Starter Kit. Idea 439 of 500. Cluster 23
Home-based work platforms that pay properly: sewing, bookkeeping, transcription, design
The mechanism, from the book
The single largest unused asset in the country is sitting at home, and the reasons are practical, not attitude.
The first step
Find five women at home with a skill, whether sewing, bookkeeping, typing or design, and one local business that needs that work done. Broker a first paid job between them at a fair rate, with the terms written down and payment on delivery. The proof is a completed job, paid in full, and a business that asks for a second one.
- Who pays first
- A small business owner who needs bookkeeping or sewing done without hiring full time, and pays a fair rate for reliable work delivered on time.
- What leaves today
- Skilled women at home either earn nothing or sell their hours cheaply through middlemen; a platform that pays properly turns that skill into income on the island.
Ask first
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how to register a business that pays home workers and keeps written terms.
- Inland Revenue Department. Ask what records you must keep when you pay many home workers.
Check before you spend
Confirm written terms for every job, how and when workers are paid, how customer files and personal details are kept safe, and your own registration.
Find out these three numbers
- What rate do local businesses pay now for this work?
- How many hours a week can each woman give?
- How much work a month could one business send you?
A comparison from the book
Who starts which. Appendix
"and half of the rest of the list can be run from a kitchen table with a phone."
The work can come to the kitchen table. Your job is to make sure it pays properly.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.