PROGRESS THREAD (James F) Startup #2

[Brander]

@roark - yes, that's how it currently works. Everybody is able to join in on any discussion, it's only those invited from those discussions that get to send a bid.

Apologies, did not review the workings of the site good enough, just glanced at the projects and didn't pick that up.

It's true that people are lazy, but because they are lazy at first, the projects get nowhere later. Some sort of filter would need to be employed where they can put the bids right away, but only if they go through it. What would be the closest indication that someone would finish the job to spec and in time (or at least to spec in a reasonable amount of time)? And how would you spot that indication?

 

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[HsrJames]

I've posted several jobs on odesk and elance. I know exactly what I want as far as layout and functionallity. I make a spec design in powerpoint, I look through the applicatants (which is pretty exciting), read them all. Then I'll send out my design and interview to see if they can do it.

I think the best part is looking through the resumes and portfolios. But, it is hard to hire someone based on that.

In my opinion a great feature could be a "matchmaker consultation". You or someone else could interview contractors for the job poster (for a fee), and give suggestions on who to hire , more posters who are clueless about what they need would be more satisfied.

 

[James Fake]

@911 - Thank you! Very good insight; and I will most certainly use your advice.

@Icy - Ah, got you. Thanks for the advice.. you bring up good problems related to the freelancer's side which I will have to tackle. I think for now though, my focus is going to be on the project poster's side as it seems the lifeblood of the app is based on people posting projects.

@roark - As always, thanks! Yes, a better filtering method is needed to separate out and match up for more successful projects. Pretty big need to fill in; will have to really brainstorm up some creative ways to make it happen.

@HsJames - THANK YOU! A great suggestion on the matchmaker and wonderful insight on what you are thinking from an exact user's standpoint. I totally agree with some type of better 'matchmaking' system needing to be in place.

Again, thank you all for the suggestions; it opened up my eyes to thing and confirmed others.

With that said; I will be pivoting Freelancify from it's original (and rather failing?) method of invitation of bids only, and moving to an open bidding system.

 

[nipsid]

Your forgot password doesn't work.


The email is from please-change-me-at-config-initializers-devise@example.com

When I click on the link to reset my password it takes me to the homepage. I'm still taken to the homepage when I manually enter the link, http://freelancify.com/users/password/edit?reset_password_token=WtZt3kKxWimSf6q7T523 (changed the end of the link for this post)

 

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[sk24iam]

A few things...

Can users who have posted a job ignore bids? For instance, when I've used elance, and I've had an overwhelming amount of bids, I always thought it would be nice if you could check a button next to any bids that you want to eliminate. This way you can narrown down the bids to the top few. Also, it would be helpful for a textfield allowing the user to jot down any notes about the bid or their thougts about the freelancer next to the bid so that only the user who created the project can see. This would help consolidate your research on a freelancer's past experience into once place.

A rating system for freelancers to rate how realistic a project's budget is would be useful. It would encourage users to make the budget higher if they knew their projects would be ranked higher based on how well their budget was rated.

One last thing for now... based on the detail of the category of the project, you could setup a tool that shows a user the average budget based on similar past projects. You might have to pull data from several fields to create an average that is acurate. Not sure if this tool is possible because all projects are different and require different amount of time but a range might be beneficial if it is based on subcategory and keywords or tags.

The site looks great and I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck.

 

[BeachBoy]

^^^ this information is gold.

I completely agree, especially the "rating" part, it would put a much higher value-added on the site compared to others.

 

[FastNAwesome]

Do you think by restricting freelancers from bidding only when they are invited is adding too much filter?

Yes I think it is.

Constraints a freelancer too much - I can just sign up and hope for the best - while on some sites I can be proactive and search for work
to bid on.

On the other hand, requires too much effort from employer, browsing through profiles can be tiresome, and I believe people wanting
to outsource look for the opposite - for less work.

Maybe you can leave it at employer's option if he wants to make a particular project invitation only, as that has it's uses too.

Could I somehow make the experience better? Better support? Better guides? Something?

Maybe I missed it, but I'm not sure what payment methods are offered and how that is regulated.


Best of luck, great to see it taking off after all the ups and downs

 

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[James Fake]

@dispin - thank you. Will get that fixed tonight.

@sk24iam - WOW. GREAT suggestions. A way to better sort/filter/note on bids is definitely in the works now. Also, a social way to vote on projects would be cool too. The last part is a bit tricky, but will write a note here for alter. Thanks again!!

@BeachBoy - Yes, I will vouch for your vouch, lol.

@FastNAwesome - hmm... yes, good point. I do agree, will pivot the way bidding works and will observe the flows of it to see if somehow I can add another filter on later down the road. Project posters can pay with credit card/debit card. The payments going out to freelancers are Paypal and check for now. Escrow is handled by a merchant bank account in Tennessee.

 

[James Fake]

@dispin - Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Tiger]

Congrats on the success.

Some design advice.

