Virtual Assistants India

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, India Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

As you probably guessed from the name, Virtual Assistants India is an India-based VA company. The company was founded in 2012, and today they serve clients worldwide and handles a multitude of tasks including General Administration, Bookkeeping, Sales and Marketing, Call Center, Website Development, and more.

About Virtual Assistants India

virtual assistants india reviewThe primary focus stays on saving time and money and in turn provide you with extra mileage for your business. VAI has virtual assistants who have been part of the industry before and have worked as independent entrepreneurs. Hence, customer satisfaction is something that they seek to deliver across all levels of engagement.

The VAI office maintains the latest modern security measures and hence they are fully equipped to handle sensitive data which forms an important part of corporate relationships.

One thing I liked is how they identify their VAs as entrepreneurs themselves. I’m not sure how accurate that description is if they’re working on your tasks from a corporate office center, but I appreciated the idea.

How it Works

The first step towards working with VAI is choosing your plan from the Pricing page and proceeding to sign up following which you will be contacted by the Operations Team in 4-8 business hours.

You will be assigned a dedicated VA to get started. This might take a maximum of 24 hours depending on the availability and skill set mapping so that you get the right assistant to handle your tasks. One can send tasks right away after being assigned to a VA.

There are no contracts or long-term commitments. Over time, if your business needs require an upgrade into more hours of support or a higher level plan, VAI ensures that you go through a no-hassle process, in case you need to upgrade or downgrade your plan.

In that case, my suggestion would probably be to start small to minimize your risk, and upgrade as needed. The only challenge would be when your VA is already committed to other clients and can’t add more hours for your work.

Services

Virtual Assistants India works with highly skilled individuals who after capable of adapting to different roles and function effective across all types of engagements. Some of the primary services that VAI provides include:

  • Administrative Virtual Assistant
  • Bookkeeping & Accounting
  • Graphic & Web Designing
  • Sales & Internet Marketing
  • Customer Support Services
  • Transcription Services
  • and others.

Plans and Pricing

VAI is essentially a one-stop solution for both personal and corporate needs with pricing $4.98 per hour for a full-time dedicated assistant (roughly $800 per month).

virtual assistants india pricing

The 20-hour per month plan is around $180, or $9 an hour, and the equivalent hourly rate drops as you bite off more and more hours each month. A half-time assistant would be just under $500 a month.

The company offers a 3-day free trial and a 100% satisfaction guarantee on their service.

Besides choosing from the regular plans, they also will quote short-term or project-based work

Virtual Assistants India Alternatives

Naturally there is some pretty stiff competition amongst VA companies in India. Another couple firms worth checking out are the well-rated My Tasker and 24/7 Virtual Assistant.

Have you ever worked with Virtual Assistants India? If so, please feel free to share a brief review of your experience to help others embrace the service.

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Calculating ROO: Return on Outsourcing

Posted by Mica Harvey / News

When I was making my first virtual hires, I saw it as a cost.

Since I was doing everything myself up to that point, it was just an additional expense.

Well it didn’t take long to realize that hiring a VA shouldn’t be a cost at all, but rather an investment. 

And like any investment, you’d expect to earn a positive return — otherwise you wouldn’t make it!

Calculating ROI

For my latest hire, a dedicated social media specialist, I had to sit down and calculate the projected return on investment (ROI) of bringing her on board.

Did it make sense? What kind of results would she have to drive in order to turn a profit on her fee?

To do this, I found the baseline numbers of what we were generating in terms of traffic, email sign-ups, and revenue. Some business owners know exactly how much a new email subscriber is worth — but I’m not one of them.

It was an interesting exercise to try and find out though, and the number I ended up with was around $0.25 per subscriber per month.

So if I were to hire a $500 a month VA, I’d need their efforts to generate at least 2000 incremental email subscribers just to breakeven.

Surprisingly — or perhaps not — it was the first time I ever tried to estimate such a number in advance of a VA hire.

(Historically it’s always been about how many hours it will free up.)

Have you ever done the same?

The Time Equation

Normally calculating ROO, or return on outsourcing, has been about the number of hours I can free up every week or every month. If you value your time at $50 an hour and can free up 5 hours a week, it makes sense to pay up to $250 a week for that help, right?

