Apply HN – LACKII

[nhasib2078]

LACKII's mission is to save startups time and money so that they can get back to changing the world. LACKII provides on-demand personal assistants and semi-skilled workers to startups working in co-working spaces. Co-working spaces contract with LACKII to have teams of Lackiis stationed at the co-working space. These Lackiis are available on-demand as an amenity for the member startups, or available to the startups for a slight increase in the membership fee (totally up to the co-working space).

[brudgers]

What is the size of the coworking space market?

How will Lackii avoid the personal service agency problem of coworking spaces or their tenants just hiring Lackii's staff directly?

[nhasib2078]

Awesome questions.

There are approximately 1000 co-working spaces in the US (not counting multiple locations).

As for folks hiring Lackiis as permanent employees -that is something that is actually totally cool by us. We want startups to turn to LACKII as a source for reliable permanent employees building out the recruiting structure is a tomorrow problem that is very important to us.

[danieltillett]

How do you solve the problem of who is the boss? What happens when two or more startups want the assistant to do something at the same time? Who is supervising the assistant you or the startups? How do you ensure that the assistant is a good match to the need of the startups?

[nhasib2078]

Great questions. Let's start from the beginning.

1) Lackii's goal is to give startups the benefit of full or part-time employers without the cost. Thus, while Lackiis are employed by LACKII, the "boss" for all intents and purposes is the startup that has given the LACKII assignments.

2) Multiple requests: We address this in a couple of ways -1) when negotiating the contract with the co-working space, co-working spaces must contract a minimum of two LACKIIs, 2) some work may be rerouted to a remote Lackii, so that the Lackiis at the co-working space have their hands free to do things that require them to be on-site.

3) One of the Lackii's stationed at each site is a manager in charge of supervision and quality control.

4) Our focus is primarily on work that you would have a personal assistant or entry-level worker do, e.g. data entry, simple design work, basic research. We ensure that each Lackii is able to carry out these tasks when they are hired on our end. Startups also rate the Lackiis that complete tasks for them, and can request the same Lackii in the future.

[nishsticks]

Would love to use something like this at the coworking spaces I work from, given that it's affordable. I spend waaay too much of my time doing things that can be easily passed onto an entry level helper.

[nhasib2078]

We hear a lot of the same from folks at many co-working spaces. Which are your favorite spaces to work from?

[jvance64]

As a member of 1871 and WeWork co-working spaces, having an on-demand personal assistant would add a huge benefit, dramatically reducing the time spent on administrative tasks, and increase the time one can commit to growing their business. The biggest secret of highly productive people isn’t in any way ground breaking, but it is most often forgotten: They don’t try and do everything themselves. Great idea!

[nhasib2078]

We would love to work with 1871 (especially since we're currently working out of Chicago). Let's talk about how to make that happen.

[butterfly123]

What are the rates and how are the rates negotiated? Is it between the startups or the co-working spaces?

[nhasib2078]

Excellent question. The rates are between LACKII and the co-working space. Because co-working spaces vary in size, rates are negotiated based on a couple of factors, including the total number of members which affects the total number of Lackiis needed, and the total number of hours the co-working space would like the Lackii team available per week (e.g. 40 hours a week, or 24/7)

[dpens78]

Awesome concept, this would be helpful!!

[jriley312]

Sounds great, and I'm surprised this doesn't exist widely yet!

[nhasib2078]

We're super psyched to see that folks (especially founders) are very excited about the idea and can't wait to make the service widely available!

[amandlao]

Love the idea, but double ended markets are also tricky to match. What are incentives for Lackiis to join that they can't get from other semi-skilled jobs that perhaps offer? Who else are you competing with for this labor?

[nhasib2078]

Awesome question. As I'm sure you're aware, one of the big problems that folks are dealing with in the gig economy is the status of contract workers. One big incentive for Lackiis to join us rather than another "gig site" is that Lackiis are employees that would receive benefits, so they're not left out in the wild like many 1099 workers. Another advantage of working with LACKII is flexibility and the ability to work with a multitude of different businesses. Since many of the folks that we are targeting to become LACKIIs are current or recent college grads and folks like new parents who may be looking for some kind of flexible employment, LACKII is an excellent place for those folks to work to develop new skills and learn about new and emerging trends in the business world. These are people who might otherwise be looking for inconsistent work on sites like TaskRabbit and FancyHands.

[dpens78]

Awesome startup!!