11

Mar

Reviews of Virtual Assistant Firms and Other Resources for Outsourcing

03-11-2008 | Posted by: Jeremy Reither

Here are the Virtual Assistant (VA) firms and Outsourcing / Freelance networks that I either plan to use, have used in the past, or currently use. Some of them have proven to be great resources - some I would never use again. I’ll tell you which is which and post reviews as I get enough experience with each of them to share a useful opinion.

For the most part I use the VA’s for tasks like creating spreadsheets, online research, and publishing pre-written website content. Overall I’ve found that the tasks they execute the best are the ones where the instructions and goal are very clear - but even then I nearly always have to review the work. There are, however, some VA’s who have been far easier to work with than others. Here’s an evolving summary of my experience (check back for updates):Virtual Assistant (VA) Firms:

• Brickwork India (India) - If you’ve been doing your VA firm homework you’ve no doubt heard of Brickwork. They’ve gotten a lot of press in The World is Flat, The Four Hour Workweek, national newspaper writeups, and countless blog posts like this one. I’ve been using Brickwork for a while now. Read more about Brickwork…
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• Get Friday (India) - Get Friday’s parent company, Your Man In India (YMII) told me they’re no longer handling tasks for customers outside of India, and I was referred instead to their Get Friday division. Apparently the volume of work they were receiving from stateside customers justified the new division. Read more about Get Friday…
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• Catch Friday (Philippines)
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• Tasks Every Day (India)
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• BPovia (China) - I previously knew nothing about this firm. I just saw it included in a list of VA firms on another website, so I figured I’d give them a shot. They beat me to the punch, contacting me for a free trial. The drawn-out experience was less than exceptional. Read more about BPOvia…
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• Hi Tech Export (India)
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• Ask Sunday (US?) - After seeing Tim Ferriss speak in October, 2008, and hearing that the only virtual assistant firm he still uses is Ask Sunday, I had to give them a shot. They specialize in small, short timeframe, objective, well-defined tasks. I have yet to figure out whether I’ll have a use for such a narrow area of assistance. Stay tuned…

Task / Project Outsourcing (Freelancer) Networks:

• Elance - One of the foremost professional services outsourcing websites on the web, Elance has been around since the late ’90s, and it shows. Their interface, while not totally intuitive, is much better than others like Rent a Coder and WriterLance (and they are constantly making improvements). The real strength of Elance is in their user base - thousands of service providers bid for jobs large and small. And if you take the time to carefully explain the work you want done (and review the bids you get) you can end up with a competent and farily priced provider. There are ways to help ensure your experience with Elance is a good one - Elance tips coming soon.
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• Rent a Coder - Created for programmers by programmers. This is not a site for the non-tech savvy. Need a programming project completed, but don’t know how to define it *very* clearly? Then look elsewhere. But if you have lexicon and understand how to talk to programmers, then there are some extremely talented individuals to be found on this site.
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• WriterLance - A clunky interface is all it took for me to say bye bye to WriterLance. I just didn’t want to spend any more time trying to make sense of their limited workflow features and communication interface. I have only published a couple jobs on this site - with neither turning out good results. If you’ve had good experience with WriterLance, please let me know by commenting on this post.
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• oDesk
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• Do My Stuff
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• Kasamba
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• Guru
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• iFreelance
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• Get a Freelancer
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• ScriptLance