That’s how I’ve typically looked at the “returns” on my virtual assistants, and even how I present the savings opportunity in my book. And that’s because the alternative was doing the work myself.

Measuring Performance

In this case, it was work I didn’t particularly know how to do. What it forced me to do was come up with concrete deliverables (ie. double traffic from this social platform).

It also forced me for the first time to ask what that traffic was worth.

And at first glance, the numbers didn’t look good. It was going to be hard to justify this hire at her proposed rate because the necessary results for a positive return seemed pretty unrealistic.

So instead we set up a short-term compromise. Instead of agreeing to a flat monthly fee on an ongoing basis, we agreed to do a 2-month trial — calling it a Pinterest account “makeover” — at a slightly lower rate.

So far she’s driving strong results​​​​​​​, though we’re not quite to the “breakeven” point yet. After the trial is over, we’ll re-evaluate and see if it makes sense to continue down this path.​​​​​​​

Your Turn

What do you think? Do you have a number in your head for what would constitute an outsourcing “win” in terms of ROI (or ROO)?

Do your team members have a concrete metric they’re responsible for?

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Get Virtual Services

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, India Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Get Virtual Services is a complete virtual assistant service provider in Mumbai, India. The company began in 2009, and has grown to serve a variety of clients around the world.

The company works with industry-trained virtual assistants who specialize in all types of knowledge-based and online work like market analysis, e-commerce transactions, advanced online technologies, web-maintenance, e-businesses, web-development, meeting arrangements, product marketing, client contacts, database administration, social media campaigning and more.

How it Works

get virtual services reviewGet Virtual Services follows a three-step approach towards building up a simplified workflow, through which customers can submit their requirements. The first step involves filling in a simple contact form that lists down business details, specific requirements and budget.

The turnaround time is 24 hours by which a complimentary consultation is scheduled, according to your convenience. Next, your immediate business goals are identified along with inherent issues that might crop up during execution. Simultaneously, a work outline is also traced out to defy obstacles and successfully complete the job.

Following the initial discussion, you receive a Welcome Packet that contains the Contract, Confidentiality/Non-Disclosure Agreement and Client Questionnaire. Soon after, a phone conversation is set up to gather more information on the first task that needs to be executed.

A couple points on their website confused me. The first was their 400 sq. foot office space with 25 desks. That seems like very cramped quarters and I’m guessing one of those figures is a typo.

The other point was that they provide support 6 days a week, but then on the very next line claim to be available 24/7.

Services

Get Virtual Services offers three service types:

  • Dedicated Assistance – Administrative Assistant services, Content Writing, MBA Assistance, Multi-tasking Assistance, Personal Assistance and Research Assistance.
  • Website & SEO – Website Maintenance, E-Commerce Solutions, Web Development, Paid Search Advertising, Social Media, Content Marketing, SEO Services.
  • Back-Office Assistance – Transcription Services, Medical Transcription, Business Transcription and Language Translation.

Plans and Pricing

Get Virtual Services offers four types of plans namely, Starter, Light, Part-Time and Full-Time.

All plans are extremely flexible in nature as you are free to upgrade or downgrade your plan whenever you want. The services take a minimum of 2-3 days before it gets activated. You can delegate both their business as well as personal tasks across all plan types.

Get Virtual Services pricing

These rates make Get Virtual Services one of the lowest cost providers. The starter package at $120 for 20 hours ($6 per hour) is among the most affordable VA services for that amount of hours, and a full-time VA for $710 per month is a crazy value.

Lately a representative of Get Virtual Services, Andy Sharma, has taken to sending me cold pitches on LinkedIn, trying to get me to use their service. The approach doesn’t seem to be targeted or reference this site at all. Part of me likes the hustle but the other part thinks it’s pretty spammy.

Get Virtual Services Alternatives

Get Virtual Services promises fully-trained staff, a reliable infrastructure, and great flexibility and value in terms of plans and pricing with easy upgrade/downgrade option. However, you may still consider other virtual assistant companies in India, including the well-reviewed My Tasker and 24/7 Virtual Assistant services.

Before starting with any of these services, I’d see if I could get on a call with their leadership, describe the tasks you need done, and if possible, see if you can interview the proposed VA they want to set you up with.

