5 ms·

Hi there, I'm the CEO of Freelancer.com. I'd be interested to know what problem you ran into?

kawsper 13y ago
I recently recieved a lot of messages from you. http://i.imgur.com/6kpLIHl.png http://i.imgur.com/6kpLIHl.png 91 emails in the course of 13 days is not acceptable, and it just suddenly started. I figured out how to disable it, but you might want to look into it.
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  You were subscribed to new project notifications. We did fix a bug where only a fraction of new projects were being sent out to freelancers- we had a lot of complaints that we weren't notifying freelancers of all matching opportunities. We're working on both some settings to adjust how many you receive and smarter targeting.
  - 23andwalnut 13y ago
    Without having experienced the issue myself, it seems like an easy solution would be to send out a daily digest containing all new projects. Or allow users to select how often they would like to receive new project emails with options like: 1. As they are posted 2. Every x hours 3. Once per day.
    - mattbarrie 13y ago
      He was complaining about the daily digests :) We have thousands of projects per day posted. We need probably better fine grained control over the timing of these emails, I can tell you that if we send less emails we get complaints, if we send more we get complaints! We have to perhaps let the user decide the frequency.
  - qarioz 13y ago
    Actually it's very useful, it's just receiving 6 daily mail is a little bit too much. The special notification on the other hand is very useful, it should be sent more.
    - mattbarrie 13y ago
      Agree as I said about we will look at fine grained control over how many digests a user wants to receive. Some people do not browse the site at all but want INSTANT emails when a new project comes on. Some people want 1 email a day.
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  But thanks for the feedback!
braveheart1723 13y ago
I also wish the experience of using freelancer was much less spammy with a much higher focus on quality projects.
rajjalan 13y ago
Why gamification if I am only posting jobs? It might make sense to people who are bidding for projects, but it is just too many unwanted features for posting a project.
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Well you can always ignore it? There are something things you might like to earn with the credits, for example the phone number for the head of support, a chat with me over skype with a cup of tea, or a t-shirt? It's not like you have to do anything extra.
  - rajjalan 13y ago
    Well, we ignore it by using freelancer less now. I just posted thinking you were interested in feedback :)
  - ximeng 13y ago
    Also didn't see the point in the gamification, interface is already complicated enough when putting up projects that I almost gave up a couple of times. And echo the earlier comment about excess emails - getting 50emails after having a discussion on the chat system is not a sensible default. Did get a good job done tho gave up on finding rails guys and went php.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    I think the issue is that it changes the "feel" of the place and therefor the type of people likely to be attracted it. It kind of says "we are for the sort of people who will jump through hoops to get a free article of clothing"
  - lotharbot 13y ago
    I wish I could ignore it, but the problem is that it's something my clients have to see too, and it's very prominent. They want to hire me, I want to deliver quality software to them, but in between us is "level up to earn a free T-shirt". Perks and rewards are OK, but the prominence the XP/Badge/level system is given presents a very unprofessional image to potential clients. It's a distraction, a sideshow that's given center stage. I'd love to do enough professional-grade work on freelancer to earn a quick chat/consult with you (or even something like a free t-shirt), but I don't want the site inundating me and my clients with bullshit that doesn't add to either of our bottom lines. Our business relationship is not a game, but Freelancer surrounds it with excessive of game terminology and game mechanics, which gives off an air of "this place isn't for serious developers".
octopus 13y ago
A few problems with Freelancer from a buyer perspective: * If you post a project on something like C++, Android, iOS or web design you get about 10 generic bids in the first minute. I suspect some coders use bots to bid on certain categories. This should be strictly prohibited. * Not sure how you can stop the coders to bid so low, when a guy bids $30 for 2 - 3 days of work the quality of his work can't be that great. Maybe enforcing some minimum bid limit ? I know this is a hard problem to solve. * Another problem that seems to keep the prices and quality down: coders that take a project and repost it with a much lower price. * A buyer should be forced to describe what he needs in the project description. Generic projects like Easy work, it can be done by an expert in a few hours. Details after you bid. should also be prohibited. These kind of projects keep the prices and the quality of the work down for everyone.
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Hi Octopus Thanks for the feedback 1) Yes we are trying to crack down on the bid spam. However the marketplace is very liquid you will also almost always find that there is actually someone at the other end, so when you get 10 bids in 60 seconds if you start to chat there is a human at the other end. We get almost 1 million bids per month now. No other marketplace on the Internet comes close to liquidity (about 950k/mo now). This is great for finding people quickly and getting the right price for your project. 2) Well 5 billion people on this planet live on $8 day or less, I think you can't say just because someone is willing to work for 2-3 days for $30 they are automatically "bad". 3) Labour arbitrage is something we are looking at. It usually does not result in lower quality, quite the contrary, because the guys doing the arbitrage (flipping projects) need to retain a high reputation score or they will blow their accounts up and the business model will stop working. Right now they are acting as quality and customer service managers so they actually enhance the result for the end user. 4) Yes I absolutely agree, and we are looking into how this can be done better. Regards Matt
