FAQ

The following are frequently asked questions about offshore labor and our outsourcing operation. For any issues not covered below, please don't hesitate to contact us.

How secure is my credit card if I buy your services?

First of all, if you have any reservations about purchasing services by a credit card, you always have the option of instead depositing money into our Bank of America account at any Bank of America branch, or a wire transfer. We offer credit card services for convenience.

Our e-commerce is as secure as the most secure e-commerce sites on the internet. Properly implemented e-commerce is far more secure than when you hand over your credit card at a restaurant or at any other vendor where your card information ever goes onto paper.

However, on the internet, there are two kinds of e-commerce website -- secure vs. only an image of being secure. Click here for a quick & easy test of any e-commerce site.

Unlike most website businesses, we do not use a reseller of e-commerce. We do everything ourselves. We set up our own e-commerce system back in 1998. It costs more but it's more secure. Only one person, CEO Mark Prado, has access to sensitive transaction information on our U.S. server. You interact with our U.S. server, and your credit card information never leaves that U.S. server. That server is AuthorizeNet (our U.S. based authorization server, a best known and long established company). See also AuthorizeNet.com or Authorize.net.

How are you different from other offshore skilled labor operations?

Quality per unit price. We use American and other Western specialists to mentor the best talent we can find, and Western managers to perform conceptual design and management of staff. Founder Mark Prado has considerable experience in the "quality" management field, as noted in the section on our company.

Quality alone, not just price, is a good reason to use us. We are led by experienced, internationalist business people and academics. We aren't just local yokels. We have great minds to rent, and have chosen the best talent around the world.

The most worthwhile way to cut costs is to hire professionals from other economies where the U.S. dollar is worth a lot more. Offshore, that is.

Are your websites offshore?

No, only designers are offshore. For reasons of speed, the computer server with our websites should be located in the U.S., where the internet backbone is, and where most international links go.

The only exceptions are when the website is targeting people in Europe, Japan or another particular country, in which case arrangements are made for maximum speed to the targeted visitors, by finding a good quality server in the targeted country or region.

Who are your staff?

All of our staff are mature people who have worked in The Real World, most have university degrees in their home country, and all were hired by competant specialists.

Most are ambitious, and were typically working at a company which offered few future prospects and often little reward or recognition. There are a lot of places in the world like that, and the internet offers a life raft to those with initiative and skill.

What many arrogant American computer people often consider to be a low level and transient job, such as website programming and artwork, is considered a very honorable job in many less developed countries, and may involve someone with a master's degree from a local Third World university who works proudly, diligently and faithfully on the website for an American client. Also, what's considered low pay to an American is high pay to many high level Thais, Indians and Russians.

Please see the section on company information for further details.

How long have you been using offshore labor?

Since 1989. It started as programmers in Europe and Russia (the Soviet Union at the time) providing custom programming services to New Generation Computers (NGC) in Washington, D.C. This happened before the world wide web existed.

Frankly, I did it because I was frustrated by local programmers who overbilled for often careless work. I got the best quality of work out of some immigrants, who also proved to be reliable and honorable. From there, we went offshore.

However, before 1994, founder Mark Prado had always used offshore services without having travelled offshore himself. One main drawback of using offshore people was recruiting enough of them from afar. Secondly, using overseas companies instead of individuals led to problems with the purely foreign nature of the company and its staff, especially the senior staff's top-heavy control. It was clear that the operation would work more "efficiently" if a Western ex-pat could "be there" -- to set up an overseas office from scratch which focused solely on the task at hand, freshly with all the right employees and corporate culture (and without top-heavy local dinosaurs, as in many old companies), and could instantaneously manage day to day operations and mentor a large number of staff.

Mr. Prado travelled offshore in 1994, gained a lot of experience as a hired consultant himself to a variety of overseas business operations in several countries, and then started ramping up his own offshore business again in 1997.

We are now well experienced in the various operational issues involved in offshore services.

Isn't this going to put a lot of Americans and Europeans out of work?

Yes and no. Yes, offshore labor will eventually put a lot of expensive programmers and graphics artists out of work, among some other fields. No, it won't take over Western countries' economies on the ground there, nor will it even take away the jobs of adaptable and high quality programmers and artists. Indeed, the latter can capitalize on offshore labor by moving into higher roles.

We strongly believe that most people who provide a high quality service in their own country, and who do their homework in their field, will not be negatively affected. The most affected will be those who produce mediocre quality, and we have little sympathy for the latter because we've received a lot of careless service from their ilk. Competition will help consumers and businesses.

We also have little doubt that if the our positions were reversed -- if those complaining about offshore labor were over here doing it, their rantings would be the opposite.

We went to the effort to go overseas and develop offshore labor. It is not easy. In fact, to say it requires effort is an understatement. It takes years of hard work and patience before it really pays off. Few people will do this.

Most who try will not be successful. Many people have gone broke ... or worse ... trying. The world overseas is a rough place if you don't completely understand how foreign cultures, systems and places tick. (Notably, Mr. Prado speaks 4 languages well.)

We do not believe in discriminating against people due to race, nationality, religion or genetic physical appearance. If you do, that's your loss. If someone's willing to do high quality work, has developed their skills and is disciplined in morals and reasoning then we want them in our team, regardless of whether they're American, Arab, Russian, Asian, African or whatever. Good people are good people.

Yes, we get some nasty emails. We've read it all before...

If you want to benefit from offshore labor, then why don't you help us market it and then help us manage projects for your clientele, and take your cut? There's no reason you can't make money, too, by outsourcing to us and letting us manage the offshore end of the production.

What's the next great internet application?

Offshore skilled labor.

What is your long-term purpose and plan?

To get mankind and other species of life off of Earth and into self-sufficient space colonies within 20 to 30 years, before a biotechnology "accident" or weapon makes humans extinct or nanotechnology destroys humans and much more. For more information, see our PERMANENT website.

If you think September 11 or anthrax are big issues, then you ain't seen nothing yet. (And consider international security for a change. Dogmatic superpatriots or "true believers" are not welcome here.) Nothing will realistically stop private research and development into modifying viruses and other genetic R&D. A day will come in the future of most of us alive now on Earth that will make anthrax mail bombs look like just a trivial early warning.

There are two ways to dramatically reduce the cost of space development:

This also assures that it's not just a US project. It should be a multinational, by and for all mankind, with representation by many cultures and genetic races.

We have a business plan to support it -- building large space products to sell to Earth economies. Before that, we will use much of our profit and the free time of our best offshore engineers to do research and development of the supporting equipment. Before that, we will develop the best artists and websites to promote the plan and bring in the best talent around the world, and perhaps some major philanthropic investors.

I want to provide an offshore service. What do I do?

Go to our contact page to e-mail us or click the live chat below. Inquiries from potential employees around the world, marketing people, outsourcing companies and strategic partners are welcome.

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