6 ms·

Solo founder or small team? Fix your life with a real-life non-virtual assistant

57 points by robfitz 15y ago

caseysoftware 15y ago
Completely agreed. A few years ago, I tried a virtual assistant and it never worked out. The types of tasks that I needed a hand with were not easily breakable without detailed explanations. Then I was at an event last month and a flock of friends recommended one assistant in particular. I emailed her about availability and listed out the problems and roadblocks that I've hit recently. A few days later, we met over coffee and she pitched me on solving one of those problems for now with a hook to work on a few others as time goes on. Three weeks in and it's working beautifully. Everything I've handed her just gets done. It's not a huge amount at this point, but it's a start. If you're in Austin and looking for an assistant, drop me a note and I'll pass along contact info.
- bobbles 15y ago
  Any hints as to what kind of work you're able to pass over to the assistant? I just can't see myself working something like that into my life.. but it could be interesting.
  - caseysoftware 15y ago
    My particular task was logging business cards, collecting my notes into my CRM, and then flagging each one for follow up. Life changing? Probably not.. but immensely helpful. And now I don't have that growing stack of business cards staring at me.
    - bobbles 15y ago
      No that sounds like a great use of an assistant.. I guess all those litle things that just build up over time can be unloaded fairly easily.
larrik 15y ago
Okay, this is only tangentially related to the post, but this is the second article I've read on that site, and I keep running into an issue on Chrome in Linux: http://www.larrikj.com/media/images/ss.png http://www.larrikj.com/media/images/ss.png I have the text not staying in the designated areas, and text overlaying other text. This happens on quite a few blogs I read on HN, so it's probably me and not them, but it doesn't seem to happen on most other sites. Does anyone else see these issues? Did I break something in my install or settings (or extensions)?
- hbar 15y ago
  I've been seeing it as well, but have never spent any time digging to find out why.
sunir 15y ago
Getting an assistant makes a lot of sense in most cases, but there is one area that you should never use an assistant. Never let an assistant mediate meetings or contacts with clients, partners, investors, or anyone else. If you're at a start up, book your own meetings. Everyone else can do it, so can you. Why? 1. It's rude. They wanted to talk to you but you've punted them to an assistant. For a tiny company, you aren't that important. 2. It cools the relationship before it started. Relationships are the core asset of any business. Prioritize them. 3. It distances you from the market. As a startup, you should be as close to the market as possible. Actively disintermediating from people around you is a bad sign of how out of touch you likely are.
- jholman 15y ago
  As a minor nit-pick, you have confused intermediating and disintermediating. Disintermediating is removing intermediaries, which is good for being in touch.

57 points by robfitz 15y ago

Completely agreed. A few years ago, I tried a virtual assistant and it never worked out. The types of tasks that I needed a hand with were not easily breakable without detailed explanations. Then I was at an event last month and a flock of friends recommended one assistant in particular. I emailed her about availability and listed out the problems and roadblocks that I've hit recently. A few days later, we met over coffee and she pitched me on solving one of those problems for now with a hook to work on a few others as time goes on. Three weeks in and it's working beautifully. Everything I've handed her just gets done. It's not a huge amount at this point, but it's a start. If you're in Austin and looking for an assistant, drop me a note and I'll pass along contact info.

bobbles 15y ago
Any hints as to what kind of work you're able to pass over to the assistant? I just can't see myself working something like that into my life.. but it could be interesting.
- caseysoftware 15y ago
  My particular task was logging business cards, collecting my notes into my CRM, and then flagging each one for follow up. Life changing? Probably not.. but immensely helpful. And now I don't have that growing stack of business cards staring at me.
  - bobbles 15y ago
    No that sounds like a great use of an assistant.. I guess all those litle things that just build up over time can be unloaded fairly easily.

larrik 15y ago

Okay, this is only tangentially related to the post, but this is the second article I've read on that site, and I keep running into an issue on Chrome in Linux: http://www.larrikj.com/media/images/ss.png http://www.larrikj.com/media/images/ss.png I have the text not staying in the designated areas, and text overlaying other text. This happens on quite a few blogs I read on HN, so it's probably me and not them, but it doesn't seem to happen on most other sites. Does anyone else see these issues? Did I break something in my install or settings (or extensions)?

hbar 15y ago
I've been seeing it as well, but have never spent any time digging to find out why.

sunir 15y ago

Getting an assistant makes a lot of sense in most cases, but there is one area that you should never use an assistant. Never let an assistant mediate meetings or contacts with clients, partners, investors, or anyone else. If you're at a start up, book your own meetings. Everyone else can do it, so can you. Why? 1. It's rude. They wanted to talk to you but you've punted them to an assistant. For a tiny company, you aren't that important. 2. It cools the relationship before it started. Relationships are the core asset of any business. Prioritize them. 3. It distances you from the market. As a startup, you should be as close to the market as possible. Actively disintermediating from people around you is a bad sign of how out of touch you likely are.

jholman 15y ago
As a minor nit-pick, you have confused intermediating and disintermediating. Disintermediating is removing intermediaries, which is good for being in touch.