Have you ever worked with Get Virtual Services? If so, please share a brief review of your experience to help others make an informed hiring decision.

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Vasumo

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, US Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Vasumo is home to a team of professionally trained virtual assistants who want to help you regain “Focus on Your Business.” The company was founded in 2014 and maintains sales offices in New York and Toronto, though all assistants are home-based workers.

vasumo reviewVasumo is an all-round solution for a slew of tasks that ranges from scheduling meetings, paying bills, blogging, website maintenance, travel deals and much more. VA Sumo believes in the art of delegation and have been helping customers handle their tasks efficiently to realize their bigger goals.

About Vasumo

Vasumo.com executive assistants are located throughout the USA and Canada. They’re all college graduates and together they strive to offer a work-life balance for customers. At Vasumo, building a fruitful relationship with clients is an important part of their business policy. Hence, satisfaction for customers gains paramount importance.

[leadplayer_vid id=”54EB66BDE7657″]
Vasumo follows a strict method of recruitment, where every single virtual assistant is hired by an extensive round of discussions and tests. The VA’s also undergo a training process, where they are put under several different tests to mettle out their best and help overcome personal and professional barriers to deliver according to the wants and needs of the customer.

Note: No relation to AppSumo or BuzzSumo. 

Something Fishy?

When I first came across VA Sumo, I noticed their website looked identical to Zirtual‘s. I thought maybe it was a company Zirtual had acquired or they were testing a different domain name in different markets.

But when I asked Maren, Zirtual’s Founder and CEO, about it, she said it was the first she’d ever heard of them.

Now there are plenty of websites that use common themes, so that in itself isn’t a huge deal, but something didn’t seem quite right to see two nearly identical service offerings with perfectly matching sites.

Compare their homepages (at press time):

zirtual vs vasumo

See what I mean?

They even use similar trust badging in the “companies we’ve worked with” section just below the main hero image, only with one subtle difference. On Zirtual’s site, they say “Zirtual Assistants are busy helping companies all over the world…”, where on the VA Sumo site, it simply says “Virtual assistants help companies all over the world.”

It’s a true statement, but I interpret it as NOT their VAs.

How it Works

Like most other VA companies, Vasumo requires you to sign up. The process usually takes up to 24 hours, for your registration to be confirmed, but they do indicate that you can delegate your first task in 95 seconds.

Following that, one receives a call or an email that provides access to the dashboard from where you can send in requests for tasks to be done. Apart from delegating tasks, one can also use the dashboard to send messages or share files.

Customers can access their dashboard on the go from their smartphone.

Services

Vasumo caters to major service types that comprises of administrative, writing and data entry, marketing, research, website development, graphic designing, video/audio editing, social media management and other personal assistance services.

Plans and Pricing

Vasumo offers three levels of service: Economy Class, Business Class, and First Class.

va sumo pricing

The lowest price tier is $299 per month for 25 hours of dedicated North American-based assistance ($11.96 per hour).

The Business Class level is roughly $10 per hour and gives you 10 hours a week of support. And finally, the best hourly rate ($9.07/hr) is available with the $499 monthly First Class package.

Although these rates have increased since I first came across VA Sumo several months ago, they still seem almost “too good to be true” for dedicated US and Canadian-based help. That’s not much above minimum wage in many areas.

Last year I asked them about the surprisingly low prices via the live chat feature on the site, and they insisted that all their workers were US and Canada based.

Vasumo also has an option for free trial wherein you can send in a free task to be executed. Might as well give ’em a shot and see what happens!

Vasumo Alternatives

For US-based virtual assistants, aside from Zirtual (mentioned above), it might be worth checking out Boldly and eaHELP. Both companies are extremely well-rated on this site, but that history of positive feedback comes at a price; they’re both far more expensive than the published rates here at VAsumo.

They also employ home-based VAs. For an in-office virtual assistant experience in North America, take a look at Longer Days or Virtual Assist USA.

Have you ever worked with Vasumo? If so, please share a brief review of your experience below to help others make an informed decision.

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$99 Social

Posted by Mica Harvey / Task-Based Virtual Assistants, US Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

$99 Social provides outsourced social media services for small businesses that don’t have the time or the expertise to actively engage with their customers online.

