How Founders Can Save 20+ Hours Per Week With A VA

Every founder should know how to find, vet, and work with VAs

Hey y’all!

This is going to sound fake but I save over 20 hours a week by having a team of high-performing virtual assistants who I delegate tasks to relentlessly.

It may be closer to 40 hours.

And they’ve been a huge part of how I’ve scaled this business to a $100,000 month in August after just 6 months.

The best part? Assistants aren’t just for Fortune 500 CEOs anymore — each VA costs less than $10,000 for an entire year.

They play a part in everything — partnerships, company ops, growth, organization, and even the MVP-stage product experience of Megaphone (my new creator marketplace product).

In fact they’re responsible for helping me put together lead magnets like this one that led to over 15,000 of you finding this newsletter.

So this week I’m breaking down how to find, vet, work with, and pay VA(s) 👇

Read Time: 05 minutes

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Every Founder Should Have a VA

Where to Find VAs

Option 1: Done-For-You Subscription Service

These take the hassle of payment and employment out of your hands — you pay the service (rather than the VA directly) a flat rate and then they pay the VA out of that. The VA is technically employed by the agency (though you often get to pick from a curated set of candidates who fit your use case).

A good part of this model is that the companies typically are great about replacing any bad fits and there’s no long term commitment.

Example: Athena

Option 2: Placement Service

More of a traditional hiring model, just applied to VAs.

You pay them a placement fee once and then just pay the VA’s salary each month. The one-time payment is nice but these services typically require a longer upfront commitment.

Example: Shepherd

Option 3: DIY Open Marketplace

Exactly what it sounds like. You use some search criteria and filters to sort through thousands of candidates based on required rate of pay, experience, and more.

These often have tests that candidates are encouraged to complete to show off their skills relative to other candidates.

This is the most time consuming approach (often by far) and success relies on your ability to ascertain which candidates will perform well on the job.

Example: Onlinejobs.ph

How to Assess VAs

Even if you use an agency, I still highly recommend doing an assessment of each VA you hire yourself.

Remember: if you want to maximize the value your VA can provide, they’ll need full access to your email, social media, logins, and more — maybe even your credit card, Stripe account, and bank account.

Even though they’re surprisingly hard to find by Googling, I’m sure there are horror stories about people getting scammed by fake VAs who offer to work for free/cheap.

As a result, I recommend doing both of the following before hiring them: