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Freelancer keeps degrading the coder experience

130 points by mmisu 12y ago

In the last few months Freelancer changed their modus operandi by trying to screw their coders in more than way: * They bumped up the price for the standard membership from about $25 to $50 without a serious reason. They simply take advantage of the fact that the coders can't retaliate/protest in any way. * They hide the buyers history (a freelancer can see the history of a buyer only after he bids and the buyer sends him a message). Given the fact that you have a limited number of bids per type of membership this is a really nasty move. * The entire site is a huge money making machine with no concern whatsoever about coder's experience. All they care about is to make more money no matter how crappy the experience is for the coders. For e.g. they ask you money for cheating their own system (if you pay $2 your bid will be better placed than a bid of a coder with a better rating/history). * They silently tolerate spam projects where buyers ask basically for free work (or they give no information about what they actually need until you place your bid). The idea is that Freelancer will get their cut no matter how a project ends (they charge both the buyer and the coder some fees). They don't actually care if a project is finished or not as long as they get their cut. * Last but not least, they offer no financial protection for both buyers/coders.

tomorgan 12y ago
OK... so go make a better Freelancer. We're uniquely gifted in that if we don't like or agree with something, we can go and do different.
- jbranchaud 12y ago
  I agree, this sounds like a huge opportunity. You obviously understand very well the pain points here, so create an experience that you would want.
- rquantz 12y ago
  Additionally, there are many alternatives to freelancer. Before you go build another one, go try out the ones that are out there and see if any of them cover these pain points.
- mflindell 12y ago
  I agree, I will personally help if it means Matt Barrie gets knocked around a little bit.
  - mmisu 12y ago
    I don't think ad hominem attacks are cool ...
- mmisu 12y ago
  There are similar (some of them better) alternatives, the problem is that once you have a good history/reputation on one of these sites you can't transfer this to another one. You start from zero.
  - serf 12y ago
    any suggestions as to which are better?
    - mmisu 12y ago
      vWorker (former Rent a Coder) was a lot better. As of today, oDesk looks better, but I don't have a lot of experience with them.
      - yen223 12y ago
        I kinda dig oDesk. I got many decent clients off it. I was shooting for small, very short term projects - the kind that can be done within a day - so YMMV. This very site's monthly freelancer thread is also worth checking out. I got a few decent leads out of it.
- mmisu 12y ago
  It is not as simple as creating a website. If you want to create a good environment for both coders and buyers you will need lawyers and a good support team. What I'm saying is that you will need to invest a lot of money in something that can be easily crushed (or bought) by the competition.
factorialboy 12y ago
Stop using it.
- mmisu 12y ago
  Your advice, while logical, has a small problem. A coder usually has a history/reputation on this kind of sites. Once you stop using it you start basically from zero. The reputation is not transferable to similar websites.
  - GFischer 12y ago
    You're right, but if Freelancer is so bad, the author should treat it as a sunk cost (which sucks), and move on. Besides, he might be able to refer new customers to his old history (I hope, I haven't used Freelancer).
  - ronaldx 12y ago
    Your reputation with this site is essentially no more than internet points. Your work, your experience, and your ability stays with you. The ultimate goal of any agency-type business is to take the maximum amount of money from their clients while doing the least possible amount of work for them. If the clients feel locked-in (as you do), that's brilliant for them, because they can abuse you in this way and they know you won't change your behaviour apart from grumbling on some forum. Although others are suggesting you use a competitor, I think you should consider whether this is a business model you want to support in the future.
    - kd0amg 12y ago
      Your reputation with this site is essentially no more than internet points. Your work, your experience, and your ability stays with you. Reputation is, by definition, how people see your work, experience, and ability.
      - hluska 12y ago
        Yes, but if your whole reputation is tied to a single site, you're doing something very wrong. Building an entire freelance business around a single site, never doing any open source work, never networking, and never doing any pro bono work for local charities is a very bad business practice.
gexla 12y ago
The first simple answer here is to use a different platform. At one time that meant you could use Odesk and Elance as well, but now they are operating under the same umbrella. There are a lot of other platforms which don't have the same recognition, look around. The second simple answer is that you don't have to use these platforms at all. Ultimately, anything which places you in a commodity / human cloud type of market is something you should avoid. If you can't avoid it now, then work hard to get away from it. Don't get too reliant on these sites. Keep trying new things to create new opportunities. Aside from that, I'm not sure how much you really need of the features that Freelancer and the alternatives add. Outside the platform, you don't get things like buyer history or financial protection. Whatever fees Freelancer can charge is probably low considering they are providing leads