rickdale 13y ago
Good on your for being here and looking for suggestions. Never used your service, but I did use 99designs to design and build a site recently. And I can tell you that as soon as I got my design, I told the designer to email me and then I payed him through paypal for the design and for the website work. I was out some money to 99designs, but I was happier that random Indian dude got most of the money. I think I have an account with freelancer.com, but the site comes off as so bloated to me that you need to be a regular to really navigate through it.
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  I don't think it's that difficult to use, but I certainly welcome any feedback once you try it.
brianbreslin 13y ago
I used to be a semi-regular purchaser of small projects on vworker (rentacoder), and didn't like the transition to freelancer. On freelancer I had mixed success with the quality, and also the timeliness of deliverables. I also didn't like the method for escrow/disbursement of payments. I do wish you could more clearly label payments and structures (vworker was super ugly, but much clearer in this respect).
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Hi Brian, what do you mean specifically?
Dove 13y ago
I was a pretty regular worker on vWorker -- in the top several hundred in terms of income -- and I've been very unhappy with the transition to freelancer. The major issues I've encountered are: * Extreme difficulty communicating with clients on the site during the bidding process. If there's a way to discuss terms and details on a prospective project, I haven't found it yet. * Getting paid, in the US, is difficult, expensive, slow, and impossible to automate. (It was none of those things on vWorker). * The vibe of the site is incompatible with high quality, professional contracting. If I send clients to your site, they don't hear about cost and schedule and deliverables. They get asked to follow you on twitter so they can level up and win a free t-shirt. * No sub-accounts. I can't give an administrative assistant or subcontractor partial access to my account; it's either cut and paste or give out the master password. * The whole setup seems geared toward people with a very different business philosophy than me -- hundreds of bids per month, dozens of skills on your profile, tens of client relationships. And if I work hard, I could get more of all of those things! That actively drives me away. I have dozens of skills, but I only want to list one or two. I want to make one or two bids per month. I want to work with one client at a time. Overall, the system says to me, "This is a place for spammy contractors to take tiny jobs," not, "This is a place for serious professionals to do quality work."
- octopus 13y ago
  I'm a not a big Freelancer fan, as you can see from my other comment. However, I think Freelancer does a better job at sorting the low spam bidders than ever did vWorker. On vWorker I've seen $1 - $3 bids on certain projects.
- lotharbot 13y ago
  [context: I am Dove's husband and acted as her administrative assistant on vWorker] Really, what it comes down to from my perspective is that freelancer is not geared toward the type of freelancing we're trying to do: making a living as professionals in a first-world country. As professionals, we have reason to want to grant limited account access to a secretary, accountant, or sub-contractor. This feature existed on vWorker, but not Freelancer. As professionals, we want to be rated and visible based on delivering quality work on time and on budget and making our clients happy. On vWorker, ranking/visibility was based entirely on revenue x client rating, with a bonus "top worker" designation for never missing a deadline or having a bad rating. On Freelancer, we level up by following you on social media, get badges for logging in every day for a year, and generally get ranked according to tangential criteria. It's distracting, and appears unprofessional to clients who are being asked to "level up" and "earn badges" themselves when all they want to do is hire us. As professionals, we don't bid until we've already come to terms with the client. On vWorker, we'd regularly have dozens of messages with clients establishing the details of a project, discussing timelines, etc. and then we'd put in a bid with that full understanding. Freelancer seems geared toward submitting a large number of bids without having ever really discussed terms -- the sort of thing that might work for "transcribe a 10 minute audio clip", but not for projects measured in months and costing $x0,000 to complete. As professionals, we want to pay our $50 monthly fee and our 2% per-contract cut, use the site to connect with clients with real large-scale contracts, and get paid on a reasonable timescale. Trying to do that on freelancer is an exercise in frustration.
harrjj 13y ago
I'm another ex-vworker person. I had spent over $20k in the year before it was acquired by Freelancer and haven't done a single job since (moved to Elance). It started out with Freelancer failing to move my account. Once I went through a fairly painful process to get it migrated, I found that the tools to search for freelancers were terrible. I think they've improved a little, but to start with, you could only search by keyword and you'd get like 1000 results with no way to filter them. As of now, I'm happy with Elance and have no reason to move back.
- mattbarrie 13y ago
  Hi Harrjj, if you have any specific feedback on features or issues I'm happy to look at them. Regards Matt

