Problem: It’s hard for individual’s to hire interns; most of it is done through personal networks.
Solution: A platform that allows individual employees to hire interns to help lighten their work load. Are you a consultant at Bain optimizing how a book publisher can save on costs during COVID19? There’s an intern to help you with that and they’re more than happy to do a portion of your due diligence for $10/hour. Are you a Software Engineer at Microsoft trying to determine whether there is a market need for your newest feature? Hire an unpaid intern to do a deep dive into the technology industry and read the 500-pages of industry reports that you don’t have time for. Looking to make a startup with friends, but don’t want to go through the trouble of learning SEO? Hire an MBA graduate who’s free for the summertime to help you at $15/hour.
This business would tap into the labor (and beyond that, the desire to build resumes) of young people. It would be modeled after the “Secret Labor” that is often used by associate consultants in and around China who hire interns to lighten their work loads. In chatting with friends who used to be consultants in China, they have remarked that “for associates and analysts at consulting companies or finance companies, hiring interns to do non-confidential work is super common. Most interns don’t even get paid and do it purely for the term-time work experience, the network, or the resume boost.” Perhaps the most famous person in this camp of outsourcing tasks that you don’t want to do or that don’t bring you joy is Tim Ferris. As he argues, “people should outsource 80% of their tasks to developing countries like the Philippines where people can skillfully do different tasks for you: administrative, Graphics work, Programming, Telemarketing, Customer Support, etc. As long as the job can be performed remotely, outsourcing is possible—and is a viable and cost-effective automation and liberation option.”
As a scalable model, this business would be a gig economy platform (either on a website or on a mobile app) that connects professionals to interns who are willing to take on and complete individual projects for them. Personally, at Microsoft, I have the luxury of working with and directing teams of interns who are hired for co-ops and internships. Directing these interns has often increased by productivity by 5x or 10x because it gives me more time to focus on higher-focus and higher-fidelity tasks, rather than menial tasks which can be done by anyone.
Monetization: Percentage of dollars that flow through the platform.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)