which could turn out to be valuable over the lifetime of your relationship with the client. You shouldn't need to rely on buyer history and filters against "spam" projects. You should be able to pick this up from the interactions you have with the client. Is the description a one paragraph mess full of misspellings? Does the description look like it was written by a professional? Does the listing really look like it has potential or are you just being overly optimistic? Are you looking in an area which is full of trash? Are there other, more niche areas which have a better ratio of high quality postings to trash? You need to be trying lots of things. You need to be spending time every day networking and marketing. There are lots of people here who have said these things far better than I could. Look through past HN posts on freelancing to pick up tips. This site is a gold mine of information. ETA: For buyer protection, it's best to get paid as you go. Get a payment up-front. Get payments weekly. Make sure that at any given time, if the client flakes out, you aren't out much money. Freelancing is a business. Like any business, there is a steep learning curve. There is a ton to learn and a lot of mistakes to be made. The effort is so large, that for many freelancers it doesn't even make sense to be doing this. Spend a substantial amount of time researching info from others so that you don't have to make as many mistakes. Even then, you are going to make a lot of mistakes and you will need to try a lot of things to find out what works for you. All the issues you mentioned here are part of that. You just have to keep banging away and trying different approaches to find something which works.
80 12y ago
Lets not limit these to coders -- plenty of designers, writers, and others in industries that are seemingly far harder to survive in than this one rely on this site (and similar) too.
- mmisu 12y ago
  True, I've seen a few writer jobs (projects) where the buyers expect to pay as low as $2 per article ... Looks worse than the coders situation were, if you have a good reputation, you can at least be paid a decent wage.
lifty 12y ago
I would give Toptal a try. It seems like they are trying to establish a solid relationship between companies and freelancers and they care about both sides. They also make sure to properly screen all applicants before they allow them on the platform, which includes a Skype interview and a not so easy programming test. *not affiliated with them in any way
- davedx 12y ago
  Toptal is US only, right?
  - gog 12y ago
    No, I know there are quote a few Croatian coders that work for them.
    - msantos 12y ago
      You stand correct. From toptal FAQ[1]: Where are your developers located? While we don’t have any geographic preference, most of our engineers are physically located in North/Central/South America and Europe. 1. http://www.toptal.com/faq#where_are_your_developers_located http://www.toptal.com/faq#where_are_your_developers_located
- brainflake 12y ago
  I would second this. One of our team members was found through toptal and he's great (works remotely from South America).
csomar 12y ago
I had a bad experience with Freelancer a few years ago. I deposited $250 for a small freelance work. As I found no interesting or potential candidates, I cancelled the project. They asked me for my ID, and other details so they can refund the money. It took months of back and forth with their support team and then they decided that they are going to hold this indefinitely as unresolved. Never got my money back. They are indeed a SCAM.
- toxican 12y ago
  Should've done a chargeback. You tried to things the right way through them first, they essentially refused by not getting it done, so you're entitled to ask your card provider to get it back for you.
  - mreiland 12y ago
    So many people are not aware of this option. I've done it 2-3 times in my life, generally because a company thinks they're going to jerk me around. One was an ACH that came from nowhere (still no idea how that happened, and the bank wasn't much help).
- mattbarrie 12y ago
  Hello csomar I would be happy to get someone look into this for you if you email me your username to matt@freelancer.com. Did you supply your ID? Regards Matt
zeet2020 12y ago
freelancer are ruling the domain, because they had early days of advantage, i think all the freelancers should dump that moronic sites and move on to something betters. odesk or elance or some other.
kf5jak 12y ago
Not to mention the constant flow of emails they send you everyday. I had to add a rule just to keep them from taking over my inbox! Some may consider that spam!
dageshi 12y ago
Just my 2cents, but I suspect the reason they front load so many charges is that a lot of people both employers/freelancers use freelancer for the initial connection and then move to paypal or similar for ongoing work. Freelancer lets you establish trust between parties so to speak and then after that there isn't that much of an incentive to carry on using it if you're dealing with the same person.
- mmisu 12y ago
  Actually, most buyers are not interested to pay you directly (Paypal or not) because they feel safer on Freelancer. Also, when a buyer asks you to go on Skype to discuss his project most of the time he will try to scam you into giving your work without being paid.
  - dageshi 12y ago
    I talk as someone who's been there and done it. Perhaps I'm just picky with who I work for, but typically I do the initial job and then move to paypal, I've not had anyone not pay me yet for my work.
- re1ser 12y ago
  This is exactly what I do/did. Making initial contact over Freelancer, payments over wire/skrill. I look only for crème de la crème clients (as funny as it sounds over those sites) and it is maybe one out of 100 hit. I have several recurring clients which i charge $50/hour and recently bumped price to $100/hour. For 3rd world country where I live, thats surreal money. patio has very good point, and I'm looking to get off the FL bandwagon as soon as possible and switch to more prosperous/lucrative opportunities.
