OnForce and Other Things

I’ve started through the signup process for OnForce a few times now, and am going to pick it back up this morning.  Originally I merely looked it over and was mildly concerned that you have to agree not to operate a similar service within three years of using theirs.

I made a false start along those lines years ago, and had never completely dropped the idea.  In its most recent form, though, it would probably not be considered close enough to the same.  And perhaps never would have.

Which reminds me of how funny these business idea things are.

Once upon a time, I believe it was 1998, I bought the domain bzmoms.com and hosting for it for my brother and his now ex-wife, who was into crafts and used the name BZMom’s Crafts or something like that.  In domains, short is better and so bzmoms.com it was, leaving room for me to be annoyed that she was disappointed it wasn’t the long version.

That was the bad old days, and it’s easy to forget now, when a few bucks a month buys seemingly endless hosting, and under ten bucks a year buys domain registration, that back then it was $70 for those first two years and $35 per afterward, and it was $400 a year for limited hosting.  For the business, back then, it was over $1200 a year for web hosting and e-mail.  E-mail addresses were $3 per address per month, and we had twelve, so it was $432 for e-mail for the year.  There were probably lower cost options sooner than we discovered that there were, but even those were considerably more than today.

To paraphrase a truism, the past is another internet.

Anyway, I was all enthusiastic on their behalf, dreaming of all the things they could do with a craft-related online presence.  It wasn’t my bag, I figured, but maybe they could bootstrap a social and selling site for people who did crafts of all kinds.  I was afraid the idea was too obvious and too “already done,” but wasn’t aware of such a thing.

Well, that didn’t happen, and I forgot about it entirely until I realized this weekend that I had imagined Etsy back in 1998, maybe 1999.  Thinking of the idea of connecting geek workers with people who need them, a form of which is OnForce, and a form of which I’ve had in mind repeatedly for years, reminded me of that as I typed, rendering this a longer post than it might otherwise have been.

Right, the OnForce thing.  The other thing was I needed a bank account to connect it to, as they pay electronically.  I finally got around to that, which I also needed to do for PayPal.

Then I got into the profile configuration, after signing up, and would have it time out and sign me off because I’d pause to do something else, making me start over.  Then I ran into things I had to think about, or that were so oddly designed as to cause the aforementioned pause.

Last time I was in there, I got to what appeared to be the end and it asked for a rate for each type of work I had indicated I’d do.  Um… I had assumed that the person wanting to hire someone specified a price and one of the techs took it or it languished.

It’s my whole price thing again.  I have an almost irrational fear of pricing wrong; too high and get no work, too low and feel used and resentful.  Low is good now, in that I have to get some work, any work, and even $35 an hour stuff would be better than getting a job in a store for $8 - 10.  I just don’t want to become known for low and stuck with it.  Looking at the four types of work and the $5 increment selector for each, ranging from $35 bottom to $200 top, that made me puse again.

If it hadn’t, well, the next thing was a “you must give a reference we can talk to.” So I stopped for an extended time to verify for sure that I could list the office manager of the former big client.  I knew I could, and in a pinch I’d have just done it, but getting that “absolutely” back from her was reassuring.

So it’s time to fill out the not-that-complicated-really stuff again in hopes of getting to the end and getting it saved, without running into something I can’t answer offhand, or freezing because I’m convinced people want me to be a computer wizard for free and I must be an ingrate for expecting not merely to be paid, but to be adequately paid.  What kind of fucked up psychological baggage is that?  Actually, I have some idea, but that would be another post or three.

Well, off to it.

Correction:
Based on the Internet Archive, bzmoms.com was active in 2001, so I was a couple years off.  It also had content for a while and later was reduced to under construction placeholder.

And that makes sense, since elhide.com predates it and I got that domain in 1999.  I wouldn’t have sprang for both in the same year.

1. "Um… I had assumed that the person wanting to hire someone specified a price and one of the techs took it or it languished.”

   There are three different ways a buyer can price a work order: flat fee - the job pays $X no matter how long it takes, buyer specified hourly rate - they will pay $X/hr up to $Y for the job, and provider specified hourly rate - they will pay the hourly rate you specified for the type of work up to $X total for the job. That is why you need to specify your hourly rate. If you are unsure what to charge, take a look at Explore the Marketplace and see how much jobs go for in your area. You can always change your rates later and you are never required to accept a job you think won’t be worth it.

   Posted by Scott Mattocks  on  01/29  at  09:23 AM  from 
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