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Boss as a Service – Hire a boss, get stuff done
- reacharavindh 8y agoVery interesting. I'm not sure if I will sign up, but I can see "me when I was a student" signing up for this.
- naragon 8y agoI had to look up at the calendar to check the date - thought it was April 1st.
- starbeast 8y agoIf they turned this into an umbrella company service with equipment hire and lawyers and accountants on call, they'd really be onto something. I don't just hire bosses to shout at me, I expect them to also make sure the things I need for my job are there, that I'm legally covered and that the invoices are being chased.
- worldsayshi 8y agoYeah, but then they would need to up the price 500x.
- starbeast 8y agoOr take a percentage and scale the perks.
- fermienrico 8y agoIt is so silly that this might actually be a good idea? I do want a good reminder and todo/red-flags don't do it for me. I can seriously see why speaking to a human and being accountable to someone can boost productivity. Consequences of not doing a task on time would be embarrassment and shame from someone you're paying. Or its just silly. Customer defining the goals is akin to setting the difficulty on "easy" and beating the game. What would be good is if BaaS would interview the customer, set realistic but challenging goals for the customer based on the project needs and then push them. Similar to a gym coach.
- the8472 8y agoWell, if you want them to have teeth there could be a contract where you either pay them X amount on success or Y if you fail to achieve a pre-negotiated goal. With Y > X of course. To avoid setting bad incentives, i.e. that your boss still wants you to succeed, he personally should get a bonus out of the X even though the company earns less.
- jlawson 8y agoThe boss management company is then incentivized to hire incompetent bosses. Their entire business model is profitable in proportion to how often it fails. The perverse incentive has to land somewhere; not sure there's a way to neutralize this one. But it's an interesting idea.
- hndamien 8y agoMaybe if you transparently advertise the success rate it would neutralise since hiring incompetent bosses would result in less sign-ups. That said, not sure you could accurately verify that number.
- Jarwain 8y agoMaybe instead of paying the boss more if you fail, donate to charity or some other financial loss. A charity you don't like for a negative penalty if needed. If you fail, you pay the charity an amount Y. If you succeed, you could do nothing, or give the Boss a bonus of .5Y for being a good boss
- hnuser355 8y agoHmm, I know some bosses who really enjoyed making people “accountable” but didn’t seem to enjoy knowing what they were doing, articulating a realistic vision, or making coherent decisions. Why do poor bosses only seem to like that part of the job?
- crmd 8y agoAssuming this is a real company and not a joke, consider taking the money you would spend with them and paying people to do work for you, like cleaning, cooking, bill paying, investing, testing, marketing, etc. Be your own boss!
- dangrossman 8y agoBeing a boss is not the same as being your own boss.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoOK, I've considered it. I immediately concluded that $25 / month will not pay for even one of the many functions you just listed.
- mabbo 8y agoHoly shit, I never realized how badly I need this.
- Insanity 8y agoAs a side-note: Baas means "Boss" in Dutch. Which happens to be the abbreviated "Boss as a service" :) It's quite a funny idea, I wonder if that'd be sustainable though!
- namenotrequired 8y agoNote that the acronym is Baas... which is Dutch for boss (and incidentally the source of the English word too) :)
- therein 8y agoI can feel it, there is an amazing startup name waiting to be discovered there. Huur een BaaS or something of that sort.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoHey, that was more interesting than I expected. It looks like "boss" is in fact a loan from Dutch rather than a cognate: > Middle Dutch baes, of obscure origin. If original sense was "uncle," perhaps it is related to Old High German basa "aunt," but some sources discount this theory. > The Dutch form baas is attested in English from 1620s as the standard title of a Dutch ship's captain. The word's popularity in U.S. may reflect egalitarian avoidance of master (n.) as well as the need to distinguish slave from free labor. https://www.etymonline.com/word/boss https://www.etymonline.com/word/boss
- davidscolgan 8y agoSo I've recently been throwing around the idea that I might have some form of ADHD after really not wanting to accept it for a while. I also happen to have the least structured job of all time - work from home freelance web developer and writer. After having a structure my whole life in school which I did fairly well under, suddenly I found myself with literally no structure, deadlines that are always far in the future, and the ability to literally watch Youtube all day long without any _immediate_ penalty. I love seeing things like this. I've had to build all sorts of structure into my life, but the hardest part is always getting myself to do it, because, you know, I could just _not do it._
- philwelch 8y agoI also have "some form of ADHD". Turns out stimulants work pretty well. I was terrified of them for most of my life, and it doesn't help that a lot of doctors are also scared of them, but they work, and getting treated with them is one of the best decisions I've ever made.