Spoom 12y ago
Check http://www.guru.com/ http://www.guru.com/ , they take a percentage (10% for free, 5% with a membership), they show full feedback and payout histories, have a decent escrow system, and they only take a cut when you get paid.
- notastartup 12y ago
  equally BAD as freelancer.com and any other such sites. The inherent flaw is two folds: newphew-makes-websites crowd and $1-equals-$100--in-my-country. The escrow system doesn't protect the coder at all, it's meant to protect the person paying the commission. In order to apply to more projects you have to buy premium membership! You have to pay to work for peanuts!
  - Spoom 12y ago
    I disagree. There are a lot of projects on there that have unrealistic expectations, but one tends to ignore those projects. It's a side effect of allowing employers to post for free. There certainly are projects that have employers who are willing to pay a reasonable amount for a quality project; they're unfortunately not the majority, so a lot of a freelancer's time goes into picking and choosing where to bid. Such is life. The escrow system has protected me more than once. It benefits both sides of the equation. I even got help from them (on a one-time basis) when an employer went radio silent after I submitted a non-escrow invoice. By the way, if it takes you more than the 10 free bids to land a single project, you may not be putting enough effort into your proposals, or you may be bidding on toxic projects.
patio11 12y ago
Freelancer does much, much worse things for your business by dint of using Freelancer than any of the problems you have written about above. You're tolerating a 50%+++ discount to your easily achievable potential rate every day. Next to that, $25 is nothing. You're optimizing your business to churn out $X00 projects for clients who are, out of the universe of consulting clients, pretty bad. Your projects are, structurally, not going to leave you with any impressive accomplishments which you could take to other potential clients to justify your newer, higher rates. You're overwhelmingly going to be stuck doing the most boring work possible with your skill set. You're tolerating a higher than average amount of "patholgoical customers" in your client pool -- people who have no business managing a software development project, with unreasonable expectations, poor managerial skills, and the ability to stiff you for virtually any reason. You should start prospecting for clients yourself. You'll have a minor hit in billing efficiency while learning how to do this, but then be able to start selling days/weeks at a time of availability at actual professional rates rather than competing with people charging $10 to $20 an hour. Turn some of those clients into referrals and some into recurring engagements / retainers / etc, and your business will be much, much more stable, more lucrative, and less stressful.
- true_religion 12y ago
  Where are you supposed to find clients if you're just starting out, and have no reputation?
  - jcmurrayii 12y ago
    There are many many many places to find clients. patio11 talks about it some in his writings/podcasts/etc. Brennan Dunn talks about it heavily in his Consultancy Masterclass. But here is a tidbit for free. Join your local chamber of commerce. Set up a small seminar on a topic closely related to what you do. Invite local business owners to it (do it for free if you can, or charge a small amount..depends on how well established you are). GIVE THEM ALL THE INFORMATION THEY WOULD NEED TO DO WHATEVER IT IS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. Pass out your email address, and let business owners contact you. You will have stablished your knowledge and authority, and even though you gave them a 4 hour speech on how to do internet marketing (or whatever), they wont have the time or comfort level to do it themselves...but now they will know one person who can. Just one way to get started.
stuaxo 12y ago
This needs disrupting, in the way that StackOverflow disrupted expertsexchange.
notastartup 12y ago
freelancer essentially caters to people who say "my nephew makes websites for free, why can't you?" freelancer is full of people who can afford to work for far less than what is considered minimum wage in North America and Western Europe. freelancer cares only about people who give them projects so they can take a cut. charging people to work was not enough. it's time someone came up with a new freelance site. - make it only accessible in North America and Western Europe. (the commodity prices work in other parts of hte world but not where the basic living costs are far higher) - Guaranteed minimum hourly wage. - rigorously filter projects being posted (no more build me an Android app for $5, "my newphew can do it bro why not you?") - No bidding or fixed priced contracts. Hourly rate projects only.
- homhomhom 12y ago
  >make it only accessible in North America and Western Europe What for? Sure I understand that it is good for coders in North America and Western Europe because it protects them from the competition, but why should the consumers care? Although there is a negative stereotype about South Asian coders, I don't see a reason why a coder from outside of the developed word should be inherently low-skilled. My impression is that the main body of coders from South America and Eastern Europe, at least those who can speak English, are just as good as the main body of North American or Western European coders. Then there are a lot of really good people from South Asia, it's unfair and senseless to exclude them from this market. I am pretty sure any sane person would have problems with this kind of racial profiling even if there was no other way to establish whether or not given person is fit for the industry, which is not even the case. Well, exclude regional profiling and basically you have invented toptal.
