[Edit: The following arenât exactly âgood leads,â but I thought it would still be useful to share some of the comments Iâve heard on options people in this community have tried.]
âFancy Hands is a team of US-based virtual assistantsâ.
Comments Iâve heard on them from a couple of EAs:
I used various assistants over a couple of months for in total maybe 30 tasks, each about 20 minutes long (their limit per one credit). I would say that the quality varied a lot and most of the time, they did not save me any time if included coordination cost, etc. If it was a straightforward task that could be done in 20 min, they performed okay, but even in that case I still found it to be large time-saving. I know one EA who likes it and uses it somewhat regularly. Maybe I just didnât figure out a way to utilize them well. Feel free to share it with other people under âan EA told meâ
And then I wasnât sure if this EA has actually used Fancy Hands, but they summarised it thus:
FancyHands function almost as a platform, where they remain in the middle and take a cut. Itâs easy to use a small # of hours/âper week, the provider will swap you out with other assistants relatively quickly, and the people you work with are relatively junior.
Athena set you up with full-time Philippines-based PAs. One EA said the PAs nevertheless work to US timezones; another said that being in the Philippines was a problem when their colleague used Athena. Some other comments from EAs:
A couple people I know have been using them recently and seem happyish with them.
We have used them previously but found the person was too junior to be helpfulânot sure if this is the norm of if we were paired with the wrong person.
I think there was an initial $1500 signing fee for equipment and now we pay $2500 per month [~ÂŁ10/âh]. If there are not enough tasks you can share a PA with multiple people, but ideally only one person would be coordinating and assigning them tasks.
My PA is good, but not super excellent. Iâd recommend them for tasks such as: - booking travel insurance, travel, and accommodation - calling doctors/âCovid centers, making appointments - researching flight regulations - transcribing messages (but not really drafting them from scratch (at least not with EA context and slang) - sending out presents/âgifts - scheduling things (if all preferences are clear and itâs not a high stakes meeting) - researching things such as: âWhat is the newest HP laptop model with xyz featuresââneeds to be pretty specific - accountability things...
Iâd recommend it for people who just donât like doing these things themselves. But you probably wonât get a person who actively has your back, thinks about deadlines and is super proactive.
That being said, [another EA] also had an assistant from Athena but decided to switch to another assistant (also from Athena), because she made a bunch of smaller mistakes and was not able to do tasks.
I...talked to a few EAs whoâve used it and found theyâve had widely-ranging experiences
Iâm trialing a full-time assistant via AthenaGo who has been pretty helpful, but I donât have a great reference point, since this is my first time around.
Another EA told me that theyâve found Athena to be âmedium-yâ so far.
And then in a phone call with another EA in March 2022, I was told that Athena is good but thereâs a waitlist, and that the first assistant they tried wasnât good enough, the second was good, and the third was okay.]
When I was doing more PA work for EAs myself, I briefly tried experimenting with re-delegating anonymised tasks to Upwork, but I couldnât find any takers for the first task I tried. Another EA I know uses them for PA tasks though.
https://ââwww.pocketbookagency.com has been good to work with...itâs low-commitment (paid on contingency, so youâll just fwd your description and do a 30m call and they send you candidates)
...and another EA said...
Iâve tried to use a domestic staffing agency in the Bay Area before but didnât have much luck and they werenât great to deal with.
Mati Roy is an EA with some US-timezone friendly VAs: https://ââbit.ly/ââPantaskServices (on the website it says âWe hire mainly in North America and Europeâ but I think they still generally prefer to share the Google doc).
[Edit: And before anyone wastes time on CampusPAâanother EA-run PA agency that I sometimes hear mentionedâwhile their website is still up, the CEOâs LinkedIn says âI closed CampusPA in February of 2022.â]
Has anyone got good leads for US-timezone friendly VAs?
Check out Pineapple Operations list for part time and virtual PAs:
https://ââpineappleoperations.org
Thanks, Lee!
Currently ~half of the PAs we list publicly or suggest privately are in the US and every one is open to working remotely.
The main differentiators from standard VA services are currently that:
almost all of our PAs are existing members of the EA community (some thoughts on the value of EA vs non-EA assistants here)
many are open to in-person work, with some even open to relocating
most lack PA experience
itâs a âmatchmakingâ rather than an agency modelâusers hire the PAs directly
[Edit: The following arenât exactly âgood leads,â but I thought it would still be useful to share some of the comments Iâve heard on options people in this community have tried.]
Fancy Hands
âFancy Hands is a team of US-based virtual assistantsâ.
Comments Iâve heard on them from a couple of EAs:
And then I wasnât sure if this EA has actually used Fancy Hands, but they summarised it thus:
[Edit: Athena
Athena set you up with full-time Philippines-based PAs. One EA said the PAs nevertheless work to US timezones; another said that being in the Philippines was a problem when their colleague used Athena. Some other comments from EAs:
Another EA told me that theyâve found Athena to be âmedium-yâ so far.
And then in a phone call with another EA in March 2022, I was told that Athena is good but thereâs a waitlist, and that the first assistant they tried wasnât good enough, the second was good, and the third was okay.]
Upwork
When I was doing more PA work for EAs myself, I briefly tried experimenting with re-delegating anonymised tasks to Upwork, but I couldnât find any takers for the first task I tried. Another EA I know uses them for PA tasks though.
Assistant headhunters
One EA recommended US-based Pocketbook Agency...
...and another EA said...
Mati Roy is an EA with some US-timezone friendly VAs: https://ââbit.ly/ââPantaskServices (on the website it says âWe hire mainly in North America and Europeâ but I think they still generally prefer to share the Google doc).
[Edit: And before anyone wastes time on CampusPAâanother EA-run PA agency that I sometimes hear mentionedâwhile their website is still up, the CEOâs LinkedIn says âI closed CampusPA in February of 2022.â]