-Darken that gray text. It's just a little to light to read comfortably.
- Hit 99Designs for a new logo. It's obvious the font you used had been stretched vertically and looks like crap. You're hitting the next stage of your success and the logo should be well done. In Saas sites, the design a huge part of the business.
- Make the Rand quote larger and more prominent.
- Make the "Post My Project Now", "Search Workers" and"Find a project" links that you have buried in the lower right the main focus above the fold.
- Just after that, move your top categories area just below and make the categories links. Make them link to creating a new project by auto populating as much as you can to make starting a new project as easy as possible. Aside from making it easier to get people involved in the site, it will also help your SEO.
- Move the steps 1-4 down just below the fold and use a bold contrasting color scheme/design to create a sort of horizontal break between your above the fold stuff and your 1-4 steps info.
-Move your FAQ stuff below that in the last 3rd of your page into another cleanly defined color scheme/design.
-Make your footer area the last separately designed area with the typical stuff as well as benefit/solutions oriented links to other areas of the site.

Best of success to you.

 

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[theag]

hows it going james?

 

[James Fake]

@Tiger - Thank you for the suggestions.. will def consider a few of them.

An update on March 20, 2012:
I have really been slacking these past weeks right after launch. I think I was burnt out and needed a couple weeks of rest from it. Although; I am ready to jump right back into it now and do some really aggressive marketing again for a couple weeks.

While gone, I did have some marketing on auto-pilot so the site was still getting users signing up and projects, but not nearly as much if I had spent hours a day on marketing and pitching it to blogs, etc.

So far, there are over 650 freelancers signed up and over 100 projects so far posted. Only like 5 or 6 have gone into actual work in progress, and the site is making enough to pay for the hosting. This is probably due to not enough freelancers bidding on the jobs yet, and project posters not getting the amount of bidders so they can scan through and feel comfortable they found a great one. This problem should solve itself out as more and more users sign up.

I am also putting myself on the job market as between Freelancify and freelancing won't make up enough consistent income and also because I have ran down my savings completely learning Rails a few months back. The good thing is; the gamble I took to learn Rails is looking to pay off BIG time. I have been getting BLOWN up by recruiters since I have posted the resume up Sunday night. Looks like I will be able to nab a fairly good job!

So for the next two weeks; I will be:
1) Re-doing a ton of the UI and UX design stuff.
2) Re-doing the homepage a bit to make it cleaner and more info.
3) Aggressively marketing the site.
4) Then I plan to leave it on pretty much auto-pilot (will spend an hour or so answering emails and maintaining and also some marketing as possible) while I work at a job. This is the only route to go right now as income is determining my path at this point.

Thanks,
James F.

 

[Darkside]

@Tiger - Thank you for the suggestions.. will def consider a few of them.

An update on March 20, 2012:
I have really been slacking these past weeks right after launch. I think I was burnt out and needed a couple weeks of rest from it. Although; I am ready to jump right back into it now and do some really aggressive marketing again for a couple weeks.

While gone, I did have some marketing on auto-pilot so the site was still getting users signing up and projects, but not nearly as much if I had spent hours a day on marketing and pitching it to blogs, etc.

So far, there are over 650 freelancers signed up and over 100 projects so far posted. Only like 5 or 6 have gone into actual work in progress, and the site is making enough to pay for the hosting. This is probably due to not enough freelancers bidding on the jobs yet, and project posters not getting the amount of bidders so they can scan through and feel comfortable they found a great one. This problem should solve itself out as more and more users sign up.

I figured that you would have the opposite problem; not enough people posting projects. On these types of sites there's always way more freelancers than there are project posters, because many of those freelancers are from poor countries like India and China where they are desperate for work whereas most of the project posters tend to be Westerners who are too lazy to learn how to code themselves. I figured you'd be able to lure the desperate freelancers easily since they wouldn't have to compete with so many other freelancers on your site for work as they do on sites like freelancer.com

Anyways, I'm impressed by your results so far. It might not seem like much, but you're making enough to cover your hosting costs and that's important because from here on out it's all profit. Imagine how many users you'll have if you aggressively market for another year. The beginning is always the toughest part so don't quit.

 

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[Pat]

I think the problem is that a lot of the posted projects have a completely unrealistic budget.

Maybe make minimum prices for categories or at least a price guide? Seems that the project posters just don't know better.

 

[James Fake]

I'm officially over my burn out.. more updates coming soon.

@Pat - true. Will go into that more.

@Darkside - thank you for the words as always.

 

[tincho1492]

Waiting for that updates, Jason.

 

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[andviv]

Just registered... pretty cool to see your site up and running and having traffic coming in....

 

[DeletedUser2]

one of my people in my group just posted this. thought of you
and maybe there is a feature you could think about?

"Someone needs to create an aggregate Freelance site (aggrelance?) that would allow me to post one job and have it posted out to all the different freelance sites (elance, freelancer, odesk, vworker, guru, etc). All the workers' replies could be funneled back in and managed from one central work area."

would love the dashboard
Z

 

[LamboMP]

Whatever happened to this project?

