Ignoring credentials for a moment, does your wife have any skill which is commercially valuable? Can she develop one? Many knowledge-worker things can get delivered over the Internet at fairly high price points.
For example, does she have a solid grasp of high school mathematics? Does she understand who cares about that and why? If so, that trivially supports $40+ an hour. (Customer: Tiger Mom in a high-achieving suburban school district.)
Does she have native proficiency in a foreign language? (n.b. English is a foreign language to lots of people who have money!) Tutoring goes from free to $10 to $40+ an hour. (Why the range? Customer selection. Think less "high school foreign exchange student" and more "executive recently transferred from Nomura Securities to their NYC office who feels his career growth will be stymied by his poor conversational English skills.")
Does she have a hobby which is common among upper middle class Americans and which carries social esteem? Can she teach it?
For more about this general topic, see Ramit Sethi.
Doing that in person is probably most lucrative. I know a physics grad in the Bay Area who does it as a regular job, full-time income for after school/evening/weekend work. But also worth checking out the new wave of online tutoring sites, that connect real tutors to real students. Tutorspree is the only one I can recall, but pretty sure there are a few others:
Have paid double the top end of your range for lessons over skype. IME they also tend to be a lot easier to teach than students paying at the lower end.
Tiger Moms are sort of snobs about formal education, so they may not want to hire her.
I had this idea because my father suffers from Parkinsons disease and gets quite lonely in the house during the day. He lives in Florida and I life in California and I can't call him as much as I would like to given the time difference. I know he gets lonely and would love to just have a conversation with someone during the day. I would pay to have someone skype him for 20-30 minutes in the middle of the day just to provide some conversation.
I am guessing that there are many other people who are in my situation with sick or elderly relatives. I know I would pay for a service like this and you would be bringing happiness into peoples lives.
Knowing how many older folk play crosswords, I think an async game you can play is far more meaningful.
You do feel a great guilt and sadness watching someone you love slowly wither away over years. You are always thinking of ways to help but the hard reality is that there isn't a lot you can do except provide companionship.
But what do you do when you need a job to pay for all the other care this loved one needs? These things compete for your time and ability to provide companionship 24hrs/day. If I quit my job and moved across the country to take care of my father their wouldn't be any money to pay for the nurse's, medicine, and doctors. Plus all the other complexities of life that this would create for my wife and our plans to have a family. Caring for a sick person is complex.
That's a really rude statement. Also, you have no reason to think the parent commenter's father enjoys games, or even to think that an aged person with health problems is interested in puzzles over human interaction.
It's really a great idea to break elderly people isolation. My elderly relatives tend to use the phone, and I'm rarely available, so I really like the asynchronous nature of it. Make it as easy to use as a telephone and I could see me paying for such a service.
As a father and son, I can relate to how you feel. Your idea is good. Maybe someone will take up the offer.
Good luck and good health to both of you.
Here's the company she worked for: http://www.nuance-nts.com/ - they're the same people that do Dragon Naturally Speaking and Siri. Kinda weird to be training algorithms that are replacing you.
It's between a 4 month and 1 year course, depending on how much time you spend training. She finished it in about three months by working on it all the time.
i.e.: if your wife is called "gloria" the app is called "Ask Gloria"
* user types in an question/request.
* gloria (the real gloria) response.
an additional question pack (of 5 questions) costs 10(?)$
the selling point is that not an anonymous person or siri-AI answers your stuff, but a real human being. the app can be pitched to techblogs and other stuff as an (funny and "slow life") alternative to siri & co.
it's the smallest niche i can think of. just a wild idea, would love if you give it a try and report back to HN.
Pretty handy service however I think you'd want to be able to call in your question as there might be a bit of forwards and backs in trying to work out exactly what you're trying to get the answer to.
(If the thing she wants to do better is "draw" then here are some super awesome free drawing lessons from a master animator: http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com/2009/12/preston-blair-le... )
Most developers hate doing this, & PM's are not good at anything.
I usually pay $40/hr for this, however it only takes a few hours, and that rate means the bug report is reported in a way that it's easy to read and recreate without having to have a conversation about it.
The pitch is "Be a User Tester and Earn $10 per Website".
I can't imagine how programming has anything to do with assurance (the A in QA). Though I have seen job descriptions confuse QA with analytics and analytics definitely requires programming expertise. I usually chalk this up to HR not knowing what the hell they are talking about.
the product
how programmers (the people) think, and how to cope with them
1) Programmer testers that write reusable, and automated tests, as well as encourage & assist the dev team to write their own tests. These folks work through the entire project , usually on product type projects.
2) Manual Testers (there must be a better name) These folks are good communicators that focus primarily on the client perspective. Developers, and their tests, tend to evaluate code in a rigid & consistent way that may not reflect the end user experience. These testers are also used on products but more commonly on turn-and-burn projects for Agencies or startup MVP's that are not huge yet.
