Quick, Get Me a Desk!

By Joel Stein

You've got that $5 million in venture capital. But where do you get health insurance for employees? Where do you get a copier for the office? Heck, where do you get an office?

From Linda Kellogg, if you're lucky. Kellogg is no VC, but in some ways she's just as indispensable. Working as the director of human resources at Venture Law Group, she was constantly being tapped for advice by 28-year-old wonder-boy CEOs. "Here's this very bright Harvard M.B.A., who just got $12 million, asking me where to get phones," she recalls. Hello, business plan.

In 1996 she founded Start-Up Resources, and has since helped 45 companies get up and running--15 in the past two months alone. Although she charges $110 an hour, she still turns down six or seven jobs a week.

"It was probably harder to get her than to get our VC," says Kris Hagerman, the CEO of Affinia. "I bought her lunch and pitched her for an hour and a half." Kellogg waived her fee and, VC-like, took equity in lieu of cash.

To outfit her clients, Kellogg scours the papers for news of company relocations and closings, so she can pick up used desks and chairs. She furnished the 25-person Affinia office for a bit more than $1,000. The whiteboards were so fresh from a failed start-up they still had the old company's competitive analysis on it. The competitors apparently won.

Anne Ferguson, a legal secretary, the kind who wears her glasses on a chain around her neck, got into the virtual-assistant business after taking an online course from AssistU.com She set up Katmango with health insurance, a bookkeeper and office equipment--some free, all used. Right now, she's a bargain at $35 an hour.

When young entrepreneurs have their phones working, they can call Terri Spears, who'll hire someone to answer them. A 31-year-old former human-resources director for a San Francisco bank, she founded AskHR.com 18 months ago. She and her five employees handle only midsize e-commerce companies. She provides a bureaucracy that will keep their free spirits happy but out of litigation. "A lot of them are very naive when we meet with them," she says. "I tell them, 'You're going to need workers' compensation.'" Then she explains to them what that is.

Virtual assistants are offered full-time jobs from all their clients. No one is interested. "I just tell them, 'You can't afford me,'" explains Kellogg.

--J.S.