- tuesdayrain 8y agoAdderall works absurdly well for me, it's actually depressing to see how it can make being productive virtually effortless. For me it's the difference between an hour of real work per day and 15+ hours. I'm just afraid that taking it often will lead to some kind of brain damage decades down the line. Otherwise I would be taking it every day.
- bradleyankrom 8y agoIt freaked me out how much of a difference Adderall made when I started taking it. My productivity and general feeling of self worth have definitely improved since I started taking it seven or eight years ago. I also worry about the long-term effects, but probably not as much as my concern for how I would function if it were ever taken off of the market.
- User23 8y ago
- bsaul 8y agoAnyone that has never been freelancing for a good amount of time will think this is a joke, but it's probably not. Even if you love your job, you're working on your own personal projects, and you know how to manage yourself and get away from distractions, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to motivate yourself some days...
- i_phish_cats 8y agoI don't need a boss as a service, I have a wife who handles all our finances...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pepelondono 8y agoVery nice concept! We use something similar for daily follow-ups, it's a bot that integrates with Slack and pings us on a daily basis to check what we did yesterday, what we are up to today and if we are having any problems. Pretty simple yet powerful: https://dailybot.co/ https://dailybot.co/
- artur_makly 8y agoIve had this idea years ago.. so glad to see someone finally launched it. Accountability is HUGE for Single Founders and Consultants. V2 should have Expert Bosses for specific Verticals ( premium plans! )
- esturk 8y agoI guess it's not unlike how people who hire personal trainers to push them to work out. Some people just need a little encouragement.
- jonnyscholes 8y agoInteresting idea... Kind of reminds me of (part of) the role artist managers have. Many (but certainly not all) artists find time management near impossible and need someone checking in constantly. Many (again definitely not all) also are technaphobes who do whatever they can do get away from digital tools. A human todo list might well appeal to them. I think there could be a niche version or this service for that industry - esp if the "bosses" in this service were vetted in a way an artist could know they understand the industry. I could see some mid-high level artists paying for this (esp if social/marketing were slapped on top). Might need to be localised somewhat though... As a complete aside if anyone running the business is reading this I found the centered text for everything inc body copy pretty hard to read. Solid website overall though.
- bigiain 8y ago"Hire a boss"? I don't think that's how its supposed to work... (something something disrupting entrenched renumeration models something something exit round...)
- qwerty456127 8y agoI would consider hiring one if he would tell me exactly what to do to reach my goals, not just stimulate me to. He needs to be really competent.
- ggm 8y agoYou mean like how I envy my seniors, who managed to get a "Personal Assistant" or PA, who basically does this? because in the end, if you hire them, you can't get the same kind of tractive force them hiring you has. On the other hand, you can get them to do things in calendar, project and time management, which you really should be able to do, but for whatever reason cannot. Yes, even project management. A lot of P.M. is timeline enforcement. amazing what a 2IC can do in these situations. My seniors who have PA, basically rely on them to coordinate the awesome. The PA has no functional authority, except the silent kind a camerlengo has...
- adtac 8y agoI thought PAs just helped you forget about menial, boring tasks like setting meetings, making initial calls, etc. so that you can continue working on the real problem. I didn't know they got to bust your balls if you slacked off.
- ggm 8y agoYou have to pay em a lot more, but for the right pa and the right boss..
- grrowl 8y agoIf they could extend this to someone who would actively manage you, instead of just be a human to-do list with procrastination checks, this might be worth something. The idea at its core is great.