 

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[theBiz]

What is going on with this site... All the effort to get it up and running and now it's just dead?

 

[Yussef]

one of my people in my group just posted this. thought of you
and maybe there is a feature you could think about?

"Someone needs to create an aggregate Freelance site (aggrelance?) that would allow me to post one job and have it posted out to all the different freelance sites (elance, freelancer, odesk, vworker, guru, etc). All the workers' replies could be funneled back in and managed from one central work area."

would love the dashboard
Z

Damn this was a good idea. Someone should pick this ball up and run with it.

 

[James Fake]

Bummer. I am moving on from Freelancify. I'm still leaving it as a live site, but no longer actively marketing it. It's had a good run, just lost passion and burned out for this venture.

It still continues to get new freelancers and new projects posted everyday and I am taking serious offers on it if someone has what it takes to pick it up and run with it.

p.s. - As stated in my new Progress Thread Startup #3 - FEND.. I am answering all questions about Freelancify here. Feel free to fire away!

 

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[tincho1492]

So bad to hear that. Your progress thread was the first I followed when I joined here. Looking forward to read about your next venture Good luck man!

 

[James Fake]

Thanks man..

 

[smmirza]

Hey James,
Interested in buying the Freelancify website from you. Can we chat over skype? PM me your username and a time when we can chat...

 

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[JasonR]

one of my people in my group just posted this. thought of you
and maybe there is a feature you could think about?

"Someone needs to create an aggregate Freelance site (aggrelance?) that would allow me to post one job and have it posted out to all the different freelance sites (elance, freelancer, odesk, vworker, guru, etc). All the workers' replies could be funneled back in and managed from one central work area."

would love the dashboard
Z

Do they have the APIs for this? Not sure if it could be down without APIs or express permission from the websites.

 

[Talisman]

Bummer. I am moving on from Freelancify. I'm still leaving it as a live site, but no longer actively marketing it. It's had a good run, just lost passion and burned out for this venture.

It still continues to get new freelancers and new projects posted everyday and I am taking serious offers on it if someone has what it takes to pick it up and run with it.

p.s. - As stated in my new Progress Thread Startup #3 - FEND.. I am answering all questions about Freelancify here. Feel free to fire away!

Just reading this again after a year or whatever, because I saw your new venture thread.

So... I have a question. Now that it's up, and you even have some interest.. You're just taking it out the back to shoot it because you can't be stuffed with it?

If it was worth months of work & iterations, surely it's worth you putting some capital into to:

a> do some marketing, pay someone else to do it if you can't be bothered, or do some PPC at least
b> pay some schmoe in Singapore/India a few peanuts to do the day-to-day stuff (if any)
c> assess its viability after at least 6 months of actual effort

I dunno, seems like a 3-feet-from-gold situation to me.

 

[James Fake]

Hey James,
Interested in buying the Freelancify website from you. Can we chat over skype? PM me your username and a time when we can chat...

I just PM'd you.

Do they have the APIs for this? Not sure if it could be down without APIs or express permission from the websites.

I don't believe they have open API's for this. However; I'm sure someone can write a script that scrapes their content.

 

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[James Fake]

I dunno, seems like a 3-feet-from-gold situation to me.

You very well may be right. That's the reason I want to sell it with someone who has passion for it. It fits all the laws of the fastlane.. but it simply just give me personal satisfaction. I guess taking a huge step back and looking at the big picture for me; "What and who do I want to be in 5 years?" "What do I want to spend years of my un-returnable life to build"? Do I want to be known for something? What do I stand for? I'm just going to be known as a startup guy? Or someone who has impacted the world with my name? Just some things that are important to me.. and reasons why I decided to change paths a bit.

 

[smmirza]

You very well may be right. That's the reason I want to sell it with someone who has passion for it. It fits all the laws of the fastlane.. but it simply just give me personal satisfaction. I guess taking a huge step back and looking at the big picture for me; "What and who do I want to be in 5 years?" "What do I want to spend years of my un-returnable life to build"? Do I want to be known for something? What do I stand for? I'm just going to be known as a startup guy? Or someone who has impacted the world with my name? Just some things that are important to me.. and reasons why I decided to change paths a bit.

Hey James,
Let me preface this by saying I respect you and feel you a true entrepreneur. However, I am curious to know whether your website was making money or not? I have a similar site but a different niche and I must say that it was hard getting quality workers in the beginning and I think that is one hurdle you faced as well. I really think you should keep working on this. Be the WHY guy. For me, I was struggling with low traffic and so I set about how to fix that. Then quality issues started cropping up and I started suspending workers. This helped a lot. The site got hit with Google updates but I switched to CL, Twitter and FB. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that IF the website is making money and you are in the black, why not work on it for another 6 months and then sell it on Flippa.com. I mean you will get a better ROI on your blood, sweat and tears. I dunno man, just hate you to start over again when this thing seemed like a great idea....
Anyway, I realized you had done the coding in RoR and so I am going to think about this a little bit. I don't know RoR and its tough to find decent coders in it.