PROGRESS THREAD (James F) Startup #2

[Pat]

I am developing software here at work and it's true that it's never, NEVER as easy as it sounds.

when you start polishing the little bugs, it can take 5 times more time that the rest of the project took... pareto's law.. 80% of the effort for the last 20% of the results.

Also, it's impossible to have all the specs written in advance, you will always fond specs that were not thought of before.

Good points.

Maybe there is a better way?

Maybe have proper project managers and testers as well as just coders. I think translation businesses at least have a translator and an editor.

A freelance site with proper quality control.

 

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[BeachBoy]

What is working for me is that I have hired a coder "only", I do the logic and the database. He creates the interface.

There's no way he could've created the database and logic correctly from the start, just by giving him all the features and specs I wanted. And he would def. agree on that. No one know better than myself how it needs to work to be successful (it's a interface to gather production data from the shop floor, barcode based)

I spend about 4-6h per week with him, the rest he works by himself.

I'm not sure how it could've been done remotely (i.e. with a freelancer), but I think nailing a method to work efficiently and remotely might make the freelance stuff much better. Maybe a way that the manager can see daily the coder's work done, instead of just submitting milestones?

 

[James Fake]

I totally agree with everyone's point. And I came to another realization when I was hanging out with a friend. They said the 'glue' that's often missing in freelance jobs is a project manager. They rely on the user to be a project manager who often times has 1) no idea about the technical side of things and 2) have no idea how to manage a web project.

Great points. Will have to hit the drawing board once this baby is launched.

 

[James Fake]

January 19th -

Hey guys... getting super close to launch. Tiding things up a bit on making sure the site works, etc. and tweak some small design stuff.

Take a look at the new domain it's on! and the splash landing page.. :smug2:
Freelance Web Designer and Web Developers for Hire at Freelancify.com

 

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[Brander]

I liked development but dreaded the time when the code would be put to the test by idiots

And this is the main problem with developers, they think they know more than whoever hired them, most of the time they are extremely uncreative and/or stuck in their ways to see that the project exists because the customer has to have things work in a certain way. I agree that a lot of customers do not know what they want, but a few of us do and we spot excuses and BS from a mile away.

If I have to test every little thing myself and the deliverables are complete useless and filled with bugs, I know that the developer doesn't care if it works or not, just that he gets paid. If I have to micro manage them and test the code for them before it's really done, I'd rather do the whole thing myself in less time it takes me babysitting a developer.

 

[tincho1492]

Love the "We're preparing to launch in 7 dog days! that's 1 day in human.."

It's me or I see the logo a little stretched?

Great progress, James!

 

[James Fake]

Hey guys..

I LAUNCHED!!! well, actually yesterday but I been so darn busy.

I am currently #2 on Hacker News with this article: I Launched My Startup Yesterday, This Is How The Hectic Day Went - Wow. Never thought that would happen. :icon_super:

 

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[Bond]

Congrats for launching, again :eusa_clap:

 

[BeachBoy]

your whole story is very inspiring, keep it up!

not many people here started .. and continued.. to document their adventure

 

[theag]

congrats! site looks greats and your blog post is a great read! will create a profile now and definitely try it out in the future as soon as I got some work to give away. keep it up! speed++

 

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[911Carrera]

Congrats. Looks you're already getting many projects listed. Sick..

 

[James Fake]

Holy smokes guys.. that Hacker News thing skyrocketed things.. Just now being able to sit down and catch up. I'll prob report more later.. but summary is 15,000 unique people visited that blog. and 7,200 unique visits to Freelancify. A bit over 200 signed up freelancer accounts and 11 projects posted.

I feel so blessed!! Definitely thanking the Man upstairs today! :Angel_anim: Now, more hard work to keep things going..

Rand Fiskin gave me a shoutout tweet to Freelancify! That was super cool!