- zygotic12 8y agoBonzer guys -SlaveAsAService.com would complement perfectly.
- ahartmetz 8y agoBrilliant. You can even fire your boss, how cool is that?
- graeme 8y agoIn this vein, has anyone had organizational success hiring a high level PA? Not talking about the cheap offshore PA's from upwork, but a native English speaker with training and a higher rate. I find I have more projects than I can track. A good PA/project manager might help with that, but it's hard to know in advance or how to hire one. I run an online business, and have contractors for specific tasks, but I'm really the only one with a bird's eye view. And frankly, project management is my weak point.
- rrcaptain 8y agoFindom. You've invented findom.
- jamestimmins 8y agoHey I use this! It’s a solid service and Manasvini is great to work with. I’m a big fan.
- bsvalley 8y agoSure, but you will need another boss service to make sure you’re not giving up on this boss service after only a week of annoying micro-management stuff :)
- Kaveren 8y agoThis just looks like a crutch to me. If you need someone hovering over your shoulder to hold you accountable to complete work, you're either suffering from depression, or not behaving like a responsible adult. Someone who is able to complete work without paying someone to tell them to be productive will always find much more success in what they're doing than anyone who finds a service like this valuable. This is for the same type of person that believes in setting New Years resolutions. Not bad for a business though, regardless of what I think of people who use it. Very low expenses, good profitability.
- tuesdayrain 8y agoUnless you have flawless discipline, which is exceedingly rare, then you would probably also benefit from someone hovering over your shoulder and holding you accountable.
- MaulingMonkey 8y agoPeople talk like crutches are a bad thing. They're legitimate medical devices! You wouldn't try to walk off a broken leg, and a wheelchair or some crutches will help you get around while the leg is healing, while keeping you active and fit enough that you do actually hopefully heal. Some people break their get-it-done-femur instead. Why not embrace some crutches if they're effective? > This is for the same type of person that believes in setting New Years resolutions. More like the kind of person who knows damn well they're not going to keep those new years resolutions, is sick and tired of it, and wants to try something that might (or might not) be more effective.
- PeterisP 8y agoI mean, "Someone who is able to complete work without paying someone to tell them to be productive will always find much more success in what they're doing than anyone who finds a service like this valuable" is literally true but useless - sure, being the first is better than being the latter but that doesn't help you to get from A to B or even imply that this can be done. What if yes, "you're either suffering from depression, or not behaving like a responsible adult" (many people are) - then what? There are people who need literal crutches because they have some problems with their legs, and some of them will need crutches for the rest of their lives. Crutches are useful.
- whatshisface 8y agoAnother word for what this service is offering would be "coach," in which case it sounds a lot less ridiculous. Plenty of people hire personal trainers, why not a productivity trainer?
- Sinbe 8y agoYeah when you say "life coach", people get what it is, but it's boring. But there's a certain weirdness to the term "boss as a service" that make it seem interesting and people want to find out what it is, I think.
- bitdeep 8y agoLoL, PainInTheAss-as-Service.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoHaving an intelligent person give you a impartial voice is often valuable as well, we get caught up our own bubbles. 'That person' is hard to find though.
- buboard 8y agoWhen people talk about the robots taking over, sometihng like this is what i m afraid of. An AI personal assistant will soon become my boss, or rather, my master. I just hope it's not evil.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoThis is the plot of Marshall Brain's Manna. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_(novel)
- meowface 8y agoI really like this idea, but I'm not sure I'd pay $25/month for it unless I'm really sure I like it. Maybe make the first month cost $5 or $10?
- fuzzieozzie 8y agoThere is a task manager in Outlook too!? Maybe I should use MS Office.
- incadenza 8y agoYeah but if I’m hiring you that kinda makes me the boss, no?
- ernsheong 8y agoI'm working on https://kanrails.com https://kanrails.com. Eventually I hope to achieve a similar thing, except that Kanrails (the bot) will be the one nagging you incessantly. Anyways, brilliant idea.
