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Freelancers: any wishes? Please comment

7 points by PowerLancer 13y ago

My team and I have been working as freelancers for over 10 years now, and we have now formed a startup to create a software that will help the workflow of the freelancers. There is a little teaser video on www.powerlancer.com which can give you an idea on what we are working on. Our goal is to build a software that can help the freelancers in every aspect of their work, help them become much more productive and save them a lot of time. However we are very curious about your opinion and feedback! What are the main challenges you face as a freelancer? What do you think is holding you back the most? Is it finding new clients? Or dealing with the current ones? Not getting payed on time (or at all) after the job has been done? Or is it something else? We want to create a software that really makes the life of the freelancers easier, so any feedback is much appreciated! Thanks!

feralmoan 13y ago
If there's some way of figuring out what the hotspots are around your specialization (forums, groups, verticals etc) for the purpose of more targeted lead generation that would be awesome. The act of actually trawling for leads is pretty unsophisticated at present. Guru, Freelancer, oDesk, elance are ok but they're just meeting spots - you're not participating in anything by using those sites. I'd say doing the work and managing the pipeline is the easiest, its growth that's hard.
- PowerLancer 13y ago
  Thank you for the feedback Feralmoan!
codegeek 13y ago
I am a freelancer and I looked at the video. Not trying to be mean but there is nothing specific in the video about how you are helping freelancers. Just saying that freelancing is hard, project management, payment on time etc. are very generic. Of course, every freelancer goes through all that. There is nothing specific in the video at least for me to give you my email.
ereckers 13y ago
Keeping track of projects and income was always a problem early on. I went through many methods and finally settled on a combination of Trello and Freshbooks. Both products together give you a great visual representation of where you're at with projects and most importantly the income you're bringing in (you can work for months sometimes without realizing what you're making). Visual dashboards, easily moving tasks, easy data entry. Now, if you can make a product that could act as an automated client relations rep, that would be something.

7 points by PowerLancer 13y ago

feralmoan 13y ago

If there's some way of figuring out what the hotspots are around your specialization (forums, groups, verticals etc) for the purpose of more targeted lead generation that would be awesome. The act of actually trawling for leads is pretty unsophisticated at present. Guru, Freelancer, oDesk, elance are ok but they're just meeting spots - you're not participating in anything by using those sites. I'd say doing the work and managing the pipeline is the easiest, its growth that's hard.

PowerLancer 13y ago
Thank you for the feedback Feralmoan!

codegeek 13y ago

I am a freelancer and I looked at the video. Not trying to be mean but there is nothing specific in the video about how you are helping freelancers. Just saying that freelancing is hard, project management, payment on time etc. are very generic. Of course, every freelancer goes through all that. There is nothing specific in the video at least for me to give you my email.

ereckers 13y ago

Keeping track of projects and income was always a problem early on. I went through many methods and finally settled on a combination of Trello and Freshbooks. Both products together give you a great visual representation of where you're at with projects and most importantly the income you're bringing in (you can work for months sometimes without realizing what you're making). Visual dashboards, easily moving tasks, easy data entry. Now, if you can make a product that could act as an automated client relations rep, that would be something.