sunl 12y ago
Exactly great! Labour service or intellectual service inherently can not be bid, it will lead the price to much lower than the value, finally the market is fulfilled with poor service. Even if you as a coder really want to provide good services, but the market will hit you to the reality. So, it definitely is a very bad business model, nobody can get value added from the market.
GrinningFool 12y ago
The easiest way to render these problems irrelevant to you is to not support the product, either for providing work or buying it. Freelancer and sites like it are is designed to provide the lowest common denominator in skills at the lowest possible price. It's a rat-race to feed on one's own body to prevent starving to death.
samaybhavsar 12y ago
How about creating a system which is fair for both clients as well as freelancers? May be one of us here can come up with a website which is better then freelancer and other such alternatives. Few things which I am not happy with these kind of sites are they are way too complex. When I joined freelancer (formerly know as getafreelancer) it was very simple to use and had only reviews and ratings. Things were simple yet worked well.
nicholassmith 12y ago
No doubt Freelancer is pretty sucky, but: "The entire site is a huge money making machine", that's kind of the point. It's there to make money for Freelancer.
speedinglunatic 12y ago
You can try out the software development side of TopCoder [1] which can be thought of as competitive freelancing. [1] http://www.topcoder.com/ http://www.topcoder.com/
mattbarrie 12y ago
Hello mmisu Freelancer CEO here. I thought I'd address some of the issues you brought up. We did increase the membership plan to $50/mo from $29/mo simply because the volume of projects have skyrocketed and as a result the volume of jobs performed by standard members had likewise increased. The $50/mo standard membership give a 50% discount on commissions to 5% from 10%, so there is tremendous value there. We have lots of users earning six figures (up to almost $1m per annum), so these memberships are quite reasonably priced for the benefits. We removed the buyers name but not the feedback. We did that after an overwhelming number of requests from employers to take it off. The problem has been that freelancers have been spamming and harassing employers by guessing their contact details (e.g. trying similar skype names). Of course we care about the coder's experience and we actively solicit ways to improve the site from our users. Your comment of "if you pay $2 your bid will be better placed than a bid of a coder with a better rating/history" is exactly how Google and Facebook works in terms of a small number of paid listings above organic results. We order freelancers from the best to the worst feedback in the organic results in the bid list. We have three slots available for paid sponsored bids above this. This gives people an opportunity who may be new but really want to stand out in the bid list a chance to break in to the market. We think this is a very fair way of doing things. We don't tolerate spam projects for free work, how would that make sense? Our primary business model is to charge a commission for introductions- after both parties have talked, discussed the project details, pricing and a prepayment (milestone payment) has been made, not before. We do offer financing protection for buyers and sellers through our milestone payment system, dispute resolution and arbitration systems. Your comment that we offer "no financial protection" is incorrect. Regards Matt
mattbarrie 12y ago
Hello mmisu Freelancer CEO here. I thought I'd address some of the issues you brought up. We did increase the membership plan to $50/mo from $29/mo simply because the volume of projects have skyrocketed and as a result the volume of jobs performed by standard members had likewise increased. The $50/mo standard membership give a 50% discount on commissions to 5% from 10%, so there is tremendous value there. We have lots of users earning six figures (up to almost $1m per annum), so these memberships are quite reasonably priced for the benefits. We removed the buyers name but not the feedback. We did that after an overwhelming number of requests from employers to take it off. The problem has been that freelancers have been spamming and harassing employers by guessing their contact details (e.g. trying similar skype names). Of course we care about the coder's experience and we actively solicit ways to improve the site from our users. Your comment of "if you pay $2 your bid will be better placed than a bid of a coder with a better rating/history" is exactly how Google and Facebook works in terms of a small number of paid listings above organic results. We order freelancers from the best to the worst feedback in the organic results in the bid list. We have three slots available for paid sponsored bids above this. This gives people an opportunity who may be new but really want to stand out in the bid list a chance to break in to the market. We think this is a very fair way of doing things. We don't tolerate spam projects for free work, how would that make sense? Our primary business model is to charge a commission for introductions- after both parties have talked, discussed the project details, pricing and a prepayment (milestone payment) has been made, not before. We do offer financing protection for buyers and sellers through our milestone payment system, dispute resolution and arbitration systems. Your comment that we offer "no financial protection" is incorrect. Regards Matt