- pierrec 8y agoI've previously dreamed of a community version of this, and I'm certain others have as well. There's a chance the concept might be flawed, but it's worth considering. Members would be encouraged to act as "productivity coach" for one or more other members, and in exchange could receive the same service. I like it because it could be cheap and/or free, and having members experience both sides of the equation could improve the overall experience. There are some challenges that might render this impossible, though: - Is there a target audience, ie. procrastinators capable of being productivity coaches? (I, for one, believe I fit the profile) - How can the coaching be incentivized? Points system, matchmaking? - Should it be monetized? If yes, how? - How much community moderation would be required, and how could it be implemented?
- robotbikes 8y agoThis does sound like a good idea. It is indeed easier at times to give advice to someone else than it is to yourself.
- MetalGuru 8y agoThis. I find that the advice I easily dole out to other people is the same advice I struggle with following. It just seems so easy to do when you're telling someone else how to do it.
- djbaskin 8y agoTotally. When I'm a "boss", I often give someone advice that I haven't done yet. Then after I say it, I actually (finally) go do the thing I said. It's like, I just needed to say it out loud to someone else in order to go do it.
- djbaskin 8y agoLet's talk! This is what we're trying to do with the Your Boss app. We facilitate peer-to-peer "boss" support through phone calls. There's question prompts at the beginning of the call to guide the conversation (ie. "Is there anyone you're forgetting to email?") The phone always says "Your boss is calling." so you know the app is calling you. I've been self-employed (without a boss) for 10 years and have thought about this a lot. (Check out Your Boss in the app store! We launched 12 weeks ago. Would love to know what you think.)
- krypton2k 8y agoThey could charge more the less you get done. As you become more productive the price goes down.
- jorgesborges 8y agoThis is truly novel and fascinating. Great work. As an aside to the brilliant thinkers out there who aren't especially interested in or concerned with design, as a general rule it's not good or necessary to center-align paragraphs of text. I always see this on really cool projects like this and I know it's somewhat trivial but part of me hurts on the inside and I just needed to let it out.
- ada1981 8y agoIf you are interest in a more premium offering, I work with a “Fairy God Mother” who offers project management, accountability, productivity coaching, etc. She’s good, but much more than $25/mo. http://thetalentsquad.com/consulting/ http://thetalentsquad.com/consulting/
- Raphmedia 8y ago> VIP status > Private sessions: Weekly x 55-minute one-on-one sessions. > Skin in the Game: $997 month. Oh wow. This must be one of those service that make sense only if you life in a "high salary/high cost of life" area. I could buy a few good quality used cars a year at that pricing.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rhencke 8y agoThis was on HN once before - when it was, I signed up, because I struggle with prioritizing things that I need to do in my personal life over my professional life. (Hair cut, clean car, dentist, what have you.) I figured I didn't have anything to lose, really. Manasvini, who emails me regularly from the service, has been nothing but wonderful. Every email I've gotten has been encouraging and positive, and it honestly helps keep me accountable. I really can't thank Manasvini enough for that. Never once has there been any scolding, nagging, or negativity - just gracious reminders and a good attitude. (Manasvini, if you're reading this - thanks for putting up with me, and always being helpful getting me back on track, even when I manage to completely derail myself.)
- nodesocket 8y agoDo you feel that adding tasks and managing bossasaservice.life becomes more of a distraction and effort than not having it though?
- rhencke 8y agoNot really - keep in mind interacting with Boss as a Service is a normal human conversation. In that way, it's very fluid and natural. You tell them what you want to work on, they help keep you accountable via reaching out, you report back when you finish it. If you needed to re-prioritize anything, it'd be as simple as saying, 'Hey, I'd like to work on A instead of B' or 'I'm going on vacation for a week' or whatever else you might need to say. This isn't really a web task/todo list service - think of it more like someone helping keep you accountable to tasks where you'd find it helpful for someone to do so, if that makes sense.
- gcb0 8y agoso you email manasvini every meanial task like hair cut, car wash, etc and he emails you a reminder if you miss the regular intervals? sounds much more work than a task list...
- 8y ago
- Harelin 8y agoThis would make a good basis for a Black Mirror episode. Ask the question, "How far will they go to hold you to task if you don't complete your goals, or what happens if you lie?" Name the episode "Safeword."
