Hello Product Hunt! New Year, new goals and new resolutions. While I was examining my own patterns of productivity over the past years, I noticed one thing: it's actually pretty easy to get things done at work. It's on autopilot. I never miss a work or client deadline. Yet, I miss my own deadlines all the time. I realized I need some system of external motivation. Someone to oversee what I was doing, and in many cases, call me out on my bullshit when I was slacking off and making excuses. My first instinct was to make one of my friends do this for me. But accountability buddies have never worked for me. Friends are busy, don't have time to chase you up, and most importantly, they let you get away with things because they don't have the heart to be too hard on you. We start out with great enthusiasm, but it always peters out in a week or two when the novelty wears out. Basically I needed something more hard nosed and persistent, and not polite check ins from friends, which I manage to easily fob off. So I made this side project, Boss as a Service -- it monitors and supervises your progress towards your goals by making sure that you're completing your planned todos and tasks, much as a real life boss would. If you're falling behind, we follow up and don't leave off till you resolve it. How it works: 1. you send us your tasks/todos with a specific deadline 2. you finish the tasks and send us proof of completion (yes, really!) 3. if you don't, we will demand answers and harangue you till the unfinished tasks are resolved. Special New Years deal on Pro Procrastinator 😆 Thanks to @amrith for the inspiration and motivation to ship! And let's all do something awesome in 2018!

Congrats on shipping this product! I really like the concept and especially the landing page, it is really explained in detailed. I just have one question - How did you get Stripe working from India given they are not yet launched in the country? Can you share some info? Thanks,

If this is really real (has anyone really tried it?) I think you should definitely offer a trial account -- if only for a single task or three days or something.

Nice ! Does it work for teams ? Like a group of workers or a soccer team ?

Thanks for hunting @manasvinik, I like how this helps create accountability for people who need to get more done, please tell us more about how Boss As A Service is working so far?

Legitimately life changing. I'm sure it's not for everyone, and it seems really silly, but rather than procrastinate and say "oh I'll just finish this tomorrow" I know I'm going to have to come up with an excuse for "my boss". That excuse is often more work than just doing the task so the end result is I get more done. Been using it for about a month and it's probably been one of the most productive months of my entire life.

Pros:

really helps me get stuff done

Cons:

none

Great job!

Fun fact: Baas actually means boss in Dutch :D. I like what you are offering and might try it myself.

@manasvinik great name and a useful idea too. How do you plan to monetize it? There was a similar solution launched in 2016, make-me-work. I used that and was in touch with the founder for long time. It is shut down now but you might use the learnings.

Being accountable now is one of the hot topics. Great Product, Manasvini. :) This came out of Amrith's Cowrkr then.

Great for entrepreneurs who need some human-like motivation to cut down on that dreaded procrastination and create some accountability.

Lovely idea. Had to come here and upvote it. Not useful for me because I'm already a maniacal worker, but some others can use it for sure.

It's nice to know this service is available if I ever need a productivity boost again in the future.

Pros:

BaaS helped me realize the power of lists and bragging about my accomplishments. I developed good habits through BaaS's accountability.

Cons:

I didn't realize I would be doing all of the account management through the login modal, it was hard to find where to change my subscription

The service is down! They do not accept new signups and that's odd!

So simple yet so powerful. I think I tried working with almost a dozen accountability coaches before, but BAAS is definitely my favorite. It's cheap, it's simple and my "boss" is very nice and motivating. If you're working by yourself, adding accountability with a real human being that is not your other procrastinator friend (is it called a "brocrastinator"?) will help you get twice as much done. Plus: you have somebody to celebrate your victories with! Thank you BAAS, you helped me get a lot of things done and contributed greatly to my mental health! Now I feel like I can do anything, as long as I have my "boss" to commit to/

I've found BAAS super useful for getting back on track with my academic research after a long period of procrastinating way too much. Like another reviewer said, the idea might seem silly but it *really* helps a certain kind of person stay on track. There's something very motivating about knowing that I'm going to get (friendly and encouraging!) email reminders asking for proof I've done the tasks I allotted myself for the day. I hate unresolved emails in my inbox so that's definitely one aspect of it! I usually send in a weekly task list then send in proof of completed tasks daily. This helps set me up for the week in that I actually put thought into what I will realistically be able to get done each day of a particular working week. Writing my to-do list feels way more meaningful to me now. Try it out if you're a procrastinator who is struggling getting by with intrinsic motivation alone!