The company aims to provide social media posts and activity on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, and works with businesses to provide customized content.

About $99 Social

99 dollar social reviewThe company was founded on the basis of providing custom social media solutions for small businesses, and promises its customers to be “budget-friendly, time-friendly, and small-business friendly.” Its services include a comprehensive social media package for only $99/month, and save small business owners the time that it takes to manage numerous social media accounts.

The company was launched in 2011, and has grown rapidly to serve numerous small businesses around the country.

$99 Social is located in Arizona, and its workers are based there as well; the company does not outsource to other countries. All social media accounts are managed by a Content Specialist who conducts research to determine the best approach for each business on social media.

Video Overview

Services

$99 Social’s package includes all of the following:

  • Daily content on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
  • A VoiceMatch system to make sure that the “voice” of each social media account matches the voice of the business
  • Social profile optimization to receive the most results in search engines
  • Promotion of products and services, as well as other customized promotion, targeted to the local community
  • Removal of spam on each social media account
  • Phone and email support

See Also: Should You Outsource Social Media?

Plans and Pricing

As you might have guessed based on the name, the price is $99/month, without hidden fees or price increases.

However, adding social networks such as Pinterest and Instagram beyond the basic package will cost extra, but all packages include Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Small businesses looking for more than the basic package can also purchase the Social Media Boosters, which provides a more involved solution. Businesses simply need to contact the company and discuss the details of what each business is looking for.

All plans are month-to-month with no long-term contracts. If you’re not happy with the service, just cancel within the first 14 days for a full refund.

$99 Social Alternatives

$99 Social is unique for its affordable and small-business oriented model. Its goal is to provide individualized attention for each of its clients, which sets it apart from other social media management companies that target large companies with more accounts, and thus raise their prices accordingly.

The alternatives of course include doing it all yourself, which is definitely an option but can be time-consuming and frustrating, especially if you’re new to social media and aren’t sure the best way to go about it. On the other end of the spectrum are dedicated social media marketing virtual assistants, offered by many talented individuals and VA companies.

Going that route would probably generate more engagement on your social accounts, but also comes at a higher price tag. In the case of $99 Dollar Social, you don’t really have to worry about training or coming up with a plan on your own.

Your Turn

Have you worked with $99 Social? If so, please be sure to leave a quick review of your experience below.

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Speedlancer

Posted by Mica Harvey / Content Writing Services, Freelance Virtual Assistants, Task-Based Virtual Assistants

Speedlancer is the first freelancing platform to harness the power of the crowd for speed. The Melbourne, Australia based company opens its doors in 2014, but uses a unique crowdsourcing methodology to quickly deliver tasks for clients.

Speedlancer targets business owners who would like to take a load off and increase productivity. This is especially useful for business owners because multiple tasks can be done in parallel, so what would normally take days or weeks elsewhere can all be done in just 4 hours.

Services

speedlancer reviewFounder Adam Stone explains the service also works well for startups who need to launch their minimum viable product (MVP) immediately, to get up and running and test their concepts really quickly.

In a promised turnaround time of just 4 hours, you can have a design, writing, or data entry/research task done by their high-quality, curated ‘Speedlancers.’ This distributed team is located in different time zones around the world to provide ample coverage for requests that come in at all hours of the day and night.

All the writers are promised to be native English speakers.

How it Works

The first step is to describe the micro-job you need done, whether it’s a small design project, an article or other writing job, or some research-related task. Speedlancer plans to expand into other service areas soon as well.

You create a title, job description, and your desired budget. Then the task goes out into the queue of Speedlancer tasks a qualified worker jumps on it right away.

speedlancer submit task

At the time of this writing, the average time to acceptance of a job is just 10 minutes.

Upon delivery, you are entitled to a round of free revisions, and if the work still is not done to your satisfaction, Speedlancer will re-enter it into the task-list to be re-done, or issue a refund. That way, the quality is guaranteed.

Plans and Pricing

On this platform, customers choose their prices using the sliding scale shown above, and then it is up to the Speedlancers to decide whether or not the task is a good exchange for their time and effort.

