My experience with outsourcing has been like this for 8 years:
- I need something done our team doesn’t have time to do.
- I post a job and wait 24 hours
- I then go through a long list of people who sort of match what Ineed, but not completely, and all the specialists cost too much.
- There is some back and forth, negotiating pricing and deadlines and asking about previous work, which I then go have to fact check.
- The deal closes and the work begins.
- Halfway through you check on the work and it took an extreme left turn at Albuquerque so you have to go back through and explain the purpose of the project.
- You get the work back and it’s pretty crappy but not crappy enough that you can’t use it, plus you’re out of time so you just have to deal with it and find another person next time.
WTF? Why?
What my dream outsourcing experience is:
- I define the task, a budget and when it needs to be done by
- Someone competent does it, asking questions as they need to
- They give it to me and it’s done with thoughtfulness.
So…. I built it.
I built a little Slack bot that does just that. You put in a few details and we’ll find the right person who can get it done. In many ways it seems to be better defined as “microlancing”, but whatever it is, a few of the companies who are using it love it.
Once the project has been assigned, you can chat with the person doing the work right from Slack.
This workflow works well for
- SQL reports
- Most tedious spreadsheet work
- Light design projects
- Research projects
- the other random things that take up 80% of your time.
We’re moving beyond the handfull of companies we currently support and are looking for a few others to join. If you’re interested in being onboarded and revolutioninzing the way you outsource projects I’d love to hear from you.
Hugs,
AP
