You can flag my comments all you want, but it doesn't change the facts. There isn't ANY link to evidence that this thing works.
The Valley turned a con artist named Elizabeth Holmes-Madoff into a paper billionaire by not checking to see whether her woo actually worked. Before we turn this kid into Wile E. Coyote, SuperGenius, maybe someone would like to present a shred of due diligence?
So is it "Best cancer diagnosis system", or "Breast cancer diagnosis system"... or did you mean that he was from the UK, and this is a portmanteau word, like "Brexit"?
Also more to the point, Elizabeth Holmes-Madoff and Theranos. Call me when he can prove this isn't a device for looking at boobs.
There's a scene in COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER where the producer halts the recording session after Loretta Lynn starts singing and says "We need to get some more pickers."
"What do you mean more?" her husband says. "I can't afford more."
"I mean more better," the producer replies.
The problem isn't so much WHAT Mayer did, but how badly she did it. She wanted to boost Yahoo's video division, for example, so she (a) paid Katie Couric (someone my Mom really liked) more money than God, (b) licensed the streaming rights to SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (which needs to be put out of its misery) and (c) decided to fund a season of COMMUNITY (which nobody ever watched). Now THERE'S a compelling product offering. WhoTF would watch that?
She redesigned the site to make it mobile-friendly-- which made it almost unreadable for desktop users. Apparently no one told her that browsers send information about what type of device is reading the site. I liked the tech news, but it became so painful that I just gave up.
(She also killed a lot of the personalization features, which is what had attracted people.)
She bought a lot of tiny companies, most of which made products that were never integrated-- and whose employees left as soon as their employment agreements expired.
She bought Tumblr... then had absolutely no idea what to do with it, and ended up not doing anything. Shut down their sales force to integrate it with the Yahoo sales force (which didn't want to sell Tumblr)-- and then realized they'd have to restart the Tumblr sales force to monetize at all.
She inherited an email system that was a hot mess and made it a different type of hot mess-- with enough glitches that people couldn't rely on it for their email.
A lot of the ideas were reasonable, but the execution was so horrific that there was never any value-add.
What you heard about those sites is incorrect-- or, more precisely, incomplete. It's like my saying "A lot of the people on GitHub couldn't build a program to display 'Hello World!'"
Many of the writers on Upwork who bid on jobs are worthless-- people who have trouble writing a coherent sentence. Others are fronts for offshore content mills.
You will also find (1) copywriters who got thrown out of work when their ad/PR agency folded, (2) reporters who have been laid off as their papers shrunk, (3) staff writers for magazines who quit to have kids (or, if they're men) raise a child, (4) retirees who need cash, (5) people with disabilities who need to work from home or (6) someone working 40 hours, but looking to moonlight to make extra cash.
Unlike (say) database administration, where you can't judge competence from a resume, you can evaluate a writer's ability in 30 seconds-- ask for a writing submission and read what they write.
The $300-500 places price for one job-- that assumes they do it, you go away and they never see you again. Part of the cost is the research time they need to become knowledgeable. For people who can provide a steady income stream, they charge a lot less.
I think it's simpler to find one of the many people who need work-- and would kill for a chance to make $100-$300 a piece-- but it's up to you.
You have to be kidding. And I mean full John McEnroe "You cannot be serious."
First of all $150 for a 750-word article would be a good payment. Assuming you aren't asking for more words than that ("blog post" suggests no), you can have your pick of people.
Second, evaluating writers is the simplest damned task in the world. Read their frigging code.
Third, average reading speed is 200 words a minute, so you could read an entire submission in less than five minutes. Practically speaking, you would probably need less.
Elance and Odesk merged and are now called Upwork. If you posted the job (number of articles, average length) and asked them to send you sample pieces and an online portfolio, you would be overwhelmed.
Even if you insisted that they have a verified business address within 50 miles of Manhattan, you'd still have a fire hose to drink from.
I wouldn't entirely recommend Craigslist, but you can find a lot of people there-- some of whom are very good and still struggling to make ends meet-- if you don't mind swatting away the 8-balls who will apply (CL gives you a custom email for replies, so you won't deal with them forever.)