Adam recommended choosing a baseline price around the $29 mark, explaining that $29 will typically get you a 500 word blog post, a logo, banner design, poster, or business card design (just to name a few), and most smallish data-entry type work such as data mining.

If no one accepts your job within 8 hours, you’ll have an option to revise your description or increase your price. That way, the marketplace determines what a fair value for each job is.

The company takes a revenue share and passes the rest onto the individual worker who completed your job.

Speedlancer Alternatives

What sets Speedlancer apart is the turnaround time from start to finish. You don’t have to worry about submitting a job proposal to Elance or oDesk, then weeding through the dozens of applications.

For a small task, it’s more trouble than it’s worth!

The other primary alternative would be a specialist marketplace like Fiverr, but the challenge there is in sorting through all the noise to find the right seller for you. Even though I love Fiverr, I admit it can be time-consuming to find the perfect gig for what I need — and when I do, I’m frustrated because that seller is probably in high-demand and has 1-2 week lag in his promised delivery time.

Speedlancer aims to solve those pains by providing high quality service AND a fast turnaround time. Sure, you’ll pay more than $5, but it can be worth it if you’re in a hurry.

As soon as I have a chance to test out Speedlancer, I’ll report back and share my results here. Ahh, I should have had them write this article!

Your Turn

Have you worked with Speedlancer? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

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5 Star VAs

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Employees

5 Star VAs is a virtual assistant recruiting service with a twist. The Philippines-based company offers both “unmanaged” and “co-managed” matchmaking services.

The company was founded in 2013 and has attracted a growing client base since then. When the co-founder, Neil Cass, reached out to me, my initial reaction was that the company sounded a little like Virtual Staff Finder, the VA recruiting service run by Chris Ducker.

Services

Like VSF, 5 Star VAs will source talented virtual assistant candidates tailored specifically to your individual needs. But unlike VSF, which now only recruits General Virtual Assistants, 5 Star VAs will help you find a dedicated team member to meet a wide variety of skillsets.

For instance, you can use their service to find general VAs, SEO specialists, content writers, bloggers, social media marketing specialists, web designers, web developers, and more.

They can provide VAs on a full-time (160 hrs per month) or part-time basis (80 hrs per month), and target startups, small businesses, solopreneurs and other entrepreneurs who need help getting it all done.

With the Unmanaged Service, you interview the candidates provided by 5 Star VAs and make your hiring decision. Then, you work directly with your new virtual assistant and train and pay them directly. There is no markup on their salary and they report to you with no intermediary.

With the Co-Managed Service, they help negotiate the salary on your behalf, handle the VA’s payroll, and pay their PhilHealth premiums (the national health insurance program).

In this case, the company also serves in an ongoing HR capacity, as a point of contact so if there are any issues at any time the client can speak to us directly.

Neil explains, “I feel that this is important as some clients may feel overwhelmed at times and not know how to approach the VA, usually it would just be a case of getting to know each other and work style, adapting to the clients way of doing things, but if this is not addressed it could lead to misunderstandings and the client deciding that working with VAs is not for them.”

It should be noted that even in the co-managed relationship, you are still in charge of managing and overseeing your VA’s work.

5 Star VAs Intro Video

How it Works

As with Virtual Staff Finder, the VAs they seek to place will be thoroughly vetted and skill checked, have a solid college educational background and converse well in English. With each recruitment, they aim to match your desired skill set and requirements before the interview process.

All 5 Star VAs work from their home offices, and have gone through a working environment checklist to make sure it is quiet, free from distractions, and has good DSL connection speeds.

“We will only endorse VAs with a proven track record of experience and a genuine willingness to work for overseas clients in a professional manner,” Neil explains.  “We are here to build a reputation for providing talented, reliable, professional VAs.”

Plans and Pricing

The fee for the Unmanaged matchmaking service is a one-time payment of $385. For this price 5 Star VAs promises to provide three top-notch candidates for you to interview via Skype and then ultimately decide which one you would like to hire.

The fee for the Co-Managed service is the same $385, however, you will earn a $200 credit towards the VA’s third month’s salary.

Un-managed General VA hourly rates typically start from around $4 an hour and go up from there depending on experience and skillset. Naturally, virtual assistants with more advanced skills command higher rates.

