Show HN: Get paid to have engaging conversations with old people
silverdial.org
silverdial.org
This almost seems like some kind of parody or phishing attempt or something. This does not seem reputable.
Or is the payment an incentive for someone to be a willing audience to be talked at? I think that paying people is an implicit admission that the benefit of the conversation is pretty one-sided.
Others have noted that the pay/hour is actually pretty reasonable, but unless it's a video call I can see the "volunteers" just going "mm hmm, wow, that's interesting" at every break in the conversation and not actually engaging in the conversation. The more sophisticated volunteers might even set up a soundboard to do this. I have a hard time believing that you'll get a lot of quality conversationalists to sign up.
On the other hand, it says something about our society that you have to pay the younger people to want to talk to them. Arguably it ought to be the other way around, but that's not ho our culture works.
My suggestion was meant to illustrate that the payment is a self-admitted necessary component of the conversation, and raise the question of how "engaging" such a conversation could possibly be given that.
It started during the first lockdown (I am an expat, so I am already living far away from home but when she was actually locked up at home I wanted to make an extra effort).
The way it worked best for me was to use Skype(1) so that I could share the screen with her and show pictures - initially from my own trips and vacations, later from Instagram(2) - and provide audio commentary.
1) Yes, I know, there are 4 billions alternatives: Skype was for me the best because I could configure it on a spare tablet and make it automatically answer my calls with basically no effort required on her part. She is not really good with technology. 2) I am writing this because I hope it helps other people to do the same, no matter if it is for relatives or for this company: almost by definition older people will mostly talk about their own past and this can become repetitive quite fast, while also make somehow difficult to engage for the person talking with them. For me the trick to show and comment pictures together worked very well. YMMV, of course, but I am quite proud of my "discovery".
Also, SilverDial appears to take over half the money for themselves. You pay $100 for 4 30 minute calls but SilverDial pays $12 for each call. Seems steep.
I suppose it also depends on what I am getting for the extra margin. Are these people vetted in any way? Background checks to make sure the callers aren't sleazy salespeople from World Financial Group? As people are always trying to steal the money of the elderly. What is it that my $13 dollars a call that goes to you gets me other than just finding someone who talks?
Anything about vetting and security will make me fine with paying extra.
The first would make me look around for another alternative, the second not.
If you call on every Monday except some months where there a 5 Mondays that might cause undue stress and frustration with the elder making the service seem unreliable.
How much is the cost base and double it, triple it or quadruple it is a common approach in many industries.
In reality the amount you charge should have little to do with how much it costs you.
Are they providing $100/month in value should be the question irrelevant of the cost to them.
Anything about added value the site provides, such as interviews, background checks, etc would make me want to pay the premium and make the Craigslist option seem less safe.
It might be standard for a situation where the company is charging a contract rate, but paying their staff a salary (so need to make sure they are fully billable).
It might also be a standard rate for digital products.
But for what is essentially a freelance platform, nah. People have a sense of fairness. They also have a sense of "if they are just paying someone, I'll pay 'em directly".
The form for the getting paid side doesn't seem to ask for international telephone prefix. This makes me wonder whether Germans (or Indians where $12 per hour would go far) who speak English fluently would be welcome through the website.
Does silver dial serve as a middle man for the calls, so it can record them for quality control purposes or with an automatic transcript that is screened for keywords that indicate abuse of the elders such as scams?
Imagine having that conversation: "So, mom, you're going to get a call every week or so from this new friend I found--he's very nice, and he's going to ask how your day went and listen to you. What, ma? Why don't I just call more myself? Well..."
Took a quick look at pricing, looks to be about 100/mo for a weekly call (so about $25/call).
Yet the person making the call gets paid $12. That seems like quite a markup (and is easily seen by users).
A portion of this is probably taken up by the humans doing the matching. Folks will probably tell you to better hide this cost, but maybe you could just be transparent and tell the users?
Tl:dr - you’re paying a very good and fair wage for what you’re offering and should probably have many interested candidates when recruiting.
I find the “old people” in the link title quote condescending.
I also want to plug https://www.truelinkfinancial.com/card/
I arranged a live-in helper for my parent, during their final years because it was the only possible solution.
The card cut down the obvious petty theft of cash and helped track spending by the helper.
If your parents are mostly fit, then the debit card can instead be used to create an allowance.
Lots of regrets in what I couldn’t do (like actually have them live with me) but at least there are tools to help.
Good luck with this, I wish you the best
You could provide your languages,interests, education, expectations (like blablacar: bla means you are a listener, blabla intermediate, and blablabla a talker)
Hmmm, maybe I could write something like this if it does not exist...
That's a nice profit.
Do you use a system to make the calls? Do you use your own phone? Is there some sort of admin to manage calls? What about privacy? Are calls recorded?
This landing page has so little information, I would never consider signing up for nor would I ever give a loved one's number to them.
There are ways to mitigate this. You could use twilio to route numbers into a multi way conversation that is recorded.
There's probably a feature such that the numbers stay private on both sides.
At any rate, it's kinda a weird business model, but it's been tried in parallel situations and led to successful sites.
I once worked as a beverage technician when I was younger. My heart would break when I worked retirement communities. The rich ones lived the life with activities and friends, the poor ones lived solitary existences and the despair and lonliness was palpable.
So maybe you connect people until they have found a friend. Personally, I'd charge a bit less though, as many are on fixed incomes. Also maybe consider taking less off the top?
I think of a gentleman I met once who loved being in the kitchen just to see something different and have an 'outside conversation'. He meant with someone who didn't work or live there. The workers there don't really treat the elderly like people sometimes.
Good luck with the venture!
I have great elderly neighbors, with whom we've shared many life experiences via conversation. I consider it a privilege.
But if you're willing to pay me money for it retroactively, I can DM you my Venmo account.
Are you doing anything systematic to try and improve probabilities of a good match?
(And if not, do you want help trying on some ideas?)