4 ms·

This is kind of what I had an mind https://gumroad.com/l/bADx https://gumroad.com/l/bADx - again I am just trying to validate the idea. PS: I make more than $5

This is kind of what I had an mind https://gumroad.com/l/bADx https://gumroad.com/l/bADx - again I am just trying to validate the idea. PS: I make more than $50 an hour in my day job but the hope is that it will be like a gym membership - you count on some people never to use your service. PPS: I know this doesn't scale, at least not at first and if it is just me but I can see it eventually becoming a marketplace

ScottWhigham 13y ago
... the hope is that it will be like a gym membership - you count on some people never to use your service. I think that any consultant who has been in the game for many years has worked out a recurring monthly "relationship" with some customers for exactly that reason. The difference is that (a) those consultant deals have a minimum of x hours per month (where x >= 10), and (b) there's a dollar amount per hour that you bill for time over that base. As a result, you the consultant have a strong bias towards helping that customer ASAP. But it has to be at least a decent amount of money per month - say $1000 at a minimum - for you to put aside other projects 2-5x per month to help this customer. $50 though just doesn't cut it - am I going to stop working on this major project with a deadline three days away so I can earn $50 one time? No. I have 50 unread emails and they represent $5000 this month - am I going to ignore those right at this moment and answer the one that's worth $50? No. With your recurring consulting client though, you would do that - not only are you getting $1000 per month from them, but there's the potential every month to make much, much more if we go over x hours. "But, Scott - I don't actually have any of those customers doing that with me right now." Maybe not, but everything has an opportunity cost. All it takes is you not answering a $50 email in what the customer thinks is an appropriate amount of time and bam - bad reputation. Or all it takes is 2-3 customers in a row who ask for things that can't be completed in an hour or who don't like the advice/help you've given them and bam - bad rep. Or all it takes is one customer asking a problem that you don't know the answer to and you also have a major project deadline looming and so you "miss" the question (wrong answer, bad advice, forget to answer, etc) and bam - bad rep. Just not worth $50 to me.
sejje 13y ago
More than not scaling, I think in a lot of cases it just doesn't work at all. I'm a web dev and I have no trouble solving routine hangups. I feel like most of the problems that would get me to pony up some money would take you a long time to figure out. You have to delve deep, understand the stack, trace through a minimum of several files...a couple hours later you're making minimum wage and my problem hasn't gone anywhere.

ScottWhigham 13y ago

... the hope is that it will be like a gym membership - you count on some people never to use your service. I think that any consultant who has been in the game for many years has worked out a recurring monthly "relationship" with some customers for exactly that reason. The difference is that (a) those consultant deals have a minimum of x hours per month (where x >= 10), and (b) there's a dollar amount per hour that you bill for time over that base. As a result, you the consultant have a strong bias towards helping that customer ASAP. But it has to be at least a decent amount of money per month - say $1000 at a minimum - for you to put aside other projects 2-5x per month to help this customer. $50 though just doesn't cut it - am I going to stop working on this major project with a deadline three days away so I can earn $50 one time? No. I have 50 unread emails and they represent $5000 this month - am I going to ignore those right at this moment and answer the one that's worth $50? No. With your recurring consulting client though, you would do that - not only are you getting $1000 per month from them, but there's the potential every month to make much, much more if we go over x hours. "But, Scott - I don't actually have any of those customers doing that with me right now." Maybe not, but everything has an opportunity cost. All it takes is you not answering a $50 email in what the customer thinks is an appropriate amount of time and bam - bad reputation. Or all it takes is 2-3 customers in a row who ask for things that can't be completed in an hour or who don't like the advice/help you've given them and bam - bad rep. Or all it takes is one customer asking a problem that you don't know the answer to and you also have a major project deadline looming and so you "miss" the question (wrong answer, bad advice, forget to answer, etc) and bam - bad rep. Just not worth $50 to me.

sejje 13y ago

More than not scaling, I think in a lot of cases it just doesn't work at all. I'm a web dev and I have no trouble solving routine hangups. I feel like most of the problems that would get me to pony up some money would take you a long time to figure out. You have to delve deep, understand the stack, trace through a minimum of several files...a couple hours later you're making minimum wage and my problem hasn't gone anywhere.