The Co-Managed service starts at $800 per month for a full-time VA, and payments are easy through PayPal or Credit card.

VAA Exclusive: Mention referral code VAA for 10% off your VA’s first month’s salary on the Co-Managed service.

Why 5 Star VAs?

They have a small management team on the ground in the Philippines on a year round basis, which isn’t always the case with many other VA companies.

Neil is passionate about helping fellow entrepreneurs and has a background of running small businesses in both the UK & Australia and he understands the way clients from western countries like things done and can relate to their business requirements and needs. This coupled with the local support and knowledge of his wife Imy leads to a smooth process from start to finish.

5 Star VAs Alternatives

Aside from Virtual Staff Finder (mentioned above), the other service to consider would be OnlineJobs.ph. With OnlineJobs, it’s a do-it-yourself service in that you post the job yourself, screen all the candidates, conduct interviews, and hire your favorite.

Your Turn

Have you worked with 5 Star VAs? If so, please leave a quick review of your experience below to help others with their hiring decision.

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Bolton Remote

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies, Virtual Employees

Founded 2013, Bolton Remote is an offshore staffing solution based in the Philippines. They’re not so much a virtual assistant company as they are a simplified way to build a remote support team for your business.

The team is led by Patrick Linton, an entrepreneur with experience in helping Fortune 500 companies expand and improve their global operations. When I spoke with Patrick, his team had already grown to more than 80 full-time members, working out of their modern office in Manila.

Bolton Remote Services

bolton remote reviewBolton Remote is positioned as an alternative to hiring staff at any level locally or work from home freelancers.

They’re aimed at both high growth startups as well as more established businesses. If you’re suffering from talent shortages in expensive hiring markets if you’ve been burned by freelancers or other VA companies in the past, Bolton may be worth a look.

The value proposition here is the ability to find a wide range of talent all under one roof, and quickly on-board your new remote staff onto your team. Among the specific skillsets available are marketing, sales, SEO, social media, writing, customer support, graphic and web design, software development, and more.

In each case, you get a full-time virtual employee and Bolton’s model allows you to scale up as growth necessitates. Many customers end up adding 5 team-members or more, though single hires are OK too.

VAA Exclusive: Get 5% off your remote team for the first 6 months with this link!

How it Works

One thing that’s cool about Bolton is instead of inundating you with resumes that all start to look the same after a while, they actually show you their candidates, with high quality pre-recorded “video resumes.”

After you review the videos, you can set up interviews with those who look like the best fit for your team and make your hiring decision.

Team members work in your time zone and you are free to collaborate with whatever project management and communication tools you like.

Bolton Remote customers are also assigned a dedicated point-of-contact on their 24-hour Customer Happiness Team, and first-time remote staffing clients will appreciate the built-in teambuilding coaching and support.

Plans and Pricing

Rates begin at $9 an hour, or $1440 per month. Experienced staff members and those with higher-level expertise command rates in the $2000-2500 per month range.

As far as the “virtual assistants” in the Philippines go, those rates are quite high relative to many of the other companies. But a couple things to keep in mind are the overhead of the office and support staff, and the location in Manila, where the cost of doing business is higher than in some of the outer provinces.

VAA Exclusive: Get 5% off your remote team for the first 6 months with this link!

Bolton Remote Alternatives

With their focus on long-term relationships, an in-office work environment, and investment in infrastructure, the most similar company may be VirtualEmployee.com in India.

In the Philippines, TaskUs and Prialto run similar operations aimed at startups.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Bolton Remote? If so, please be sure to share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

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Catalant (Previously HourlyNerd)

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants, US Virtual Assistants

HourlyNerd is now Catalant.

HourlyNerd aims to revolutionize consulting by matching qualified professional and top MBA students to your business. The Boston-based company was founded in 2013, and describes itself as “the future of consulting.”

Founded by 3 Harvard MBA students, the goal was to fill a void in the marketplace dominated by “old school” and high cost consulting firms.

About Hourly Nerd

hourly nerd reviewIn the way Elance matches you with qualified freelancers, Hourly Nerd offers a similar service for consultants.  In just a short time in business, they’ve already landed big name clients like Microsoft and American Apparel.