I recently recieved a lot of messages from you. http://i.imgur.com/6kpLIHl.png http://i.imgur.com/6kpLIHl.png 91 emails in the course of 13 days is not acceptable, and it just suddenly started. I figured out how to disable it, but you might want to look into it.

mattbarrie 13y ago
You were subscribed to new project notifications. We did fix a bug where only a fraction of new projects were being sent out to freelancers- we had a lot of complaints that we weren't notifying freelancers of all matching opportunities. We're working on both some settings to adjust how many you receive and smarter targeting.
- 23andwalnut 13y ago
  Without having experienced the issue myself, it seems like an easy solution would be to send out a daily digest containing all new projects. Or allow users to select how often they would like to receive new project emails with options like: 1. As they are posted 2. Every x hours 3. Once per day.
  - mattbarrie 13y ago
    He was complaining about the daily digests :) We have thousands of projects per day posted. We need probably better fine grained control over the timing of these emails, I can tell you that if we send less emails we get complaints, if we send more we get complaints! We have to perhaps let the user decide the frequency.
- qarioz 13y ago
  Actually it's very useful, it's just receiving 6 daily mail is a little bit too much. The special notification on the other hand is very useful, it should be sent more.
  - mattbarrie 13y ago
    Agree as I said about we will look at fine grained control over how many digests a user wants to receive. Some people do not browse the site at all but want INSTANT emails when a new project comes on. Some people want 1 email a day.
mattbarrie 13y ago
But thanks for the feedback!

braveheart1723 13y ago

I also wish the experience of using freelancer was much less spammy with a much higher focus on quality projects.

rajjalan 13y ago

Why gamification if I am only posting jobs? It might make sense to people who are bidding for projects, but it is just too many unwanted features for posting a project.

mattbarrie 13y ago
Well you can always ignore it? There are something things you might like to earn with the credits, for example the phone number for the head of support, a chat with me over skype with a cup of tea, or a t-shirt? It's not like you have to do anything extra.
- rajjalan 13y ago
  Well, we ignore it by using freelancer less now. I just posted thinking you were interested in feedback :)
- ximeng 13y ago
  Also didn't see the point in the gamification, interface is already complicated enough when putting up projects that I almost gave up a couple of times. And echo the earlier comment about excess emails - getting 50emails after having a discussion on the chat system is not a sensible default. Did get a good job done tho gave up on finding rails guys and went php.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  I think the issue is that it changes the "feel" of the place and therefor the type of people likely to be attracted it. It kind of says "we are for the sort of people who will jump through hoops to get a free article of clothing"
- lotharbot 13y ago
  I wish I could ignore it, but the problem is that it's something my clients have to see too, and it's very prominent. They want to hire me, I want to deliver quality software to them, but in between us is "level up to earn a free T-shirt". Perks and rewards are OK, but the prominence the XP/Badge/level system is given presents a very unprofessional image to potential clients. It's a distraction, a sideshow that's given center stage. I'd love to do enough professional-grade work on freelancer to earn a quick chat/consult with you (or even something like a free t-shirt), but I don't want the site inundating me and my clients with bullshit that doesn't add to either of our bottom lines. Our business relationship is not a game, but Freelancer surrounds it with excessive of game terminology and game mechanics, which gives off an air of "this place isn't for serious developers".

octopus 13y ago

A few problems with Freelancer from a buyer perspective: * If you post a project on something like C++, Android, iOS or web design you get about 10 generic bids in the first minute. I suspect some coders use bots to bid on certain categories. This should be strictly prohibited. * Not sure how you can stop the coders to bid so low, when a guy bids $30 for 2 - 3 days of work the quality of his work can't be that great. Maybe enforcing some minimum bid limit ? I know this is a hard problem to solve. * Another problem that seems to keep the prices and quality down: coders that take a project and repost it with a much lower price. * A buyer should be forced to describe what he needs in the project description. Generic projects like Easy work, it can be done by an expert in a few hours. Details after you bid. should also be prohibited. These kind of projects keep the prices and the quality of the work down for everyone.