130 points by mmisu 12y ago

tomorgan 12y ago

OK... so go make a better Freelancer. We're uniquely gifted in that if we don't like or agree with something, we can go and do different.

jbranchaud 12y ago
I agree, this sounds like a huge opportunity. You obviously understand very well the pain points here, so create an experience that you would want.
rquantz 12y ago
Additionally, there are many alternatives to freelancer. Before you go build another one, go try out the ones that are out there and see if any of them cover these pain points.
mflindell 12y ago
I agree, I will personally help if it means Matt Barrie gets knocked around a little bit.
- mmisu 12y ago
  I don't think ad hominem attacks are cool ...
mmisu 12y ago
There are similar (some of them better) alternatives, the problem is that once you have a good history/reputation on one of these sites you can't transfer this to another one. You start from zero.
- serf 12y ago
  any suggestions as to which are better?
  - mmisu 12y ago
    vWorker (former Rent a Coder) was a lot better. As of today, oDesk looks better, but I don't have a lot of experience with them.
    - yen223 12y ago
      I kinda dig oDesk. I got many decent clients off it. I was shooting for small, very short term projects - the kind that can be done within a day - so YMMV. This very site's monthly freelancer thread is also worth checking out. I got a few decent leads out of it.
mmisu 12y ago
It is not as simple as creating a website. If you want to create a good environment for both coders and buyers you will need lawyers and a good support team. What I'm saying is that you will need to invest a lot of money in something that can be easily crushed (or bought) by the competition.

factorialboy 12y ago

Stop using it.

mmisu 12y ago
Your advice, while logical, has a small problem. A coder usually has a history/reputation on this kind of sites. Once you stop using it you start basically from zero. The reputation is not transferable to similar websites.
- GFischer 12y ago
  You're right, but if Freelancer is so bad, the author should treat it as a sunk cost (which sucks), and move on. Besides, he might be able to refer new customers to his old history (I hope, I haven't used Freelancer).
- ronaldx 12y ago
  Your reputation with this site is essentially no more than internet points. Your work, your experience, and your ability stays with you. The ultimate goal of any agency-type business is to take the maximum amount of money from their clients while doing the least possible amount of work for them. If the clients feel locked-in (as you do), that's brilliant for them, because they can abuse you in this way and they know you won't change your behaviour apart from grumbling on some forum. Although others are suggesting you use a competitor, I think you should consider whether this is a business model you want to support in the future.
  - kd0amg 12y ago
    Your reputation with this site is essentially no more than internet points. Your work, your experience, and your ability stays with you. Reputation is, by definition, how people see your work, experience, and ability.
    - hluska 12y ago
      Yes, but if your whole reputation is tied to a single site, you're doing something very wrong. Building an entire freelance business around a single site, never doing any open source work, never networking, and never doing any pro bono work for local charities is a very bad business practice.