The “nerds” are rated on their communication, timeliness, work quality, and more. That helps keep the system transparent, similar to other virtual jobs platforms.

This is not a “virtual assistant” service in the traditional sense of the term, but instead gives small business owners a chance to get qualified expert help on an on-demand basis.

In most cases, your consultant will not be local to your business and you will communicate with them remotely.

How it Works

You post your project and students from the top 20 business schools in the country and select international institutions bid on the work. HourlyNerd takes  a percentage of the project fee. There are more than 500 MBAs on the platform, and the number is steadily growing.

The service is aimed at small business owners who may not have the budget to hire a “full-fledged” consulting firm or an entire team of analysts.

HourlyNerd gives them access to bright young minds at affordable rates. On top of that, the students/consultants have the opportunity to gain real-world business experience and earn some money at the same time.

HourlyNerd Intro Video

Pricing

The competitive bidding system keeps rates affordable, with even the top-pedigree consultants topping out around $100 an hour. Depending on the type of project you need done, you may find rates as low as $10 an hour — and everything in between.

Compared with the hourly rates of McKinsey or other “brand name” consulting firms (think $300/hr and up), you can see the attractive value proposition made by HourlyNerd.

With all Hourly Nerd projects, your funds are held in escrow until the project is completed to your satisfaction.

HourlyNerd Alternatives

Aside from Elance (mentioned earlier), a couple companies offer similar services. MBA & Company helps match MBA consultants with smaller companies for one-off projects, while SkillBridge also links independent contractors to companies in need (though an MBA is not required).

Have you worked with HourlyNerd? If so, please be sure to leave a quick review of your experience below to help others with their hiring decision.

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Rev

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants

UPDATE: It appears Rev is out of business. Please consider one of these alternatives or see below. If this information is incorrect, please email me.

Rev is a professional transcription, caption, subtitle, and translation service. The company is a venture-backed internet startup and was founded in 2010.

One of the missions behind starting Rev was to give more people the freedom to work from home.
Rev has given thousands of remote workers the opportunity and freedom to work from home, while providing professional transcribing and translation services to entrepreneurs and businesses worldwide.

About Rev

The company is funded by Globespan Capital. Their headquarters is located in San Francisco, and their workers work remotely from home all over the globe.

Rev’s founder and CEO is Jason Chicola, a former Director of Marketing and Sales at oDesk. Jason started Rev with co-founder Josh Breinlinger, also a former oDesk employee.

The purpose of the platform is to remove the hassle of finding a freelancer through a marketplace to do your work. Just submit your job online via a form adding your document and any details that’ll help the freelancer and you’ll receive a file back within the specified time.

Rev boast a 99% accuracy rate, more than 50k+ happy customers, 30+ languages, and live telephone support should you have any questions.

How Rev.com Works

Services

Rev offer the following services:

  • Transcription – Typing up spoken audio, like minutes from meetings, interviews, market research and similar. There is a 12 hour turnaround time for transcription jobs.
  • Captions and Subtitles – You may want captions or subtitles added to your videos to help the hearing impaired or add an interactive element. There is a 24-48 hour turnaround time for captions and subtitles.
  • Translation – Translate any documents to or from English to another language. Turnaround starts at 24 hours but may be longer depending on the size of the job.

Plans and Pricing

Rev have flat rates across all of their services making it easy to price up a job, their rates for each of their services are as follows:

  • Audio Transcriptions – $1 per minute. Timestamps and verbatim cost an extra $0.25 per minute each.
  • Captions and Subtitles – $1 per minute.
  • Business Translations – $0.10 per word, with a minimum charge of $20 per order.
  • Certified Translations – $33 per page. A page is defined as 250 words or less on one side of A4 paper.

Rev Alternatives

Rev is the leader in transcription services, though you may be able to find lower cost options on Fiverr or via an AI tool like Trint.

For translations, you might consider TextMaster, which offers a similar range of services. They are a little more flexible with their pricing as you have the option of choosing price plans based on the experience of the freelancer.

You can also find freelancers on open marketplaces like Upwork if you feel comfortable looking through profiles and applications to find someone you want to work with.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Rev? If so, please leave a review of your experience below to help others with their decision, thanks.

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