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I live in DR, here the wage is very low, so I can get 10 employees at very low price (High school education/University student, good English, good typing skills, word/excel/etc knowledge, what else?).

I was thinking in doing data entry, but my research tells me that data entry pays less than the wage here! (Less than $1/h).

I need something I can charge at least $3/h for each employee so I can see some money.

What do you recommend?

(I'm not sure if my question is ambiguous or inappropriate. I would remove the question if it is.)

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Make cigars? Sew clothes? Make shoes? Sugar cane? the question is - What CAN'T you do with 10 people. – TimJ♦ Apr 29 '11 at 3:26
Yeah but I'm looking for some kind of Internet work, maybe I have to rephrase the question. – carlosdubusm Apr 29 '11 at 12:11
1  
This is not really a question - I do suggest you fix it. – TimJ♦ Apr 29 '11 at 14:01

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

I think you best bet is to look at oDesk, eLance and Mechanical Turk. They all have a huge range of job catagories, I'm sure you can find a niche on them.

  1. Setup a company and put a little time into defining the roles.
  2. Have 1 or 2 of your 10 chasing the jobs on these websites.
  3. Employ the others doing the work being won.
  4. Have someone (you) make sure they are followed up and the client is happy.

Build the reputation of the company on the sites and make sure you get good feedback (and give it as well).

If you can organise these people that way you stand to earn more than $3 per hour for your people and for yourself.

I think your key success factor is being able to raise the overall wages of everyone in your company while still making a good margin. This will keep your people happy and ensure your continuing quality and reputation on the site.

Every time an employee leaves you will loose a experience and skill that will make it harder to maintain the reputation long term.

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Yes I thought of doing that, but If I teach 1 or 2 to chase the jobs, then they will learn how to get the job by themselves. How can I avoid them to leave me and go freelancer? – carlosdubusm Apr 28 '11 at 23:59
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@carlosdubusm, you start growing the brand name, you get its reputation to the point of being able to charge $10 per hour, pay them $5 per hour ... if they leave they can only do $3 per hour and they have to spend 30% of their time chasing the work ... you offer consistant pay and consistant work ... to start with you do the submitting of the jobs and Quality control and they do the actual work ... later you replace yourself. – Robin Vessey Apr 29 '11 at 0:30
@carlosdubusm, if you are not adding value for your employees, why should they stay with you? You have to offer something they can't get elsewhere: security, regularity, premium wages, a great working environment, etc. – Kenneth Vogt Apr 29 '11 at 17:53
Yes, that's good Kenneth, I will focus on what I can offer them that they can't get elsewhere. Thanks – carlosdubusm Apr 29 '11 at 18:29
up vote 3 down vote

Number of employees has extremely little to do with potential to achieve anything. So the honest answer is nothing, especially with the way you formed the question.

You should have as few employees as possible, but each must be as amazing as possible, and together it must be a well-balanced unit of skill and experience and inventiveness.

Also, you need a viable business which you are trying to create. Without that, a team is not of much use :)

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Really, I kinda disagree with you, if employees cost a lot and bring little additional value (eg selling product on the web), then fewer is better higher margin per unit. If on the other hand each one can earn you 3-4X on what your paying them ... get 100 of them and go hard. – Robin Vessey Apr 28 '11 at 23:57
Yes you are right, but I already said, they know how to do basic stuff on a computer, I'm looking for basic operator/boring job I can charge $3/h. Something like that. – carlosdubusm Apr 29 '11 at 0:03
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@Rob I think the OP was asking about relatively cheap employees. You would usually also have to account for managing them, and managing turnover, and other things unforeseen. It seems like a disaster of a business to be getting into :) A little labor camp :) ...its the model of a service-based business. You are ALWAYS stuck in the margin where you underpay your employees and overcharge the customers. The profits are made in the middle of the two. Pretty miserable business model :) – Genadinik Apr 29 '11 at 0:05
@Genadinik, I won't underpay them, I will pay the salary they deserve in my country, while charging more because it pays more on other countries. – carlosdubusm Apr 29 '11 at 0:09
@Genadinik agreed its a tricky business model without really strong processes in place ... Its my business model ... after 14 years, I finally have some good processes in place ... and have started up several product centric sub-businesses which scale far better. – Robin Vessey Apr 29 '11 at 0:14
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