7A- Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

The opportunity I have come up with is to use VA's to do work for people in the United States. While in the US minimum wage is over Seven dollars an hour the average American programmer is making over fifteen an hour. Someone in the Philippines or in Pakistan can do the same computer programming work for $2-5 an hour while doing the same skilled work as the Americans. I suggest using freelance websites like Upwork to achieve this arbitrage goal. 

The Who- Computer Programmers in the United States

The What- These freelance American Programmers charge $15+ an hour for simple skilled programming work virtually, while an international one will do the same virtual work for $5 an hour. 

The Why- Freelance American Programmers are way too expensive and you can charge clients $15 an hour and use $5 an hour programmers and keep the profit. 

• Testing the who: Are there others who have this need? Or, does everyone in your current 'who' share the need? 

Almost everyone would be happy with having cheaper labor without sacrificing work quality. This need for better and cheaper is always needed in the marketplace. 

• Testing the what: What are the boundaries of the need? 

A good use of communication virtually is needed and the only boundary I could see. 

• Testing the why: 

The why is because many people are unaware of how highly skilled international programmers are and how inexpensive they are. Many small companies are trapped in a bubble of only Americans can do virtual work for them. 

Interview summaries

1. Interviewer one owned a marketing business and was a friend of mine back home. He was very aware of this opportunity and said he uses Virtual assistants  for tasks and programming. He says he uses freelancers and understands the boundaries that occur when dealing with international workers. 

2. Interview 2 was with an older woman in a Starbucks. She was surprised to learn about virtual workers and didn't quite understood the concept until I went into greater detail with her on the topic. She agrees that having someone do work for better and cheaper is always a better option for business. 

3. Interview 3 was with a Finance major at UF. He thinks this is a great opportunity and was interested in the opportunity. He thinks its a great idea but understood some of the issues at hand. He says many clients would be extremely opposed or offended if someone didn't use American workers for their business and as long as I wasn't misleading there shouldn't be a problem at all. 

4. Interview 4 was with an CS major who knew an extensive amount about the topic of programming. He understands the opportunity I told him and thought it was a great idea if the programming wasn't an extremely challenging where a high skilled programmer would know with a great CS education. I learned a lot about this opportunity from him and he showed me how to fine tune my opportunity. 

5. Interview 5 was with a woman at the public library. She thought it was an interesting idea but thought only American workers should do programming. She thinks if we changed minimum wage my opportunity could have been futile. I learned a lot from her and will use her input on the what, why, and who's from her 

Overall I learned a lot from these interviews and will use all of the inputs to fine tune my opportunity.