Building VersAssist: The Uber of Labor

Here's a stat that shaped everything: 95% of Black business owners in America are solopreneurs. Not by choice. By economics. Labor is too expensive, margins are too thin, and the jump from one person to a team feels impossible.

I built VersAssist to fix that.

The Problem

Most small business owners - especially Black entrepreneurs - hit the same wall. They have more demand than they can serve alone, but not enough margin to hire domestically. A competent full-time employee costs $40,000-$60,000 per year minimum. For a business doing $150K in revenue, that math doesn't work.

So they stay solo. They do everything themselves. They cap their own growth because the alternative is financial risk they can't absorb.

The Solution

VersAssist is an AI-trained offshore labor company. We provide teams - real people, trained on AI tools, operating at rates that make scaling accessible. Think of it the way Uber changed transportation. Before Uber, having a personal driver was a luxury. After Uber, everyone had access to a ride. VersAssist does the same thing for business labor.

The structure is simple. I own 70%, my partner Mike Olaiya owns 30%. Mike handles operations and team management from the delivery side. I handle strategy, AI training, and client acquisition through PRISM AI Consultants, which refers clients who need labor to VersAssist.

How It Works

We recruit offshore talent. We train them on AI tools - not just how to use ChatGPT, but how to operate within AI-augmented workflows. Then we deploy them to businesses that need help with operations, admin, content, outreach, and more.

The rate is $5/hour. That's not a typo. At that rate, a business owner can have a trained team member for under $900/month. Compare that to a domestic hire and the math speaks for itself.

The Bigger Vision

VersAssist isn't just a BPO company. It's an economic empowerment vehicle. When every small business owner can afford a team, the ceiling on what they can build goes up dramatically. Revenue goes up. Capacity goes up. The business becomes a real business instead of a self-employment trap.

This is connected to everything I believe about solving poverty. You don't solve it with charity. You solve it by giving people the operational leverage to build wealth. AI-trained labor at accessible rates is one of the most direct paths I've found.

We're early. The MRR is growing. The model works. And every new client proves the thesis: when you make labor accessible, businesses grow.