| 1)
What is a Tech Sherpa™? |
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In mountain-climbing, a sherpa is an elite mountaineer with years of climbing
experience and intimate
knowledge of the local terrain. They guide other climbers safely up and down
an otherwise dangerous or un-climbable mountain.
A Tech Sherpa™ is a
cross-discipline
expert with years of success both "climbing" (doing technical work) as well
as "guiding"
(managing others who do that work). A Tech Sherpa can take over some or all
aspects of
managing your project, and free you to focus on more productive things. Prices
range from $25-$95/hour, depending on their skills and location in the world.
Tech Sherpa's
are not recommended if your budget is less than
$1,000.00.
That's because the
Tech Sherpa's
cost per hour is paid in addition
to the normal cost of the worker(s) they
are hiring/managing on your behalf.
So on smaller projects, there is
simply not
enough budget available to be able
to hire one.
However, on larger projects
they are like an investment:
their extra cost usually pays for itself
and more, in
additional savings.
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| 2)
What is a Project Sherpa™
(and how is it different than a
Tech Sherpa™) ? |
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A Project Sherpa™ is the
same as a
Tech Sherpa™, but is an
expert in a non-technical / non-computer related field (such as writing,
marketing, translations,
paralegal work, etc.).
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| 3)
Why would I want to hire a Sherpa? |
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Outsourcing a project is like remodeling or building a house, and a
Sherpa is like a general contractor.
Major house projects require the hiring and managing of many individual
specialists, such as plumbers, air conditioning people, electricians,
tilers, painters, roofers, etc.. These are technical jobs, and most consumers
do not know enough about these jobs to be able to:
- Distinguish between the best and worst specialists during hiring.
(Hiring a bad performer can seriously delay the project and cause
expensive quality problems.)
- Coordinate and schedule all specialists to complete the project
in the quickest and most affordable way possible. (Non-existent or poor
planning usually results in wasted money, time and effort.)
- Supervise their work progress. (Slow and poor technicians can string along
non-technical consumers, because they don't know how the job "should" be
done. Often, bad performance is not recognized until it's too late and
the damage is already done in money and time.)
- Inspect their work for quality and adherence to code/standards.
(Shoddy work that does not meet
building codes is dangerous and expensive to fix.)
So most consumers hire
a general contractor who is an experienced expert in all of these fields and
can do the
above for them. It does cost them
more money to hire the general contractor, which they would not have to pay if they
skipped that step. However, even with that extra cost, the consumer ends up
saving money overall: the job is done
more efficiently, cheaper, quicker and
with higher quality, than they could do without the general contractor.
A Sherpa does the same thing for employers on outsourced projects that a
general contractor does on a house project.
However, a Sherpa is also safer than using a general contractor as well. Click here
for more information.
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| 4)
What are the typical
responsibilities of a Sherpa? |
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A Sherpa is typically responsible for all of the following. Note that they
do not *have* to do all of the below, if you don't want them to. If you are already
an expert in one or more areas, you can assume those responsibilities and hire the
Sherpa to do the other ones.
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| 5)
What traditional job roles does a Sherpa take over? |
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A Sherpa is a new job title, and requires a person or team who can perform
all of the roles traditionally
held by separate specialists:
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| 6)
What qualifications are required to be a Sherpa? |
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All Sherpas are pre-screened by vWorker.com.
Applicants apply and submit their resume and previous experience
(for both doing the work
and supervising it). If they look like a potential candidate, they
are interviewed for the required skills as well as superior communication
skills (both written and
verbal). If they pass this
test, vWorker.com obtains
feedback on their performance from past employers. To ensure the safety of the
program,
vWorker.com often requires candidates to undergo additional testing and
verification as well. If a candidate passes all of the screening tests,
then they qualify to become a Sherpa.
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| 7)
How do I monitor and pay my Sherpa? |
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Sherpas are paid by the hour, and their rates are shown to you in advance
when you select one on the project posting page. Rates range from
$25-$95/hour, depending on their skills and location in the world.
They bill their time using the AccuTimeCard™, which allows you to
watch their webcam and images of their desktop as they are working.
And like all
hourly work, vWorker.com guarantees
their billable hours with the
AccuBilling money-back guaranteetm*.
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| 8)
How do I monitor what my Sherpa is doing on my behalf? |
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Once you've hired your Sherpa, you give them
sub-account permission to access your account on your behalf.
Once you do that, everything they do on your behalf on-site is visible to
you. This includes all projects they post, every worker they communicate with
and hire, all management they do and all work the workers deliver to them.
You can also view the financial details of all contracts they create (to prevent
the possibility of "skimming") and the amounts they release.
If you're not familiar with the site, a good place to start
is by clicking on the "Employers" tab to view your virtual office. Here you can
see who is working for you and see what they are doing. You can also look at
individual projects in another way: by
clicking "my projects" (under "my account" in your Employer menu).