If you did want to get into programming I do think that QA is an outstanding way to bootstrap a web dev career. I've laid out a plan here http://www.robertspeer.com/blog/no-degree-no-problem-some-ha...
It's not how I got got into making web apps but I think it's a solid way to get into a well paying career.
I believe I can usually communicate well with programmers, but is there anything else I can do to make myself qualified for this type of job?
Also, are there any recommended sites or places to look for these types of job postings besides the 99tests one mentioned? Thank you.
(A) Customers respond to someone who knows what they're talking about
(B) In any case you're happier doing something you enjoy
Suggest some possibilities!
http://r.bernsteinbear.com/r/self/comments/sgaka/dont_trust_...
The gist was the links he posted to the PPC/SEO companies were actually his own (and this was his true purpose).
[Edit, found the link!]
I still think there's business in drop shipping as long as you do your home work and apply common sense.
You need to field questions from your customers as the merchant, without generally being able to have access to the products you are selling. You need to deal with shipping companies and angry customers questioning the legitimacy of your products. (Because they are cheap and coming from another country and they were slightly different to the last one they brought.... they must be fake).
Affiliate marketing is a lot easier place to start, you send s customer, get a commission and don't have to deal with the rest of the process. In terms of products I think the greater opportunities are in drop shipping, as long as you can do everything mentioned. There are people though making a fortune on leads without having to worry about everything else.
People have already mentioned SEO, but there's a broader demand for 'article writers' and even people who can write summaries of Web pages, produce ledes for online news services, do proof reading of text, etc.
Unfortunately it got converted to clothes and shoes pretty quickly :(
"Persuaded some muppet": she gained her mark's confidence.
"to sell her a Korg Triton for 80GBP": she ripped her mark off.
"and got 580GBP on ebay for it": and then she profited from the rip-off.
in some circles, that is referred to as grifting.
Taking from idiots is an evolutionary step. Look at VC funding!
If she's willing to put in the work and knows a market pretty well it shouldn't be hard to acquire things for below their value, pretty them up and flip them on eBay. My girlfriend made a few bucks buying shoes at sample sales and selling them on eBay, but she knows the market pretty well.
Back in the day I used to snipe music gear auctions with bad listings on eBay for below value, clean them up and take some nice photos and flip it back on eBay. Bigger ticket items mean good margins.
I would also have her take a look at some of the types of gigs on ODesk or one of the personal assistant micro task sites (FancyHands, TaskRabbit, Zaarly etc), she might be able to build up a skillset out of random virtual gigs
Could she not use the time to improve her credentials?
On Etsy, I've seen a lot of people making things that don't seem like they would be labor intensive beyond the occasional shifting and arranging of raw materials.
If she's capable of making things that would do well on that website, count me among the jealous :)
Good luck.
If she has some skills, or can even pretend to have them, there are people that are desperate to give work to other people they meet at meetups.
If you are ever getting hit with xrumer blasts, you just need to rotate your "What is 5+5?"-type registration questions because someone hard-coded your registration process into xrumer.
Beyond that, if you have any users at all, you'll be able to cultivate an armada of volunteer moderators to help you out.
Along the same lines, I know there are independent product developers (iOS apps, Android apps, web apps, etc.) who are tired of doing email support themselves, but find it hard to find competent contractors to do thoughtful first-level support for them. This usually doesn't require advanced technical skills, mostly just being able to interpret vague descriptions, escalate important reports, and respond with polite standard English. I imagine building up a good reputation on a public Q&A site (the Apple discussion forums or something) could be a helpful first step for this, and then using connections to get an initial client or two who can vouch for you.
Personally, I would suggest taking a look at both LeapForce and LionBridge, because they offer 10-20 hours a week working from home at $15/hour evaluating Google's search results and doing other online tasks. They have an application/approval process to go through, but it could be a good fit for what you are looking for.
Side note: I know the site isn't really polished yet, but I'd love some constructive feedback if you have any.
We wrote up a post last month - http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/step-1-where-to...
Essentially if you want to go down the path of a real business (ie one that generates $1k per month) you really need to be pursuing something you believe in and are willing to commit 110% towards.
While all these online ventures being suggested here are noble and probably relevant. You have to ask the basic questions first.
I've had a lot of success with drop shipping eCommerce and have been doing it full-time for more than 4 years. Robryan is right to some extent - it can be harder than it looks - but with some dedication and a good niche, it's a great way to create online income. A few tips from my own experience:
- Picking a niche where you can add value is crucial. The more complex niches are often best as these are the ones where you can create the most educational content related to your products. If you aren't able to offer some kind of value-added information, you have to compete on price. And I don't recommend that.
