1. Hacking Product
Management with
Crowdsourcing
& Outsourcing
@russjhammond

2. What?
Anything you possibly can that is not one of
your core strengths.

3. What?
Examples...this week alone:
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find registration costs for 20 conferences
transcribe 6 podcasts
find 50 random firms to survey
interview those 50 random firms
consolidate data for weekly status report
create custom images for sales demo
build demo app to test our SDK
fill out expense reimbursement forms

4. Who?
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virtual assistants
freelancers
Mturkers
Gigwalkers
Fiverrs
Craigslisters

5. When?
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Same day
Overnight
Next week
Next month

6. Where?
Tennessee to Timbuktu

7. Why?
Comparative advantage:
Ability to produce outputs at a lower
opportunity cost than another.

8. How?

9. Tips & tricks
Virtual assistant
● Hire a VA with a firm
○ can often find others within firm to do random tasks
○ backup for when they go on vacation
● Don’t tell others your secret

12. Tips & tricks
Odesk
● Hire 3 to do the first step, keep 1 to finish
● Fixed bid contracts over hourly
● Don’t be afraid to spend money
○ only hiring for a few hours not a full time job

14. BONUS!!!
Send the bill to sales.

15. Tips & tricks
Gigwalk
● Ask for candid feedback at the end of each
task
● Monitor chatter on Easy Shift
● Small test run before larger rollout

16. demo

17. Tips & tricks
Crowdflower
● keep task under 10 seconds
● run each task 3 times for quality checks
● watch their tutorials when getting started

18. demo

19. But how much does it cost?
VA - $500/month
Odesk - $25-$50/hr
Gigwalk - $10/ gig
Crowdflower - $.03-.05/per task

20. What services do you use?

21. Questions
@russjhammond