mattbarrie 13y ago
Hi Octopus Thanks for the feedback 1) Yes we are trying to crack down on the bid spam. However the marketplace is very liquid you will also almost always find that there is actually someone at the other end, so when you get 10 bids in 60 seconds if you start to chat there is a human at the other end. We get almost 1 million bids per month now. No other marketplace on the Internet comes close to liquidity (about 950k/mo now). This is great for finding people quickly and getting the right price for your project. 2) Well 5 billion people on this planet live on $8 day or less, I think you can't say just because someone is willing to work for 2-3 days for $30 they are automatically "bad". 3) Labour arbitrage is something we are looking at. It usually does not result in lower quality, quite the contrary, because the guys doing the arbitrage (flipping projects) need to retain a high reputation score or they will blow their accounts up and the business model will stop working. Right now they are acting as quality and customer service managers so they actually enhance the result for the end user. 4) Yes I absolutely agree, and we are looking into how this can be done better. Regards Matt

rickdale 13y ago

Good on your for being here and looking for suggestions. Never used your service, but I did use 99designs to design and build a site recently. And I can tell you that as soon as I got my design, I told the designer to email me and then I payed him through paypal for the design and for the website work. I was out some money to 99designs, but I was happier that random Indian dude got most of the money. I think I have an account with freelancer.com, but the site comes off as so bloated to me that you need to be a regular to really navigate through it.

mattbarrie 13y ago
I don't think it's that difficult to use, but I certainly welcome any feedback once you try it.

brianbreslin 13y ago

I used to be a semi-regular purchaser of small projects on vworker (rentacoder), and didn't like the transition to freelancer. On freelancer I had mixed success with the quality, and also the timeliness of deliverables. I also didn't like the method for escrow/disbursement of payments. I do wish you could more clearly label payments and structures (vworker was super ugly, but much clearer in this respect).

mattbarrie 13y ago
Hi Brian, what do you mean specifically?

Dove 13y ago

I was a pretty regular worker on vWorker -- in the top several hundred in terms of income -- and I've been very unhappy with the transition to freelancer. The major issues I've encountered are: * Extreme difficulty communicating with clients on the site during the bidding process. If there's a way to discuss terms and details on a prospective project, I haven't found it yet. * Getting paid, in the US, is difficult, expensive, slow, and impossible to automate. (It was none of those things on vWorker). * The vibe of the site is incompatible with high quality, professional contracting. If I send clients to your site, they don't hear about cost and schedule and deliverables. They get asked to follow you on twitter so they can level up and win a free t-shirt. * No sub-accounts. I can't give an administrative assistant or subcontractor partial access to my account; it's either cut and paste or give out the master password. * The whole setup seems geared toward people with a very different business philosophy than me -- hundreds of bids per month, dozens of skills on your profile, tens of client relationships. And if I work hard, I could get more of all of those things! That actively drives me away. I have dozens of skills, but I only want to list one or two. I want to make one or two bids per month. I want to work with one client at a time. Overall, the system says to me, "This is a place for spammy contractors to take tiny jobs," not, "This is a place for serious professionals to do quality work."

octopus 13y ago
I'm a not a big Freelancer fan, as you can see from my other comment. However, I think Freelancer does a better job at sorting the low spam bidders than ever did vWorker. On vWorker I've seen $1 - $3 bids on certain projects.
lotharbot 13y ago
[context: I am Dove's husband and acted as her administrative assistant on vWorker] Really, what it comes down to from my perspective is that freelancer is not geared toward the type of freelancing we're trying to do: making a living as professionals in a first-world country. As professionals, we have reason to want to grant limited account access to a secretary, accountant, or sub-contractor. This feature existed on vWorker, but not Freelancer. As professionals, we want to be rated and visible based on delivering quality work on time and on budget and making our clients happy. On vWorker, ranking/visibility was based entirely on revenue x client rating, with a bonus "top worker" designation for never missing a deadline or having a bad rating. On Freelancer, we level up by following you on social media, get badges for logging in every day for a year, and generally get ranked according to tangential criteria. It's distracting, and appears unprofessional to clients who are being asked to "level up" and "earn badges" themselves when all they want to do is hire us. As professionals, we don't bid until we've already come to terms with the client. On vWorker, we'd regularly have dozens of messages with clients establishing the details of a project, discussing timelines, etc. and then we'd put in a bid with that full understanding. Freelancer seems geared toward submitting a large number of bids without having ever really discussed terms -- the sort of thing that might work for "transcribe a 10 minute audio clip", but not for projects measured in months and costing $x0,000 to complete. As professionals, we want to pay our $50 monthly fee and our 2% per-contract cut, use the site to connect with clients with real large-scale contracts, and get paid on a reasonable timescale. Trying to do that on freelancer is an exercise in frustration.

harrjj 13y ago

I'm another ex-vworker person. I had spent over $20k in the year before it was acquired by Freelancer and haven't done a single job since (moved to Elance). It started out with Freelancer failing to move my account. Once I went through a fairly painful process to get it migrated, I found that the tools to search for freelancers were terrible. I think they've improved a little, but to start with, you could only search by keyword and you'd get like 1000 results with no way to filter them. As of now, I'm happy with Elance and have no reason to move back.

mattbarrie 13y ago
Hi Harrjj, if you have any specific feedback on features or issues I'm happy to look at them. Regards Matt