Archives for November 2009

Online Data Entry Jobs?

November 7, 2009 by 86 Comments


Recently on the Young Professionals Group, we had this question from Boni:

Hi Guys

I have had this eager to venture in this thing called online data entry jobs which pay well but u have to register an amount for you to join.

  1. Now I don’t know who or where to begin searching for them
  2. If they work or not

Kindly please advice me and probably give sites that have paid.

Here’s my answer:

Hi Boni

How are you? I hope all is well.

In my experience, data entry jobs are among the worst type of online jobs out there. Why? Because they usually involve a whole lot of work. The amount of data to be processed is not anything small, trust me. For example, I once had to input 3600 entries (several columns) into an excel sheet for a mere $30.

The best way, in my view, to make online data entry work for you is to do more than just one gig here and there. Perhaps you can organise some people and then your role becomes that of just getting the jobs and then passing on the work to them. If you get 10 jobs paying $30 each that is $300. You then just make sure you pay your people less than $300. I know several people who do this from their own homes, using their friends and younger siblings for labour.

Better yet, do something else other than data entry. Probably, every other type of job pays better than data entry. Do you have a particular skill or technical training? Yes? Good, you can find hundreds of job with that.

Here are some of the sites that I know actually work:

www.getafreelancer.com
www.guru.com
www.elance.com
www.rentacoder.com

There are thousands of jobs available but the competition for them is fierce. People from India and other parts of Asia have particularly flooded the net looking for jobs.

How can you outcompete them? Well, basically, it involves clever marketing. Put yourself out there in a way that you are seen as not just another freelancer but a serious professional. When looking for work online or elsewhere, it is sometimes very difficult to demonstrate what you can do to potential employers. You don’t really have anything tangible to sell and convincing clients to pay can be hard – they may even resort to asking you to do the work and then “if” it is good they will pay you. How can you change this? Use a portfolio. A portfolio is key in making potential employers feel secure and confident about you.

I hope I have been of help. Please feel free to ask any other questions that you may have.

Additionally, we have written a whole lot on this subject on this site so you will probably get some of your questions answered if stick around. :p

Here are some articles that may be interesting to you:

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With:

Biashara 30 Confessions

November 4, 2009 by 32 Comments

Does anyone else like that Usher song, Confessions? Well, I love it! And, keeping with the spirit of that song, here are our Biashara 30 confessions….

Some background
Well, we accepted a total of 17 applicants into the first edition of B30. We had received a total of 117 so we, randomly, decided to slash it down by a hundred. Why? We wanted a small group in hopes of forming a close knit community and team. In hindsight, we probably should have let in more people…more on that later.

Actually, not so much later. The reason of thinking that maybe we should have let in more people is because the attrition rate was so very high. You won’t believe it, but about 10 of the 17 that we let in didn’t even sign up or respond to our invitation in any way. Makes me wonder whether they were applying just for fun. And even then, not all of the remaining seven participated fully. We did achieve one thing though: at it’s height, the B30 team felt really “connected”.

A few disappointments…
However, we are, overall, disappointed with this edition of B30. Why? Because just two of the 17 managed to make money online (that we know of). We would have liked to have 17 out of 17! Also, we are disappointed to announce that we are closing the first edition of B30 today despite the program not being fully complete. This really is hard for us to do but as things stand, it is the best thing to do. We apologise for any inconveniences caused by this action.

Smiles
Okay, we’re done with the bad parts of B30. Now, the good. We are very proud of one of the participants, Ms Maria Maina who came in as a green newbie but now has an interesting freelance business as well as an ebook for sale. This is what we want and love to see and it makes us endlessly happy. We’re proud of you, Maria.

Another nice product of Biashara 30 is Kazi360 (don’t click it yet, it is not fully ready). Kazi360 is a Job Board for young professionals in Kenya. Whether you’re looking for a job, or hunting for top-notch talent, Kazi360’s simple but powerful tools are geared towards connecting Kenya’s brightest minds with the best Kenyan companies. It is a joint venture between Like Chapaa and others. While running B30, the need for such a site was very apparent and, as usual, we jumped at the opportunity. You shall be hearing more of this project, you can be sure of that.

Was this edition of B30 successful? Well, sadly, no. We did not achieve everything that we had hoped to achieve. 🙁

What could we have done better?
We’ve thought long and hard about what we could have done better, and here are our conclusions:

  • Kenya is still an offline country, we’re afraid. We realise that we should have had more face-to-face meetings.
  • We should have gone through the material faster. Though it was a lot and sometimes we felt that the pace could hinder the learning…
  • In relation to the above, we should not have spent so much time and effort in the “getting an online job” section of the B30 program. We don’t care much for jobs and we feel we needed to have spent more time on setting up an online business.
  • We also seriously need to find more and better ways of keeping attention and focus levels of the participants up.
  • Wambere (me) should have spent more time in the program. I sadly had other pressing matters to attend to. 🙁

What next?
So there you have it, all the gory details. So what next? First off, we’d LOVE to hear from you. Yes, you. What do you think of all this?

Anyone still willing to take part in the next Biashara 30?

Please discuss in the comments below.

Filed Under: Biashara 30 Tagged With:

The Khan Academy

November 4, 2009 by Leave a Comment

“The Khan Academy is a remarkable, one-person effort to educate the World. Salman Khan has produced over 900 videos on YouTube with 6 million views-covering everything from basic arithmetic to calculus, chemistry, and physics. Continuing to produce several hundred videos a year, Salman intends to provide instruction in all subjects to anyone, anywhere.

Millions of students around the world lack access to high quality instruction, especially in the sciences and math. The Khan Academy provides it for free in a way that can be accessed on-demand at a student’s own pace.

The videos are directly teaching tens of thousands of students on every continent on a daily basis. Other non-profit groups have even begun distributing off-line versions of the library to rural and under served areas in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.”
Tech Awards

Can you believe that? I stumbled upon an absolute goldmine of a site this time, didn’t I? There are more than 1,000 videos which are remarkably easy to follow and which touch on anything from physics to the US credit crunch. Truly amazing.

Now you don’t have to watch your grades slip off a cliff because of a bad class/teacher. Here’s one testimonial from the site:

“This is my first year in college and until today i was completely lost in math. Half an hour with your presentations taught me more than three months of sitting in my professors class. You seriously saved my grade.”

Why don’t you check it out?

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews

Rich Dad, Poor Dad Part 2

November 2, 2009 by 7 Comments

We have looked at an introduction to Robert Kiyosaki’s ideas on welath in Rich Dad, Poor Dad part 1. Today, we’re going to look at the cashflow quadrant where Mr Kiyosaki talks about four different ways on how you can get rich.

Watch the video:

What do you think?

Filed Under: Make Money Tagged With: