Is there a marketplace like this for quick programming tasks?
Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
21–30 of 76 posts
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#22I was excited to try this out and was very impressed with the quality and speed of the service.
Back when I was working at Big Co Inc., the shared admin assistants were an incredibly valuable resource to leverage your time. Unfortunately, it's not a feasible option to hire one at a startup. Exec changes that.
It's a great option for times when you need something NOW but can't or don't want to stop what you are otherwise doing. Examples: taking a mac to the genius bar, getting printer ink, getting batteries.
Also relevant is this cdixon blog post about how the internet is changing what a "job" is. [1]
[1] http://cdixon.org/2012/02/26/the-internet-is-reshaping-our-e...
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#23The beta users for Exec were YC alumni living in SF, and they have great things to say about it.
I was a beta user for Exec.
I used the website to order a task ahead of time - delivering a burrito to my boyfriend on Valentine's Day! The coolest part was being able to watch the delivery happen in real-time on my iPhone (super cool).
It was an adjustment for me to think of an everyday task that I could outsource. In general, I think that if people can make the mental switch, Exec will be a game changer.
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#24Kan mentions that Exec is real-time compared to other existing services, such as TaskRabbit. I've used TaskRabbit several times and found TaskRabbit to be plenty fast enough, probably similar to the real-time described in the article.
Really? I've never heard of anyone I know getting a sub-1-hour response time on TaskRabbit from request to starting a job, much less 10 minutes.
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#25Strangely enough my biggest concern is how well this will scale. EDIT: I'm not sure why I'm getting down boated. I'm pretty serious. I have no idea the average task duration but assume its an hour then every "exec" can only do about 7-8 a day (assume some non billable time). If they get 10,000 customers and say each need one task every 2 weeks. Thats 5000 tasks and would require a staff of 125 execs. With 125 execs n…
Your managers are algorithms. Your onboarding costs you $20 for each Exec you sign up - in this economy, your acquisition cost for them is likely near zero because WOM and free PR will give you more opportunities than you can handle. You bootstrap CS with either the founders or one of your close friends, building systems to support the common cases (e.g. "Exec flaked on me") and using T1 support as a system-level T2.…
Your managers are algorithms. - We know that this model in broad strokes works because Rentacoder, ODesk, 99Designs, Airbnb, etc etc all work
I'm sorry I don't buy this, I may be misreading how Exec works but it looks like Exec's are employees - not freelancers. I don't know how this would work any other way you couldn't guarantee staffing levels and "real time service" for your customers if they were independents like Task Rabbit. Not to mention Rentacoder, Odesk and 99designs all usually have some aspect of geographic arbitrage which brings down their prices. The major difference in this model is that Exec becomes entirely responsible for QC - unlike each of the other's you mention where if a person (or place) is crap that "vendor" gets downvoted out of the game. Here the only people who lose karma is Exec itself.
This brings a whole world of pain and management which none of the crowdsourced models address - payroll taxes, labor codes HR - scheduling. You're definitely not managing with algorithms. I have a good friend who runs a Doggy Day Care in SF who hires a lot of folks in this price range. He has a hard time getting 15 people who can walk dogs with a decent level of service.
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#26[deleted]
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your managers are algorithms. Your onboarding costs you $20 for each Exec you sign up - in this economy, your acquisition cost for them is likely near zero because WOM and free PR will give you more opportunities than you can handle. You bootstrap CS with either the founders or one of your close friends, building systems to support the common cases (e.g. "Exec flaked on me") and using T1 support as a system-level T2.…
Your managers are algorithms. - We know that this model in broad strokes works because Rentacoder, ODesk, 99Designs, Airbnb, etc etc all work I'm sorry I don't buy this, I may be misreading how Exec works but it looks like Exec's are employees - not freelancers . I don't know how this would work any other way you couldn't guarantee staffing levels and "real time service" for your customers if they were independents l…
You guarantee request quality of service, not staffing levels, by using a per-request queue. Beginning with the person most likely to say yes desirably, send out SMSes saying "Exec! New job for you. If you want details reply in next 2 minutes.". If they reply, opportunistically lock job for 5 min while they read. If not, move onto next potential exec. Tune parameters as required until 90% of customers get called within 10 minutes.
I totally get that your friend deals with the problems of flakey and unreliable people who are habitually not up to the task of working... but she doesn't deal with them like they were IP packets, does she? If she did, she wouldn't really be in the dog walking business anymore, but she'd also have potentially quite good reliability systemwide based on a network of high-failure components.
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#28This market sounds horizontal, but it sounds like they're managing it well. Excited to see how this pans out.
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#29This sounds pretty damn cool. It's like a more humane, more generous implementation of the vision of Mechanical Turk.
When is it coming to London? I'll sign up.
Re: Justin Kan Launches Exec (YC W12) For Real-Time Mobile Jobs
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your managers are algorithms. - We know that this model in broad strokes works because Rentacoder, ODesk, 99Designs, Airbnb, etc etc all work I'm sorry I don't buy this, I may be misreading how Exec works but it looks like Exec's are employees - not freelancers . I don't know how this would work any other way you couldn't guarantee staffing levels and "real time service" for your customers if they were independents l…
You guarantee request quality of service, not staffing levels, by using a per-request queue. Beginning with the person most likely to say yes desirably, send out SMSes saying "Exec! New job for you. If you want details reply in next 2 minutes.". If they reply, opportunistically lock job for 5 min while they read. If not, move onto next potential exec. Tune parameters as required until 90% of customers get called with…
There seems to be a disconnect on the points we're arguing here. Task scheduling and routing is (almost) the easy part or at least a pretty solvable equation - there's a whole range of operations and queue theory texts that can make a quick go of managing that.
I'm more concerned with the human element. HR overhead, people making sure tasks are getting done well and in a timely manner. "but she doesn't deal with them like they were IP packets, does she?" - No she (he actually ;-) can't they're people.