gexla 12y ago

The first simple answer here is to use a different platform. At one time that meant you could use Odesk and Elance as well, but now they are operating under the same umbrella. There are a lot of other platforms which don't have the same recognition, look around. The second simple answer is that you don't have to use these platforms at all. Ultimately, anything which places you in a commodity / human cloud type of market is something you should avoid. If you can't avoid it now, then work hard to get away from it. Don't get too reliant on these sites. Keep trying new things to create new opportunities. Aside from that, I'm not sure how much you really need of the features that Freelancer and the alternatives add. Outside the platform, you don't get things like buyer history or financial protection. Whatever fees Freelancer can charge is probably low considering they are providing leads which could turn out to be valuable over the lifetime of your relationship with the client. You shouldn't need to rely on buyer history and filters against "spam" projects. You should be able to pick this up from the interactions you have with the client. Is the description a one paragraph mess full of misspellings? Does the description look like it was written by a professional? Does the listing really look like it has potential or are you just being overly optimistic? Are you looking in an area which is full of trash? Are there other, more niche areas which have a better ratio of high quality postings to trash? You need to be trying lots of things. You need to be spending time every day networking and marketing. There are lots of people here who have said these things far better than I could. Look through past HN posts on freelancing to pick up tips. This site is a gold mine of information. ETA: For buyer protection, it's best to get paid as you go. Get a payment up-front. Get payments weekly. Make sure that at any given time, if the client flakes out, you aren't out much money. Freelancing is a business. Like any business, there is a steep learning curve. There is a ton to learn and a lot of mistakes to be made. The effort is so large, that for many freelancers it doesn't even make sense to be doing this. Spend a substantial amount of time researching info from others so that you don't have to make as many mistakes. Even then, you are going to make a lot of mistakes and you will need to try a lot of things to find out what works for you. All the issues you mentioned here are part of that. You just have to keep banging away and trying different approaches to find something which works.

80 12y ago

Lets not limit these to coders -- plenty of designers, writers, and others in industries that are seemingly far harder to survive in than this one rely on this site (and similar) too.

mmisu 12y ago
True, I've seen a few writer jobs (projects) where the buyers expect to pay as low as $2 per article ... Looks worse than the coders situation were, if you have a good reputation, you can at least be paid a decent wage.

lifty 12y ago

I would give Toptal a try. It seems like they are trying to establish a solid relationship between companies and freelancers and they care about both sides. They also make sure to properly screen all applicants before they allow them on the platform, which includes a Skype interview and a not so easy programming test. *not affiliated with them in any way

davedx 12y ago
Toptal is US only, right?
- gog 12y ago
  No, I know there are quote a few Croatian coders that work for them.
  - msantos 12y ago
    You stand correct. From toptal FAQ[1]: Where are your developers located? While we don’t have any geographic preference, most of our engineers are physically located in North/Central/South America and Europe. 1. http://www.toptal.com/faq#where_are_your_developers_located http://www.toptal.com/faq#where_are_your_developers_located
brainflake 12y ago
I would second this. One of our team members was found through toptal and he's great (works remotely from South America).

csomar 12y ago

I had a bad experience with Freelancer a few years ago. I deposited $250 for a small freelance work. As I found no interesting or potential candidates, I cancelled the project. They asked me for my ID, and other details so they can refund the money. It took months of back and forth with their support team and then they decided that they are going to hold this indefinitely as unresolved. Never got my money back. They are indeed a SCAM.

toxican 12y ago
Should've done a chargeback. You tried to things the right way through them first, they essentially refused by not getting it done, so you're entitled to ask your card provider to get it back for you.
- mreiland 12y ago
  So many people are not aware of this option. I've done it 2-3 times in my life, generally because a company thinks they're going to jerk me around. One was an ACH that came from nowhere (still no idea how that happened, and the bank wasn't much help).
mattbarrie 12y ago
Hello csomar I would be happy to get someone look into this for you if you email me your username to matt@freelancer.com. Did you supply your ID? Regards Matt

zeet2020 12y ago

freelancer are ruling the domain, because they had early days of advantage, i think all the freelancers should dump that moronic sites and move on to something betters. odesk or elance or some other.

kf5jak 12y ago

Not to mention the constant flow of emails they send you everyday. I had to add a rule just to keep them from taking over my inbox! Some may consider that spam!

