shiny object syndrome
middle man

The Middle Man

Just the tip:

So I have been on a SEO kick and realized how often the companies are just reselling services of someone else. Jacky Chou pointed out that if you want some digital PR, you dont need to pay anyone like Brandpush.co $700. You can buy the service directly through King Newswire for $500 if you buy a single or if you scale up and buy a pack of these (10 or more) its $450. If you buy 30 at a time, its $350 each. So if you become the middleman, each package you sell, you can make on the low end, $200, on the high end $500 each as King goes down to $200 a press release. There are TONS of these middle man opportunities. You should just make sure you understand what you are talking about. Pick a hobby you have or do something related to the job you have. If you know programming, you can not only sell your programming services on the side but sell other people’s services on the side.

Quick Off Topic:

So a business opportunity “fell” into my lap and we haven’t progressed on it yet but probably should. I have worked with Indian developers for the last 3 years. We pay $17ish an our for the work which is affordable for a small business. The same developer here in the US would cost me $60/hr. So the company I have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars talked about partnering up and trying to expand to the US. They need a somewhat technical person (I cant code myself but understand some) that can act as the customer liaison. Am American with an American company to the front and have all of the developers in India. They pay their workers $7-8/hr and we charge a very affordable $30/hr here in the US. Small companies get a US based tech company to build their software for $30/hr and we pay the workers in India $8/hr to do the work. There is a $22 spread that would be split between me and the company back in India. When you look at billable hours, this can add up very fast. We have 4 developers, 1 QA person and a 1/2 time analyst for our 2 projects. Thats 220 hours a week for one customer!

Quick Thoughts

Cost to get started[1] This is “almost” free when you think about it. You are collecting money up front, then having another contractor fulfill the work.

Ease of business[1] – You need to know what you are talking about and have the ability to sell. But its not hard

How big can this grow[3] – I think this is probably in the 100s of thousands in income, possibly very low millions, but you can always scale this whole thing.

Resource level[1] – Since you are subbing out the work, you dont need much for actual skills other than salesmanship

Can I pull it off[5] Yes…I think almost anyone can do this

Why This and Where is It Going?

I think this is a low to no money business to get going. A little time and research to find an opportunity that fits into something you know and understand. I think there are tons of opportunities in the digital space (programming, SEO, digital marketing, Facebook/Google Ads, etc) but there are also great opportunities in the physical world as well. Heck, this is what a general contractor does. A home builder stereotypically has little to no staff and subs out all of the work to subcontractors and takes the split.

The best thing about being the “middle man” in an opportunities we are talking about, specifically the digital ones, is the little to no cost to get going. Hell, you don’t have to have the knowledge or the skills either. We kind of talked about this in the online education course post a while back. You can hire people with the knowledge when you dont have it. This business is something that can scale with time and you can start in your free time. Start listing stuff on Fiverr or Upwork. I’d look to build a relationship with some of the vendors on there that will do the work for you, but once that relationship is built, just start making posts and trying to sell work.

Lets Talk Financials:

Like many of these businesses, financials can be all over the place. Its really hard to nail down the amount of money you can make but lets look into some businesses online and try and make some assumptions.

Syed over on Upwork has made > $100,000 billed on the Upwork platform. He has likely made much more as most jobs go, they go off the Upwork platform and you pay the developer directly and stop using the Upwork platform. Hes charging $25/hr which is VERY low for being a “US” company. Most US developers with American names are charging $60-100/hr. You can see since Syed is cheap, hes making money. So $100k/$25/hr is 4000 hours. I think its probably save to assume hes done double that minimum outside of Upwork, but we will stick to what we can prove. If you hired a company in Inda, you can find someone that would charge $15/hr so you make $40k in the year(ish…this is an assumption in the amount of calendar time). If you hired a single developer for $8/hr, you’re talking $68k in income for you by subbing out that work to an individual. You’ll find companies in India that have done millions of logged work on the platform.

Ok, lets try Fiverr. Peter has over 1000 website designed at a minimum cost of $480. This is for a 5 page WordPress site. His cost is labor only because all of the tools he needs are free. WordPress is free, Elementor is free, Element Lites Kit (whatever it is) is free. I have had about 4 pages designed recently and the couple of WordPress developers I have found have been pretty good. They charge me $200 for a site. Im 99% sure they would discount it to $125-150 if I would buy in bulk and not pay on Fiverr where they lose money to Fiverr. So for a $150 website cost to me, selling them for $450 each (lets make math easy) thats $300/site profit. Peter has done over 1000 of them, so a smooth $300,000 in income and he wouldnt have to do the actual work.

How to Get Started:

You dont need much to get going other than some research and some knowledge. You can quickly call yourself an “agency”. Think about your knowledge base and think about your skills. I think its important to understand the lingo of the niche you get into but you don’t necessarily have to know it. You can learn a lot online and move into computer programming without ever have programmed in your life. Heck, I learned enough about programming over the last couple years to be able to do the front end (sales, customer relations). Being in an American or Western country will automatically give you more credibility on these platforms.

  1. Talk to other service provders
  2. List your own products for sale
  3. Sub it to the other worker
  4. Profit 😎

Final Thoughts

The concept is simple. The execution shouldnt be too hard, especially if you are selling SEO backlinks and paying someone else to do it. I think trying to run a custom software development company is definitely harder but far from impossible. Lots of people are out there trying to save money. Lots of entrepreneurs out there don’t have a ton of money to start up. Filling the gap can be a huge opportunity. Offer decent priced services with the American face. If you’re not seeing the amazing advantage of the American thing, just go look at Fiverr and Upwork and see how much the American’s charge vs the foreign countries. Heck, look at Fiverr and you’ll see the SEO guys put American people’s faces on their post image because they know it sells. Its not until you look closely at the profile to realize they are from Pakistan or India or until you see the not perfect English. Combined with the correct business hours to American companies and entrepreneurs, you have a major advantage. I wake up early for my meetings with my Indian counterparts. Our meetings are at 5:30 AM my time with is 6:30PM their time. They work lake and I wake up early to make sure this system works. Now imagine a US business that can contact their software development company at 2PM our time rather than at 5:30 am. Huge difference.

I really want to tackle the world and every time I write an article for this blog, I get excited about the opportunity. If the business scaled and you could run a whole crew of people in India doing custom software development, this could easily be a million dollar per year business. With the amount of money we have paid for the company we work with, I have talked about trying to open my own development company out of India. I work with several Indian people at the hospital and they have family back home that could help. Is it time for me to cut out the Middle Man?

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