- tw1010 8y agoThey do use the phrase "deadly serious" a curious number of times...
- torgian 8y agoI’m actually considering doing this as part of a side business,but more personal. I’m pretty good at managing people, but why work for a company? I’d rather help people push themselves to achieve their goals, while giving a bit of advice on how to accomplish something
- klarrimore 8y agoThis is a boss idea.
- eloff 8y agoI already have a personal boss, like many other married guys. ducks Joking aside, wouldn't you just get a friend/family member/spouse to do this with you if you really wanted some accountability?
- nothrabannosir 8y ago# Is this a real thing? Existential question: are we really real if we don't exist on the blockchain? Immediately bought a subscription.
- chrismorgan 8y agoThe rest of the page until that point had been making me smile more and more. That line took me over the edge to full-fledged laughter for ten or more seconds, and a few hours later it’s still making me chuckle.
- madeuptempacct 8y agoI still can't believe people pay "life coaches", who happen to be conmen with no skills whatsoever, to give them advice and encourage them. I am genuinely curious in the laundry list of psychological problems that leads them to needing praise/encouragement from a paid incompetent. Well, that, and what makes it psychologically work. People can't be stupid enough to not understand that they are paying for nothing.
- quickthrower2 8y agoIt's leveraging human nature. Not everyone can motivate themselves in the long term, and having someone to remind them and keep them on track is worth a bit of money. The benefit of a life coach is independence. They are not your friend, and they are not your partner or parent. They can help you choose life goals that suit you without being worried about their agenda. Although that being said, caveat emptor!
- madeuptempacct 8y ago"Not everyone can motivate themselves in the long term, and having someone to remind them and keep them on track is worth a bit of money." As someone here said here - that's an expensive to-do list. "They can help you choose life goals that suit you without being worried about their agenda." Having a scam artist choosing life goals for you seems kind of counter productive. "The benefit of a life coach is independence. They are not your friend, and they are not your partner or parent." I would argue a life partner should be able to give better advice.
- rando444 8y agoYou've never had something that you really wanted to do, learn, or get better at that you've never followed through with?
- madeuptempacct 8y agoSure I have. I am sitting on top of an article right now that I should have had done a week ago. Why haven't I finished it? A ton of reasons: 1. I can't narrow down the scope enough and I am not so familiar with the subject matter that I can make easy generalizations without the risk of them being inaccurate. This leads to a lot of tangential research. 2. I don't care about the subject matter at all, nor do I see a forseeable use for it - this doesn't do wonders for motivation. 3. I am doing this in my "spare" time, which is making me bitter, because I work hard enough at work and "shouldn't have to spend every waking moment trying to further my career." 4. I guess in the end I am just lazy. 5. Edit: Oh, and there is that whole compulsive browsing habit outside of work which I probably need to work on, but again, a life coach isn't exactly going to help me there. So, really, what would a smart person (but not a life coach) tell me? They would tell me that I made a choice, and I should stick to that choice until it's carried out so that I don't waste my time by stretching this out. Then they would tell me to re-evaluate my priorities. Now - how can a life coach possibly help me with any of these issues? Life coaches are a cheaper, less educated version of psychologists* - they can help truly messed up / low IQ people be "normal." They can also serve as a paid "friend" of sorts, who "cares". In the end, it's all a lie and a waste of money. Worse yet, it's self-deception in the sense that you hand over the reins, and I repeat myself, to some idiot conman. * Just to be clear - psychologists (especially ones who are also psychiatrists) can also help truly sick people when there is a chemical imbalance / injury / etc. I am talking about the sit-in-a-chair psychologists.
- quickthrower2 8y agoThis could be an alternative to personal trainers, if all you need is the motivation and you already know how to bench press or whatever (or happy to follow youtube for that).
- fudged71 8y agoI'm a personal trainer and I'm building data analysis tools that I believe will allow me to effectively scale an online training service using common fitness apps of your choosing. If I can look at your Apple Health export and Strong/Fitbod/Fitnotes weightlifting data there is a tremendous amount of things I can tell you about how to optimize your training and lifestyle to get you closer to your goals. Is this something you'd be interested in?