dageshi 12y ago

Just my 2cents, but I suspect the reason they front load so many charges is that a lot of people both employers/freelancers use freelancer for the initial connection and then move to paypal or similar for ongoing work. Freelancer lets you establish trust between parties so to speak and then after that there isn't that much of an incentive to carry on using it if you're dealing with the same person.

mmisu 12y ago
Actually, most buyers are not interested to pay you directly (Paypal or not) because they feel safer on Freelancer. Also, when a buyer asks you to go on Skype to discuss his project most of the time he will try to scam you into giving your work without being paid.
- dageshi 12y ago
  I talk as someone who's been there and done it. Perhaps I'm just picky with who I work for, but typically I do the initial job and then move to paypal, I've not had anyone not pay me yet for my work.
re1ser 12y ago
This is exactly what I do/did. Making initial contact over Freelancer, payments over wire/skrill. I look only for crème de la crème clients (as funny as it sounds over those sites) and it is maybe one out of 100 hit. I have several recurring clients which i charge $50/hour and recently bumped price to $100/hour. For 3rd world country where I live, thats surreal money. patio has very good point, and I'm looking to get off the FL bandwagon as soon as possible and switch to more prosperous/lucrative opportunities.

Spoom 12y ago

Check http://www.guru.com/ http://www.guru.com/ , they take a percentage (10% for free, 5% with a membership), they show full feedback and payout histories, have a decent escrow system, and they only take a cut when you get paid.

notastartup 12y ago
equally BAD as freelancer.com and any other such sites. The inherent flaw is two folds: newphew-makes-websites crowd and $1-equals-$100--in-my-country. The escrow system doesn't protect the coder at all, it's meant to protect the person paying the commission. In order to apply to more projects you have to buy premium membership! You have to pay to work for peanuts!
- Spoom 12y ago
  I disagree. There are a lot of projects on there that have unrealistic expectations, but one tends to ignore those projects. It's a side effect of allowing employers to post for free. There certainly are projects that have employers who are willing to pay a reasonable amount for a quality project; they're unfortunately not the majority, so a lot of a freelancer's time goes into picking and choosing where to bid. Such is life. The escrow system has protected me more than once. It benefits both sides of the equation. I even got help from them (on a one-time basis) when an employer went radio silent after I submitted a non-escrow invoice. By the way, if it takes you more than the 10 free bids to land a single project, you may not be putting enough effort into your proposals, or you may be bidding on toxic projects.

patio11 12y ago

Freelancer does much, much worse things for your business by dint of using Freelancer than any of the problems you have written about above. You're tolerating a 50%+++ discount to your easily achievable potential rate every day. Next to that, $25 is nothing. You're optimizing your business to churn out $X00 projects for clients who are, out of the universe of consulting clients, pretty bad. Your projects are, structurally, not going to leave you with any impressive accomplishments which you could take to other potential clients to justify your newer, higher rates. You're overwhelmingly going to be stuck doing the most boring work possible with your skill set. You're tolerating a higher than average amount of "patholgoical customers" in your client pool -- people who have no business managing a software development project, with unreasonable expectations, poor managerial skills, and the ability to stiff you for virtually any reason. You should start prospecting for clients yourself. You'll have a minor hit in billing efficiency while learning how to do this, but then be able to start selling days/weeks at a time of availability at actual professional rates rather than competing with people charging $10 to $20 an hour. Turn some of those clients into referrals and some into recurring engagements / retainers / etc, and your business will be much, much more stable, more lucrative, and less stressful.

true_religion 12y ago
Where are you supposed to find clients if you're just starting out, and have no reputation?
- jcmurrayii 12y ago
  There are many many many places to find clients. patio11 talks about it some in his writings/podcasts/etc. Brennan Dunn talks about it heavily in his Consultancy Masterclass. But here is a tidbit for free. Join your local chamber of commerce. Set up a small seminar on a topic closely related to what you do. Invite local business owners to it (do it for free if you can, or charge a small amount..depends on how well established you are). GIVE THEM ALL THE INFORMATION THEY WOULD NEED TO DO WHATEVER IT IS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. Pass out your email address, and let business owners contact you. You will have stablished your knowledge and authority, and even though you gave them a 4 hour speech on how to do internet marketing (or whatever), they wont have the time or comfort level to do it themselves...but now they will know one person who can. Just one way to get started.

