
Show HN: Professional personal assistants for $2.99/hr - curiousscallion
http://www.tryaccelerate.com
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greenyoda
I'm wondering what a personal assistant who lives thousands of miles from
where I live can do for me.

\- They can't pick up items from local stores. And it's harder to explain to
someone what I want to order online than ordering it myself, which I can do
for free.

\- They can't pay my bills (no way I'm going to give someone I never met
access to my bank account).

\- They can't answer my e-mail, since they don't know how to do my job.

So what exactly are the benefits of having a personal assistant? The site
makes no suggestions as to what kind of tasks they can do for me to make my
life easier.

And sorry, I don't want to "Subscribe now for more information"! If there's
anything else I need to know, I want to read about it before I subscribe.

~~~
curiousscallion
Hi greenyoda! Thanks for the thoughtful questions - I will do my best to
answer below. However the punchline answer to your main question of the
benefits are as follows.

The initial benefits of having a personal assistant is the ability to offload
low ROI errands that you MUST do so you can focus your full energy on things
you WANT to do. Although it is very simple to look through your email,
schedule a meeting, pay your bills, do your taxes, this takes valuable
attention and brain power from your passions or top priorities for example,
spending time with your family, or coming up with a new idea for a side gig.
Imagine trying to work on a new project or starting to work out but having a
bunch of small roadblocks before it -- human will power is limited and
drained. Thus, if you have an affordable personal assistant, you can enhance
your life by minimizing the roadblocks to focus on your highest priorities. It
takes 21 minutes to recover your attention from a distraction. Our goal is to
reduce these distractions so you can have large blocks of time to focus.

From your questions, it seems like that main issue for you may be that you
believe you can do the job faster than the assistant. While this may be true
at first, investing some time to train the assistant will automate that part
of your life so you never have to focus on it again. Some answers below for
your bullets:

-True they cannot pick up items, and it may be harder to explain to someone what you want to order at FIRST. However, the beauty of having a dedicated assistant is someone that gradually understands your preferences and will be able to order similar things in the past or recommend things to you in the future. Think Donna from Suits - she is able to give Harvey great suggestions on presents, restaurants etc. while Harvey focuses on what he does best, being a lawyer because she knows him well.

-Totally understand the security issues. What we have done is either 1. given them an employee credit card (all charges need to be quickly approved by you) or 2. given them access to a password manager that you have full access to (you enter in the pw and the assistant can only access sites that you grant access to without ever knowing your passwords)

-While it is true they do not know how to do your job, that's where training comes in! As our assistants are dedicated and expect to work many years with you, it pays to put in a bit of investment to train them on how to work with you. After the initial investment of explaining, your assistant will pay off multiple folds as you will have automated a section of your job. Think of it as taking a bit of time building a system to automate your life.

Some tasks that clients have used our assistants are as follows: -Scheduling
with clients -Managing their inbox and summarizing important emails for it
takes 1 min to check inbox instead of 30 minutes -Populating spreadsheets of
information for real estate investments -Researching best way to utilize Chase
and AMEX points for first class tickets to Japan and back -Booking /
scheduling travel through Europe -Managing a client's eccommerce instagram to
grow followers -Quickbooks / tax document preparation for tax season
-Answering emails on behalf of client -Answering phones and telemarketing for
leads -Creating templates of preferences (i.e. airline preference, seat
preference, budget, logins) -Calling landlord to get back deposit -Screening
and managing tenants -Managing other assistants

And many more!

Let me know if answers your questions :)

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sansnomme
Congrats on shipping! I have a few questions. How trustworthy is this? I.e.
Who has the legal liability? Can I transfer power of attorney to the
"assistant"? If things fall through, is there insurance?

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curiousscallion
Hi HN fam!

I recently partnered with other colleagues in finance / consulting / start ups
to launch Accelerate - a service that allows you to find vetted assistants
starting at $2.99 / hr.

Our thesis is that personal assistants should be available to everyone and
that pricing should not be a barrier. Additionally, we are helping the
community by fighting against the the job crisis in Philippines (read about it
in our FAQ page!).

Let us know what you think!

The Accelerate Team

~~~
microwavecamera
Exactly how much of that $2.99USD per hour goes to the assistants to help
their economic conditions as stated in the FAQ? How much do these assistants
actually get paid?

~~~
curiousscallion
Our assistants get paid based on how long they've been with the service -
after training period, they'd get paid anywhere from $2.50/hr - $5.00/hr (high
end for some that work for our platform). Minimum wage in Philippines is
~$1.16 / hr which is typical for a lower paying job such as a personal
assistant.

The average wage in Philippines is ~$2.50/hr. Keep in mind, this is including
higher paying jobs such as engineers, doctors as well as higher wage areas
(Manila) etc so we are paying VERY well, especially to the assistants in lower
wage areas. We've heard that some government workers in the Philippines get
paid less than $2 / hr, causing them to spend more than half of their wages on
transportation.

Cost of living in Philippines ranges from ~$490 - $1060/month if you have to
travel to work (main pain point we've heard from our assistants as many
commutes are >4 hours a day) as transport costs ~$150/month due to inflation /
gas prices. However, if they are able to work with us at home, their costs
drastically are reduced (transport costs and decreased food costs) to ~$300 -
$500.

Thanks and let us know if helpful :)

~~~
microwavecamera
Sorry for the late reply, but there's no way your company is paying $2.50 -
$5.00 per hour while only charging $2.99 per hour. I understand the difference
in the cost of living, but that is obvious bullshit.