Writers tend not to hang out there, but Behance or Dribble do have some.
Let me close by restating my opening. Some questions that get posted here are difficult to answer; others have expectations are ridiculous. But the thing every freelance writer wants most is a steady stream of assignments that lets them make a pretty good income per sale.
Four posts a week at $150 would be $600, which is $15 an hour-- enough to pay bills.
Your request is comparable to posting "I'm a supermodel who really enjoys having sex with men with small penises and no social skills. Can anyone on HN help me?" Your big problem would be people thinking you must be a scam, because your request sounds too good to be true.
UPDATE: There are, by and large, two broad types of writers: extroverts who promote themselves capably, but might or might not have equally good skills, and introverts who lock themselves away and aren't great at self-promotion.
The first group is pretty easy to find, but often not worth the price. The second group takes some hunting but can give you better results for less.
Making false statements with conviction doesn't mean they become correct.
If Boober were a lead generation company, it would charge a flat fee for leads and the people who accepted the leads would be free to conduct their business as they wish.
Boober is a transportation company that hires drivers-- but would like to pretend otherwise to duck costs and legal responsibilities.
Skills are important, but attitude matters. If you charge $200 an hour, you have to BELIEVE that you can add $400,000 in value if they keep you around for a year.
Note that "Attitude" <> "Arrogance". You don't go in thinking "I rule and you suck; I know better than all of you." People skills are EXTREMELY important. Clients have to give you the information and the guidance you need to do a job well-- if they dislike you, they'll sabotage you in 100 small ways.
But if you don't believe, deep down, "I can walk in the door of anyone who hires me and contribute to the company on some level", then don't consult.
Dwight Lundell had his license to practice medicine in revoked in 2008-- his fifth disciplinary action in five years by the Arizona Medical Board. This does not prove his ideas are wrong, but it did earn him a lengthy profile on Quackwatch:
So customers know why they should buy you, as opposed to the 14 other companies offering the same thing.
Unless you are building life-size replicas of people out of tuna salad and Swedish Fish, other companies will do what you do. What makes your product or service better than anyone else?
ANYTHING can be the difference-- price, components, features, performance, service-- as long as you can prove to an investor that IT is the reason people are giving your money, as opposed to competitors.
I have a friend who opened a comic book store that he staffed with women who are lingerie models who can also (they have been trained) speak knowledgeably about comics. That's his differentiator (Hooters of comics).
If your sales are growing, there must be something you are doing right (or better)-- that people are picking coming to you for. Figure out what it is and tell your investors that.
You send letters to your brother Theo, cut off your ear and hope to be recognized as a genius someday.
You say "you're not the managerial type so leadership positions... requiring people management are a far stretch for my natural abilities" and you say you are "ready for something great for the long haul, primarily doing Product management."
Product management requires an enormous amount of work with people, so this makes me question your assessment. You don't explain what it is you actually do, but you're sure you're 500% better than any salary anyone can pay you.
If you're really that gifted, a consulting company should want you... but that requires being able to work with people too.
Guess you're destined to go down as a misunderstood genius. Unless of course you're not as brilliant as you believe.
TaxPal, by a wide margin, because it's short and very close to being self-explanatory. When people say "What?" you can say "It's an online bookkeeping service provider" and they'll say "Oh, right!"-- and NOT say "Now what bogan thought of that name?"
Your big risk that is PayPal will decide that ANYTHING ending in "pal" belongs to "them.
"LedgerMate" is pretty good. "LedgerForce" isn't bad, but it might make people think that you're going to send people to them (the "force" part.
By the way, stuff ending in "roo" would be OK, but only if you're planning to have kind of a sassy, irreverent "We're bookkeeping and we're good at it, but we're not BORING" kinds of brand.
If your pitch is "Let us do the hard stuff so you can just focus on your company. We will make this simple for you.", that would be ideal.
But you would really have to have a Kangaroo as a mascot, which might not be a good idea if people would think it's "Shrimp on the Barbie" corny. Being US, I'd be the wrong person to ask.
