3 ms·

Ask HN: What would you do to fix freelancer for hire sites?

7 points by dynabros 14y ago

Have you had any issues with freelance for hire sites, or the clients using them? If you could make the current solutions better, what would you do to change them?

kremdela 14y ago
As an american looking for freelance work, I find it hard to find a place to get clients that are willing to pay reasonable rates for skilled talent. On the other hand, whenever I try to hire, my compromises are usually poor communication skills or sub-par code.
- timjahn 14y ago
  I'm working on matchist (http://matchist.com/talent http://matchist.com/talent) to help American based developers find quality clients. Have you tried us yet? We're focusing on attracting the right type of client and we'd love to have your feedback along the way.
  - kremdela 14y ago
    Awesome, haven't tried it yet. I'll check it out.
- dynabros 14y ago
  How do you differentiate yourself to clients who think they could get the same code from some guy for 10x cheaper?
  - kremdela 14y ago
    It's been very tough. Unfortunately I have found that the most lucrative projects tend to be those that require lots of ongoing maintenance, or people graduating from a crappy MVP into something that needs richer features.
    - startupstella 14y ago
      the right clients understand that paying a premium for quality will save them time/money/stress in the future. disclosure: i'm tim's partner for matchist (http://matchist.com http://matchist.com) and we definitely see a difference in the motivations of clients who have outsourced with terrible results in the past.
imtu80 14y ago
Checkout http://www.taskarmy.com/ http://www.taskarmy.com/, I believe its created by a freelancer keeping freelancer in mind.
jefflinwood 14y ago
I've used freelancer for hire sites to get specialized work done, and they're not horrible from the hiring end. Here's what I would do to fix things on the freelancer side - establish a minimum price per hour/price per project. Think about "The Ladders" - a job site that established itself as only for job seekers for $100,000+ jobs. What if the market was only $75/hour and up? And both developers and clients had to be invited?
- dynabros 14y ago
  So you're talking about a premium experience. Nice concept
  - jefflinwood 14y ago
    Yes - no idea if it would actually take off, but it would be different from what's out there now.
reefoctopus 14y ago
The biggest problem is that clients on those sites want you to build them facebook in two weeks for $300. People willing to work for this type of client are your run of the mill php spaghetti coders. They tend to attract the worst of both coders and clients. I agree with jefflinwood's comment. Setting a price floor at a reasonable rate will weed out the "$300 for facebook" clients. I'm not sure, however, how you would weed out the bad coders.
- dynabros 14y ago
  Do you think you can actually convert those $300 clients into paying a reasonable hourly rate?

7 points by dynabros 14y ago

Have you had any issues with freelance for hire sites, or the clients using them? If you could make the current solutions better, what would you do to change them?

kremdela 14y ago

As an american looking for freelance work, I find it hard to find a place to get clients that are willing to pay reasonable rates for skilled talent. On the other hand, whenever I try to hire, my compromises are usually poor communication skills or sub-par code.

timjahn 14y ago
I'm working on matchist (http://matchist.com/talent http://matchist.com/talent) to help American based developers find quality clients. Have you tried us yet? We're focusing on attracting the right type of client and we'd love to have your feedback along the way.
- kremdela 14y ago
  Awesome, haven't tried it yet. I'll check it out.
dynabros 14y ago
How do you differentiate yourself to clients who think they could get the same code from some guy for 10x cheaper?
- kremdela 14y ago
  It's been very tough. Unfortunately I have found that the most lucrative projects tend to be those that require lots of ongoing maintenance, or people graduating from a crappy MVP into something that needs richer features.
  - startupstella 14y ago
    the right clients understand that paying a premium for quality will save them time/money/stress in the future. disclosure: i'm tim's partner for matchist (http://matchist.com http://matchist.com) and we definitely see a difference in the motivations of clients who have outsourced with terrible results in the past.

imtu80 14y ago

Checkout http://www.taskarmy.com/ http://www.taskarmy.com/, I believe its created by a freelancer keeping freelancer in mind.

jefflinwood 14y ago

I've used freelancer for hire sites to get specialized work done, and they're not horrible from the hiring end. Here's what I would do to fix things on the freelancer side - establish a minimum price per hour/price per project. Think about "The Ladders" - a job site that established itself as only for job seekers for $100,000+ jobs. What if the market was only $75/hour and up? And both developers and clients had to be invited?

dynabros 14y ago
So you're talking about a premium experience. Nice concept
- jefflinwood 14y ago
  Yes - no idea if it would actually take off, but it would be different from what's out there now.

reefoctopus 14y ago

The biggest problem is that clients on those sites want you to build them facebook in two weeks for $300. People willing to work for this type of client are your run of the mill php spaghetti coders. They tend to attract the worst of both coders and clients. I agree with jefflinwood's comment. Setting a price floor at a reasonable rate will weed out the "$300 for facebook" clients. I'm not sure, however, how you would weed out the bad coders.

dynabros 14y ago
Do you think you can actually convert those $300 clients into paying a reasonable hourly rate?