- spongo 8y agoI am not the person you're originally replying to but I am interested in hearing more about your efforts. How can I contact you?
- djbaskin 8y agoWe're doing a similar thing with our app, Your Boss — except, it's peer-to-peer phone network and more of a community. I've found that if I need a boss, talking to someone who also needs a boss is super helpful! https://thisisyourboss.com https://thisisyourboss.com
- nanokilo 8y agoAh nice, kinda reminds me of Talk O'Clock, the P2P alarm clock network where people all over the world could call each other to wake each other up.
- techsin101 8y agoI'm impressed this might change my life for real.. do you connect to random or same people
- djbaskin 8y agoBoth. Right now it's random. It's great having a diversity of perspectives. But we're adding a feature where you can reconnect with bosses you've liked.
- MetalGuru 8y agoThis is awesome. I was literally just trying to figure out how to solve this problem without paying a fortune. I wanted a personal trainer like you get for the gym to keep me accountable in other areas of life.
- djbaskin 8y agoWorking on this. What sort of life stuff would you want a personal trainer for?
- calimac 8y agoBrilliant idea great copywriting and site perfectly priced product with well crafted terms. BRAVO!
- mikekchar 8y agoNot a Stephen King fan, but I really enjoyed reading "Quitters, Inc." years ago. I certainly hope this service doesn't branch out in that direction :-)
- Robotbeat 8y agoThis is cool. When I’ve had a big project up against a deadline, I’ve thought of like hiring someone from TaskRabbit or Craigslist to simply watch me and make sure I’m being productive, on-track.
- glemmaPaul 8y agoI think I'm gonna give it a spin, it doesn't sound bad at all. Coincidentally the abbreviation BAAS is also Boss in Dutch!
- alttab 8y agoGarbage in garbage out.
- em-bee 8y agoi generally find that working in a team makes me more productive. pair-programming especially, makes it much easier to focus, and not be tempted to do something else every time i get stuck. (pair-programming also helps to avoid getting stuck in the first place) but the key point is accountability to another person. that person doesn't have to be a boss. it can be an intern. just the fact that i have someone watching me work, because they want to learn about my job, is helpful. and i want to show them how to do the work too. several years ago, i joined an online incubator called n-reduce. each team, or individual that joined the service was grouped with a few others, and we reported weekly to each other what we were doing via private videos posted on youtube. the goal and effect was the same. i had to set my own goals, and work at my own pace, but i was accountable to someone. or, you know how you make an extra effort to clean your home when you expect guests? -> accountability. bossasaservice looks like it could be very helpful. however i would like to structure it a bit different: more like scrum, with daily standups and maybe sprints. so that once in a while i list all my tasks and goals that i want to accomplish over the next period, and quick daily reports on how i am doing, with the service helping me note if i am on track or fall behind. they could join the sprint-planning giving suggestions on priorities. or, someone else could help with that. a scrum-master for hire, so to speak. greetings, eMBee.
- pankajdoharey 8y agoWoW this could be quite exploitative. I think the people who really need this service would avoid reading your emails, this service may not be really helpful surely it will make money by exploiting the weakness of people with low disciplne or distracted mind due to various reasons or things happening in their lives.
- sheeshkebab 8y agoIt sounds like we’re at or past the “peak job”, now that there are services telling us what we kind of need to work on... bc we really don’t have to work on any of that BS.
- alexval 8y ago“Just get married” - my wife when I told her about this
- sheeshkebab 8y agoLol - although you’d end up working on stuff you never knew even existed or had any use for until you got married.
- hartator 8y agoDoing a similar things using email tasks with followupthen.com. I am just emailing me tasks one by one as they come, and I am receiving following up emails every morning until they are marked as completed. It's working well for me. It's an excellent service and it's free.