Of course you can learn online. So what? Here;s why you need to saddle yourself with $125,000 additional debt-- even though it might become useless soon.
Let me explain how companies hire. If you want a job done, there are two things you can look for in an applicant.
COMPETENCE. You verify the ability to do work. You can do this by (a) asking the person to perform tasks, (b) reviewing examples of their current or past work or (c) conducting an interview that is so highly detailed that it shows that they understand the work
Verifying competence takes a fair amount of time, so you can only do it for a few people, unless you want to spend all your time doing it.
CREDENTIALS. Ask the person to submit pieces of paper that indicate ability to do work. This includes (1) years of experience in the industry (2) employment with a company who does the work, (3) references or recommendations from people who do the work and (4) a college degree.
Credentials don't guarantee that the person has any competence (even if they aren't lying, they could have been a complete screwup). But they take very little time to process-- any job-tracking application (Taleo) can automate the work.
Guess which method most companies use.
A friend who is a criminal defense attorney has a saying that applies. "It's nice that you're innocent. But how can you prove it?"
I'm confident that you can learn everything an MBA knows, and learn it better than most MBAs do, and understand more. (I have.)
Very few employers will take the time to verify that you do. If YOU don't have the credential, they'll give the job to someone who does.
NOTE: All the preceding assumes you want to be hired for jobs that require an MBA in the posting. If that's not the case, it's an entirely different issue, but one nobody can answer.
Hi-- Rufus Jones. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I live outside of Germany-- in fact, I live outside of Boston. There was a 3-year period when you couldn't pick up a computer magazine without finding a 1-page or 2-page spread on 1&1 Media, which is why they have 13 million accounts.
I have mine because they're less annoying than MS, Yahoo or Google, and I really don't need more for LivingSocial or Groupon,
Absolutely look for an internship. What would a job offer you, other than money (which you say you need) and experience (which you absolutely will need if you ever want to get hired)?
In the business world, you are judged on one thing: WHAT DO YOU COST? How much money do I have to spend to get you?
Some people (whom you mostly do not want to work for) will only want people who cost very little. These people love interns because they are slaves.
Most others assume that really good people always know they are good and act like it. These people consider anyone who can be had cheaply as marginally competent.
You can see the attitude in some of the advice you're getting. If you're any good, why don't you open your own startup and produce something that suckers Marissa Mayer into giving you $14 million?
If you haven't done that-- and you're willing to work for free-- how good can you be? Not very, obviously, ESPECIALLY if you live in NYC, where people in power still like to refer to themselves as "Masters of the Universe" or "Big Swinging Dicks."
There is only one exception to the rule, and that is the Roger Corman rule. Roger Corman was a low-budget filmmaker who hired a ridiculously high number of good directors early in his career. The list starts alphabetically with Peter Bogdanovich and includes James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, Curtis Hanson, Ron Howard, Jonathan Kaplan, Nicolas Roeg, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese and Robert Towne. Corman's pitch was very simple; "I won't pay you squat, but I will let you make a movie, so you learn how to do it."
There are companies (JSeymourATL mentions the type) who do the same thing for technology. They'll can't get people who are destined to work for Booz, Allen-- unless they get them for the first or second job. They'll hire you, give you tons to do and work your butt off until you outgrow them.
But even then, DO NOT VOLUNTEER OR INTERN. And only go with them if you can see that you will work a lot and learn a lot. Don't take a job that drops you on password resets at a bank call center.
Remember, everything you do from now on will be judged. DO NOT, unless you work on open source, WORK FOR FREE.
Facebook, Google or Twitter, because I don't think those companies know enough about me yet.
Sane people use Abine's Maskme things they think they might want to use and Mailinator or one of the other disposables places for those they doubt they'll use.
The Valley turned a con artist named Elizabeth Holmes-Madoff into a paper billionaire by not checking to see whether her woo actually worked. Before we turn this kid into Wile E. Coyote, SuperGenius, maybe someone would like to present a shred of due diligence?