stuaxo 12y ago

This needs disrupting, in the way that StackOverflow disrupted expertsexchange.

notastartup 12y ago

freelancer essentially caters to people who say "my nephew makes websites for free, why can't you?" freelancer is full of people who can afford to work for far less than what is considered minimum wage in North America and Western Europe. freelancer cares only about people who give them projects so they can take a cut. charging people to work was not enough. it's time someone came up with a new freelance site. - make it only accessible in North America and Western Europe. (the commodity prices work in other parts of hte world but not where the basic living costs are far higher) - Guaranteed minimum hourly wage. - rigorously filter projects being posted (no more build me an Android app for $5, "my newphew can do it bro why not you?") - No bidding or fixed priced contracts. Hourly rate projects only.

homhomhom 12y ago
>make it only accessible in North America and Western Europe What for? Sure I understand that it is good for coders in North America and Western Europe because it protects them from the competition, but why should the consumers care? Although there is a negative stereotype about South Asian coders, I don't see a reason why a coder from outside of the developed word should be inherently low-skilled. My impression is that the main body of coders from South America and Eastern Europe, at least those who can speak English, are just as good as the main body of North American or Western European coders. Then there are a lot of really good people from South Asia, it's unfair and senseless to exclude them from this market. I am pretty sure any sane person would have problems with this kind of racial profiling even if there was no other way to establish whether or not given person is fit for the industry, which is not even the case. Well, exclude regional profiling and basically you have invented toptal.

sunl 12y ago

Exactly great! Labour service or intellectual service inherently can not be bid, it will lead the price to much lower than the value, finally the market is fulfilled with poor service. Even if you as a coder really want to provide good services, but the market will hit you to the reality. So, it definitely is a very bad business model, nobody can get value added from the market.

GrinningFool 12y ago

The easiest way to render these problems irrelevant to you is to not support the product, either for providing work or buying it. Freelancer and sites like it are is designed to provide the lowest common denominator in skills at the lowest possible price. It's a rat-race to feed on one's own body to prevent starving to death.

samaybhavsar 12y ago

How about creating a system which is fair for both clients as well as freelancers? May be one of us here can come up with a website which is better then freelancer and other such alternatives. Few things which I am not happy with these kind of sites are they are way too complex. When I joined freelancer (formerly know as getafreelancer) it was very simple to use and had only reviews and ratings. Things were simple yet worked well.

nicholassmith 12y ago

No doubt Freelancer is pretty sucky, but: "The entire site is a huge money making machine", that's kind of the point. It's there to make money for Freelancer.

speedinglunatic 12y ago

You can try out the software development side of TopCoder [1] which can be thought of as competitive freelancing. [1] http://www.topcoder.com/ http://www.topcoder.com/

mattbarrie 12y ago

Hello mmisu Freelancer CEO here. I thought I'd address some of the issues you brought up. We did increase the membership plan to $50/mo from $29/mo simply because the volume of projects have skyrocketed and as a result the volume of jobs performed by standard members had likewise increased. The $50/mo standard membership give a 50% discount on commissions to 5% from 10%, so there is tremendous value there. We have lots of users earning six figures (up to almost $1m per annum), so these memberships are quite reasonably priced for the benefits. We removed the buyers name but not the feedback. We did that after an overwhelming number of requests from employers to take it off. The problem has been that freelancers have been spamming and harassing employers by guessing their contact details (e.g. trying similar skype names). Of course we care about the coder's experience and we actively solicit ways to improve the site from our users. Your comment of "if you pay $2 your bid will be better placed than a bid of a coder with a better rating/history" is exactly how Google and Facebook works in terms of a small number of paid listings above organic results. We order freelancers from the best to the worst feedback in the organic results in the bid list. We have three slots available for paid sponsored bids above this. This gives people an opportunity who may be new but really want to stand out in the bid list a chance to break in to the market. We think this is a very fair way of doing things. We don't tolerate spam projects for free work, how would that make sense? Our primary business model is to charge a commission for introductions- after both parties have talked, discussed the project details, pricing and a prepayment (milestone payment) has been made, not before. We do offer financing protection for buyers and sellers through our milestone payment system, dispute resolution and arbitration systems. Your comment that we offer "no financial protection" is incorrect. Regards Matt

mattbarrie 12y ago