- Finding good supplier(s) is really important, and I highly recommend only getting into a market if you have TWO suppliers. As Robryan alluded to, it can be difficult to keep warehouse inventory synced up with your website, which is why I ALWAYS use multiple suppliers with overlapping product lines. The vast majority of the time Supplier A doesn't have an item, I can get it shipped from Supplier B.
- Multiple suppliers prevents you from being totally dependent on one source of inventory. It also gives you geographic diversity, allowing you to save on shipping costs - and reduce transit time - by routing orders through the warehouse closest to your customer.
- Not seeing the physical products you sell CAN be a challenge, and it's often a good idea to order a few of your best sellers. However, I can tell you from personal experience it's possible to become an expert for a line of products that you've never touched. With the wealth of product pictures, reviews and information online you really don't have to touch something to know a lot about it. As your business grows, you'll quickly learn the ins-and-outs of the niche through your customers experiences, opinions and problems.
- You WILL need to be be good at - or willing to learn - marketing and SEO. PPC advertising has gotten so expensive that you won't be able to make much of a profit using that as your primary traffic driver. PPC is a great tool early on to drive some traffic and make sure it's converting at a reasonable level, but long-term you'll need to build organic traffic if you want to make any serious money.
- One of my favorite aspects of eCommerce is that it's a great model for automated, passive income. If you invest a LOT of time up-front in building an information rich-store and market it well, the operations side of the business (fulfilling orders, dealing with returns, solving customer problems) is fairly simple to outsource. I recently took a 7 month working vacation to travel around-the-world while my team back home managed the business. Did it require a lot of up-front work? Absolutely. But I believe the long-term ROI (return on investment) with eCommerce beats many other business models.
I'm not sure if eCommerce would be the right path for your wife, but I hope it is helpful! If you're interested in learning more, I blog about building eCommerce stores and would recommend a post detailing how I got started:
http://www.ecommercefuel.com/my-corporate-escape-story/
I also spent the last week working on a 50+ page eBook that covers how I pick a niche, find suppliers and evaluate market demand and competition. It's a free resource I'll be giving away on the blog in the next few weeks, and would be happy to send you a copy if you're interested. Feel free to email me, or reply here in the comments.
Best of luck!
The way the business worked was that I was working full time in an unrelated s/w development job. My wife would pack the orders in the morning and the courier would pick up from our home location every afternoon. I looked after the invoicing etc. at night; but with an automated process it really didn't take up much extra time. I did try drop-shipping as well but it didn't work out as well for us, although of course drop-shipping would probably enable you to have a larger sales capacity.
I'm constantly amazed at how many companies will make you send something back to get a refund / replacement, even if it only costs a few bucks.
If our customers receive a defective item that costs less than $20, we simply ship them a new item immediately, without asking them to return the old one. It only costs us a few bucks, saves the customer up to 2 weeks of wait time, save us having to process the return and usually earns us a life-long customer and vocal advocate. It's a no-brainer, and I don't understand why more companies don't do it.
http://www.ecommercefuel.com/profitable-ecommerce-ebook/
Hope you find it useful!
Basically, concierge workers are similar to personal assistants and will fulfill requests such as book concert tickets, make phone calls for reservations, do some google research regarding one topic or another.
I found out that most concierge workers actually work from home. If she's ok with that kind of work, it might be worth looking into. Here's a reference: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/VIPdesk-com-Reviews-E29813....
http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/how-to-build-a-niche-site/
It's not HN-ey, but I can see it working for her.
Best of luck!
There is no guarantee of success by being an infopreneur, and it can take a long time before you start seeing real money from it. I have a friend who made $10,000 in her first year with two sites, and I think her success is far above average. She now makes $50,000 with three sites.
It's harder nowadays than ever before though, because there's more competition and there's only one #1 spot on Google. And there's no guarantee of money. Some people could spend hundreds of hours and only make a few dollars.
For a wife who may not know anything about technology and wants to get started as an infopreneur, SiteBuildIt.com is a good service. They look terribly outdated but their information is solid. I checked them out for a month and saw their information is all the same stuff I learned from experience.
Writing useful content on a web site is what matters for a real business. Not spammy link practices.
A lot of companies hire people to manage social media too.
For example, a "which of these things is not like the other ones" type task might be estimated as taking 15 seconds, but if you're in the zone you can do them in 5 seconds, netting you 3x the hourly rate.
After 10-15 years of being a stay-at-home mom, she will be even more bored if she can't find a job and no longer has children to care for.
With proper research and the way you setup the blog you can potentially create a great income stream even without hitting huge amounts of traffic. It is all in what you blog about and the amount of people who may be interested.
No strings attached. Just paying it forward.
My wife sells Avon and it's a not half-bad way to make some income on the side.
That said, I don't think it's a good choice for the OP simply because of all the travel and sorting boxes, etc, involved.
Depends on one's situation. As the poster described his wife, it sounds - to me - like a valid opportunity.
Avon is not only a pyramid scheme
No, it's not.