That's not going to get your grocery shopping done, but 10 hours/week seems like it would comfortably cover many people's paperwork/bureaucracy hassles.
These people could have like 3 or 4 clients a piece.
In fact, that person probably wouldn't do everything but would help "administer" it, eg. hire a CPA to do taxes (and audit them quarterly), occasionally book a flight or find a hotel, come in once a week to spend a few hours to sort through mail, etc.
I hear a lot about "virtual assistants" but I imagine this person could fit in 4-5 clients per month which could mean $5K/month and that translates to a pretty good salary.
A part time secretary of some sort... any startups doing this?
I'm not a total cheapskate (obviously, im considering using this crazy service), but I'm also fairly concerned about getting the best deal/value I can for things.
They were good at matching user preferences on simple stuff (get me a pizza), and had a healthy reluctance to go outside your stated preferences ("what with?" "surprise me" "are you sure, any specifics?"). The markup was substantial on a small purchase, but that's irrelevant for the hourly service. On the other hand, "get me a plane ticket from X to Y on Z day" quickly snowballed into enough expense and difficulty that my friend abandoned it and booked himself.
Regarding markup, their FAQ even says the following:
> There is no markup on the purchases you make through Magic. You are charged the exact cost of the items plus the credit card processing fee. We find you the best deals that we can on every purchase, and we negotiate strongly with vendors. Often you will save more money using Magic than if you had done things yourself.
I get the sense that they wanted to be a contract personal assistant and did the one-off thing to expose people to the service. Certainly it was a bit awkward since it required spending a bunch of time getting them set up with your info.