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| 9)
How do I pay the workers my Sherpa is hiring, and do it safely? |
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There are a few ways you can do it:
- Maximum protection:
This gives you the most protection but requires you to do some work yourself.
It can be useful when you've just hired the Sherpa and don't yet
trust them enough. Once you've
worked with them for a while and established trust, it may become more convenient
for you to switch to "balanced protection"...
In this setup, you restrict all access to everything financial, so that the
Sherpa has no access to any financial information. You are
responsible for:
-
Depositing and withdrawing funds.
(You are the only one who knows your credit card /
PayPal info.)
-
Using the site to select the worker(s) the Sherpa (or you) decide upon
and escrowing funds for them to begin work.
-
Using the site to award the escrow when they've completed work
successfully.
How do I do this? ...
Setup:
-
Set your account to hide your credit card/PayPal information.
This prevents a Sherpa from using your card
or PayPal to deposit
more money, without your knowledge.
Go to "My alerts/other" screen (located under "my account",
"my registation / setttings" in your employer menu), and
UNcheck this box:
-
As in all Sherpa situations, you will give your Sherpa the
sub-account permissions they need to access your account
on your behalf. With "Maximum Protection"
you give them all employer permissions
they need, except:
"Accept Bids",
"Accept work / approve release of Funds",
"Financial Admin" and "Private Account Settings".
Conduct business safely:
- When your Sherpa needs money to escrow to a worker,
you accept the worker's bid on the site.
(Your Sherpa can walk you through how to do this,
if you don't know how).
- When your Sherpa
tells you it's safe to release the funds from
escrow, you release it on the site.
(Your Sherpa can walk you through how to do this,
if you don't know how).
- Balanced protection:
This gives you a good balance between protection and minimizing
the work you
must do yourself.
In this setup, you are
responsible for:
-
Depositing and withdrawing funds.
(You are the only one who knows your credit card /
PayPal info.)
Your Sherpa is responsible for:
-
Using the site to select the worker(s) the Sherpa (or you) decide upon
and escrowing funds for them to begin work.
-
Using the site to award the escrow when they've completed work
successfully.
If you trust your Sherpa to handle escrow payments, this is the
most convenient method.
How do I do this? ...
Setup:
-
Set your account to hide your credit card/PayPal information.
This prevents a Sherpa from using your card or PayPal to deposit
more money, without your knowledge.
Go to "My alerts/other" screen (located under "my account",
"my registation / setttings" in your employer menu), and
UNcheck this box:
-
As in all Sherpa situations, you will give your Sherpa the
sub-account permissions they need to access your account
on your behalf. With "Normal Protection" you give them all
employer permissions they need except:
"Financial Admin" and "Private Account Settings".
What does this do? Not checking
"Financial Admin" allows you to
retain sole control of deposits and withdrawals.
And checking "Accept Bids" and
"Accept work / approve release of Funds"
permissions simply gives your Sherpa the ability to
escrow and release funds you've already deposited
in advance, to the worker(s).
Conduct business safely:
- When your Sherpa needs money to escrow to a worker,
you deposit it as
a stand-alone credit from "my financials"
(Go to "my account" in
your employer menu, and click on "Deposit
additional funds into my employer account").
Your Sherpa does not have permission to access this
page. When you need to withdraw money
from the account,
you initiate a refund from the same page
(see "to get a refund" on the same page).
- Your Sherpa handles the escrowing and
release from escrowing of those funds.
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| 10)
I want to be protected by the "triple-point money-back guarantee"
on the workers my Sherpa hires on my behalf (by using
fixed-price rather than
hourly).
Can they do this? |
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Yes, you can use
fixed-price with your hired workers.
While your Sherpa can only be paid by you via hourly, the
workers they hire on your behalf can be paid by either method. Your
Sherpa is trained and knowledgeable about when it's best to use one or the
other and will give you recommendations that will give you the best end
results.
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| 11)
Can my Sherpa handle arbitrations and reposts for me? |
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Yes they can. You can setup practically any responsibility on the site
as something that
they handle for you.
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| 12)
I'm an entrepreneur with a great new idea. I've heard I should find myself a tech cofounder. What's the difference between
a technical cofounder ("tech cofounder") and a Tech Sherpa™? |
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A technical co-founder
performs the same roles and assumes the
same responsibilities as
a Tech Sherpa™
in a new company. However there are important
differences between the two.
Tech Co-founder:
-
Pros:
- Short-term: Free or substantially discounted work,
in return
for "sweat equity"
- Doesn't get paid unless you get paid (your company
makes profits)
- Less risk if you never turn a profit
- Interests are aligned: they want the company
to be profitable as quickly as you do
-
Cons:
- Long-term: Expensive (the more successful you are,
the more expensive they are)
- Less control: Requires you to give up control of your company
(in return for their doing the work for free or at a
substantial discount
-
They may disagree on the direction of the company
(example: most entrepreneurs are risk-takers and
most techies are risk-averse)
- Poor motivation:
-
Most new ventures take years to
show a profit and during that time the tech cofounder is either
not paid, or paid below market rates. During that
time, they have an
economic incentive to prioritize other people's
higher-paying projects
over yours.
