Would you pay to have an accountability "boss"?
Imagine a service where for a monthly fee you can have a "boss" that you will communicate with daily and update on your endeavors, accomplishments, delays, failures, procrastinations, and whatever else is going on.
One of the hard parts of being self employed is that one doesn't have someone holding them accountable - and sometimes this lack of pressure to not let someone down makes it easier to let tasks accumulate and progress slow down.
In this service you could browse a list of vetted "bosses", so you could choose someone you'd be happy to talk to.
One could also apply to be a boss and get paid for holding other people accountable.
Maybe a way to monetize this would be: you can have a boss for free, as long as you offer yourself up to being someone else's boss for free.
There a few weak spots to this idea that I can see:
- Self employed people don't always have the most funds to spend on this kind of thing
- Self employed people have other things holding them accountable - like getting enough clients to be profitable enough to survive
- Not having someone holding you accountable can be seen as a feature, not a bug of being self employed
Would you pay for something like this? And how much? $50/month? $100, $200?
And if you would be interested in being a "boss", would you do it for $50/month? $100, $200?
Not sure I'd pay to have a boss. I can emulate the "boss" using some life hacks. For example if I release something unfinished, I then naturally feel pressure to finish it off. If I post about what I am going to do on a group chat, I feel obliged to do it. One thing a good real boss can give you is mentorship. I feel I can get more than what a mentor can offer in free basic advice on this forum and other places. Maybe when I am doing really well I might get a mentor in my industry to get to the next level.
No, having a boss would be my worst nightmare. If someone can't get shit done by themselves then they're probably better off in employment than being an entrepreneur.
I personally tell my friends in person and on social media my plans for the next few months and then use my blog to keep myself accountable. It doesn't get a lot of traffic but enough where I feel the need to stick to my plans. Also, I've found todoist very helpful in setting up daily tasks and goals for everything. For the service you're asking about, I've looked into coaches and mentors in the past but each coach usually has a very specific niche (personal development, bootstrapping, growing a company, marketing, dating, etc.)
It had merits in my mind and has a few current implementations in different formats
From a silly money commitment against yourself not doing
To "working in public"
To a coaching exchange
Or just hiring a coach/consultant...
Personally, I wouldn't use this, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have merit. I know that accountability is one of the reasons people join mastermind groups, and many of those have fees. How would your idea differ from these?