advice and direction. I don't see this becoming a unicorn startup, but I could see it becoming a niche service that some people really enjoy.

It's basically applied psychology right.. understanding motivations, your situation etc.. C level execs hire said consultants or have a psychologist on staff.

It's nice to see the democratize. Hopefully it can help people.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#68

Post by beager »

Thanks for sharing. Some notes:

1. Signups go right to waitlist, so it's hard to validate any of this. Is this vaporware? Why waitlist? Are you still in dev, or is this an artificial scarcity play?

2. All I see here conceptually is headhunter lead-gen, so I don't understand why you're charging $708+/yr for chatting. Why not offer your service for free, register orders of magnitude more users, and make your money as an agency by placing users in new jobs? If they are engaged with your platform, you'll know it's time to do that before any other platform or agency does, and you have a qualitative advantage over other agencies because you will have counseled your candidates for a long time prior. Seems like the focus of Jobstart before you rebranded it, n'est pas?

3. Your job functions in registration are constrained to tech and tech-adjacent functions only. Is that a limitation of the advisors you have on your platform, an unconsciously narrow scope, or is it related to your market designs for point 2?

4. How will you not get obliterated in court for encouraging the transmission of proprietary or privileged information?

5. Back to the $708+/yr point, so many alternatives could provide the same use for less. A private curated Quora, a user mentor network with perks (advise other users for incentives), even curated career resources in a newsletter or Amazon book-of-the-month club. I realize that a service like this might pay for itself in boosting one's earning potential, but many less-expensive incarnations of the same are at anyone's disposal.

6. Why chat? Why not email? Why not Hangouts? I feel like chat is such a restrictive medium.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#69

Post by dimaggiosghost »

beager wrote: post #68

Thanks for sharing. Some notes: 1. Signups go right to waitlist, so it's hard to validate any of this. Is this vaporware? Why waitlist? Are you still in dev, or is this an artificial scarcity play? 2. All I see here conceptually is headhunter lead-gen, so I don't understand why you're charging $708+/yr for chatting. Why not offer your service for free, register orders of magnitude more users, and make your money as a…

Disclaimer, I have gotten much value out of their previous project, jobstart.

1/ it's based on personal advice so needs to scale on both sides. I've spoken w the founders and they legit.

2/ I intend to get my work to pay for it under "high quality outsourced good management". I don't expect to use it for a new job, but to perform better in my current.

3/ it is my understanding that it's a scaling thing.

5/ in my job, a 10% improvement in efficiency Uncompounded is worth thousands of dollars in direct costs per month. Well worth it, based on my jobstart experience w the same team.

Re: Boost – Your personal advisor and career coach

#70

Post by beager »

dimaggiosghost wrote: post #69
beager wrote: post #68

Thanks for sharing. Some notes: 1. Signups go right to waitlist, so it's hard to validate any of this. Is this vaporware? Why waitlist? Are you still in dev, or is this an artificial scarcity play? 2. All I see here conceptually is headhunter lead-gen, so I don't understand why you're charging $708+/yr for chatting. Why not offer your service for free, register orders of magnitude more users, and make your money as a…

Disclaimer, I have gotten much value out of their previous project, jobstart. 1/ it's based on personal advice so needs to scale on both sides. I've spoken w the founders and they legit. 2/ I intend to get my work to pay for it under "high quality outsourced good management". I don't expect to use it for a new job, but to perform better in my current. 3/ it is my understanding that it's a scaling thing. 5/ in my job,…

With respect to #2, why would any employer pay for their employee to use a service that has a strong financial incentive to place them in a new job?
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