- Often the cofounder is initially responsive, but over time will become
slower and slower to respond (for the same reason).
- Over-dependence:
You can be held hostage, because you rely solely on them and
they are an equal partner. There are many
stories of tech cofounders forcing entrepreneurs to
give them larger percentages of
the company and higher pay, to avoid a shutdown of
the entire
company.
- Hard to find the "purple cow":
It's difficult to find one who is:
-
A technical expert *and* excellent communicator.
-
Is patient on profits and still fully motivated.
-
Isn’t already working on something of their own.
Tech Sherpa™
- Pros:
- Better sustained motivation:
You're paying an outside party to perform the work at
market rates.
-
Faster:
They are working full time on your project, rather than
just part-time in their spare time.
-
More control over them:
They are an employee rather than an equal partner.
-
Legal protection:
Contract states their payment terms and they
can't suddenly demand to be paid a larger
share of the company.
- Cons:
- Requires payment (but note that this larger expense in the
short-term saves you money in the long term, if your
venture is succesful.)
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| 13)
How is a Sherpa safer than using a general contractor? |
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A Sherpa helps an entrepreneur or business, the same way a
general contractor helps
a consumer build a house.
However, general contractors sometimes take advantage of consumers.
On the other hand, a vWorker.com Sherpa is paid and supervised in
ways that guarantee the safety of your funds and minimize the risk of your
project being unsuccessful.
-
Honest and accurate billing:
In the house-building world, a dishonest general contractor can walk away with
your initial deposit. So instead of paying a Sherpa like this,
you escrow the funds a week at a time with vWorker.com. We
release it to them only at the end of
each week, after you approve it. vWorker.com also guarantees
their billed time
with the AccuBilling money-back guarantee: it will be accurate
and be only for time worked on your project; or you get your money back.
-
100% accuracy:
A dishonest general contractor can fudge the hours they worked.
But a Sherpa punches their time with the vWorker
AccuTimeCard™,
which prevents them from being able to do this. So you know
they are being upfront with you.
-
100% Visibility:
A dishonest general contractor can run up extra billable time
because the consumer can’t supervise them all the time. However,
you can see everything your Sherpa does by viewing images of their
desktop and webcam. So you will know that they are always
working on your behalf.
-
100% Visibility of subcontracted work:
-
Supervision: A dishonest general contractor can bill you for a while
before you realize they are not doing what they are supposed to.
However, every project a Sherpa posts on your behalf, every worker
they talk to and hire and every bit of work they provide on your
project, is visible to you 24/7 through the vWorker
sub-account feature.
So this keeps everything visible to you.
-
Financial: A dishonest general contractor can skim some of your funds
behind your back to themselves. However, on vWorker.com,
you will see every
financial transaction and be able to track where every penny was
spent. So you know your funds are safe.
-
Control:
You can find yourself in a legal dispute with a dishonest general
contractor when you try to fire them. However, if at any time you are not
happy with your Sherpa, you can tell them to stop work.
vWorker.com will refund all the remaining unbilled time on their timecard
that you’ve escrowed, and refund you any funds you have not escrowed for
other workers. So you are in control at all times.
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| 14)
How do I apply to be a Sherpa? |
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Becoming a Sherpa is not easy and requires passing a
rigorous
set of screenings. If you believe you have what it takes, then
here's how to apply.
First, sure you've read this entire FAQ. Next, fully read
and understand all the advanced outsourcing techniques in the
vWorker.com Best Practices Outsourcing Model. You
will need to be a master at these for clients,
and will be quizzed on this. If you can
successfully do all of the above, then the next step is to submit
your application.
Send the following to us at facilitator(at)vworker.com: (Note: please
replace "(at)" in the email address with the @ sign to get the proper
address. It is listed this way to prevent us from being spammed
by spam-harvesters).
- Confirm: "I have fully read and understand both the
Sherpa FAQ and the 'vWorker.com Best Practices Outsourcing Model'. I understand
that I will be expected to follow both and will be quizzed on them."
- The URL of your profile on the site. You will need a minimum
of 15 completed projects with a 9 average or higher to qualify.
- Whether you are applying to be a
Tech Sherpa™ or
a Project Sherpa™.
- Your office hours (the hours you are available to work for a
client)...expressed in EST.
- Your hourly rate ($ / hour).
- Your experience both in performing work directly yourself, and
supervising it (specifically per the
responsibilities of a Sherpa).
- A paragraph describing why an employer should hire *you* as
a Sherpa (versus another Sherpa). If you are selected this
will be used on your Sherpa profile.
- A close-up picture of you in a professional setting (to be used
on your profile if you are selected).
- Confirmation that you have a webcam that is compatible with the
AccuTimeCard™ and will use it on
all Sherpa projects.
We will notify you when we receive your application. And we will also
notify you if you
qualify to go on to the next step. Good luck!
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