- tovanim 8y agoWhat a daddy issue resolving site. Since I am suffering from major daddy issue I'll chip in some money for a try
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- thasaleni 8y agoFun fact: Boss as a service = BaaS, which is the same as the Afrikaans translation of Boss :)
- hnphillipj 8y agohowzit bru
- woolvalley 8y agoIt's like personal trainers. You made an obligation to someone else to show up at 7am at the gym 3 times a week, and that alone is enough to make you go to the gym consistently.
- kluck 8y agoGood analogy! btw. I asked the question a year ago whether this whole "boss as a service" was viable and I think it is one of those things that you can't really imagine until you tried it out. I am glad there is now the opportunity to do so ;) s. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13498466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13498466
- ty0ki 8y agoConsidering making a discord group or something. You're responsible for one other person and someone else is responsible for you. What do you say ?
- nachtigall 8y agoLOL, this sounds like from the Silicon Valley TV show. Please everybody tell your parents you're using such a service and see how they'll break down in laughter ;)
- amelius 8y agoPerhaps it would work better if you paid them your salary, and you'd only get it back after you've completed your tasks.
- Humdeee 8y agoDo they accept experience and exposure as payment?
- gpvos 8y agoEtymology note: the abbreviation B.A.A.S. corresponds to the Dutch word "baas", from which "boss" was loaned with the same meaning. Baas is, according to etymologist Nicoline van der Sijs, the most successful Dutch export word[0] (mostly via English). See http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=341464 http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=341464 . [0] Possibly excepting "apartheid".
- aerovistae 8y agoI think "boss" is a little more common than "apartheid."
- gpvos 8y agoDepends on your metric. I don't have the numbers at hand, but apartheid may have been borrowed into more languages.
- tw1010 8y agoIs there something similar but for positive reinforcement? Negative reinforcement (tough love) tends to make me want to crawl into my bed, cry and give up. (I know I should fix this, get tougher skin or whatever, but assume I've tried already. Just like this site works with chronic procrastination, rather than telling you to "just fix it".)
- zejay 8y agoThe top comment doesn't make it sound like negative reinforcement. Might depend on the human they assign you though.
- rosege 8y agoI have to say I have had thoughts about something similar. It came to me because I worked for a number of managers who weren't very technical yet got paid more then me to basically just make sure I turned up to work and competed projects. I started to think surely their job can/will be automated. Maybe this is just the first step or 0.1 beta
- maire 8y agoThe big thing that is missing in this service is a community of like minded people. The service itself could be completely automated since the person is still just generic. To get stuff done you need both community and organization. Organization can be automated but community can not. If the community is fundamentally different than you, it will not work.
- jka 8y agoThis is definitely an interesting development - but in the spirit of trying to work out 'what can go wrong' with new technologies and services (something that the tech industry hasn't been doing a great job at), one idea I'd throw out there is that while good managers help and support their reports, bad managers may effectively end up controlling or telling their reports what to do, and having undue leverage over them. It's hard to say whether that will happen in many cases here, but this does have the potential to set up lots of direct relationships with unusual power dynamics over time.
- corpMaverick 8y agoYou need to be able to choose boss type. Perhaps according to Theories X, Y, and Z. ? :P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y
- SeanA208 8y agoInteresting to see all the traction this is getting, I think that it certainly addresses a need! I stumbled upon this a few months ago when I saw this website which was made by the same folks: https://whydoiprocrastinate.com/ https://whydoiprocrastinate.com/
- mmaunder 8y agoI want mine to start every sentence with "I'm going to need you to go ahead and um...."
- tumanian 8y agoI remember an article which was saying that a lot of startups are just solving problems for the 'millenials' that their moms used to solve. Laundry, making food, making appointments, cleaning, etc. Now there is a startup that will sign your grade sheet and tell you to do homework.
- jczhang 8y agoWho are the bosses? How do they get chosen? Browsed around and read some comments but didn't see it.
- a-dub 8y agoThis is pretty brilliant. Now if only they added a paycheck-as-a-service feature for those who are figuring out what's next as well! :)
- WheelsAtLarge 8y agoThis is a great idea. But boss has a negative connotation. Figure out the right name, minimize costs and figure out how to penalize or reward the user so it's effective and it's a winning business. Good Job!