 

[James Fake]

Just picked up the .net and .org for Freelancify. And also the most obvious mispelling Freelancefy.com (shoutouts to roark for that suggestion)

 

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[James Fake]

@bond @beachboy @theag @911 THANK YOU! :smx6:

 

[BeachBoy]

woudl second the idea of thumbs up, thumbs down for projects

also def. a spam report button as there was some fake ones there.

 

[tincho1492]

Congrats James! Your story really inspired me!

Making time to start my progress post

 

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[ToddB]

James - I've been following this thread for a while and it's great to see you've launched. Very inspiring and I wish you much success !

 

[nuwav]

Well done!! Great site, am looking for a developer, will register

 

[Pat]

Newlines would help the profile description...

I wanted to write a little CV but it quickly gets messy without at least newlines (basic html formatting would be awesome)

 

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[Moneymadness]

congrats on your launch! Page looks great and very professional. Your process has inspired me to begin my fast lane idea.

 

[James Fake]

it's been crazy my way this week.. two articles went viral and trying to keep up. have over 300 signed up freelancers and 17ish projects. I'll try to post details once things settle a bit.

 

[bernieshawn]

Great launch! You can't ask for more than that... 2 viral articles!

 

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[CMCarlin]

im curious as to what the articles are? Is that worth sharing?

 

[James Fake]

Hey CM,
Web Startup Blog; the last two articles..

I wrote a thread about the blog here before I started it: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/general-business-discussion/35574-advice-needed-blog-s-direction.html ; it's worked well so far.

 

[James Fake]

Hey fastlaners,
In need of some serious advice here. Thinking of doing a slight pivot..

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

I bring this up because I've noticed that there's been great discussions and activity from the freelancers, but it seems the project posters aren't as engaged or enthusiastic because they are not seeing benefits fast enough.

In general, people are lazy, and want instant gratification. They want to do one bit of work (ex. Post a job initially) and then they want to see immediate results by seeing bids flooded to them. I don't think most people want to take the extra step of combing through comments and send invites out. And when they don't do that; projects go dead.

On the other hand; by opening bids up to everyone... This would make me almost the same exact with Elance/oDesk and nothing really sets Freelancify apart (other than, maybe better design/UI, social discussion forum boards, and just out hustling in marketing to gain projects/users). But will those 3 I just stated be enough? (I mean Apple pretty much beat everyone else by almost Design and UI alone)

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

Thank you for listening, and look forward to your great help as always,
James F.

 

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[Icy]

On the other hand; by opening bids up to everyone... This would make me almost the same exact with Elance/oDesk and nothing really sets Freelancify apart (other than, maybe better design/UI, social discussion forum boards, and just out hustling in marketing to gain projects/users). But will those 3 I just stated be enough? (I mean Apple pretty much beat everyone else by almost Design and UI alone)

I disagree - I believe apple is doing well because is it a 'cool', premium product rather than exceptional ui\design. I don't feel their ui\design is far beyond any other popular os. Kind of like something like dr. dre headphones you pay a premium for a feeling rather than quality.

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

I have any specific idea's on how to incorporate this easily, but requiring a spec when posting a job, and not allowing people to post something absurd, with a budget of 500$ is a must. All I see on other freelance sites is everyone wanting to create the next FB with a budget of 500$. Removing that crap will make good developers more apt to use your site.

The tricky part is doing something like that without making it a hassle for the people posting jobs. Perhaps a quick 'questionaire'. If someone checks a custom wordpress theme, you can easily assume the budget for that will be much less than a custom website. Can you design something to guide someone posting a job to make it more clear in their head what they need, and use that to set a baseline budget. Allow them to post something for less than the budget, but in that case it needs to go through a 'review process'?

Those are just thoughts that were typed out as that came into mind.


Edit: On the homepage it has a 'top category' section. I want to be able to click on those and see jobs in those sections.

 

[Brander]

The tricky part is doing something like that without making it a hassle for the people posting jobs. Perhaps a quick 'questionaire'. If someone checks a custom wordpress theme, you can easily assume the budget for that will be much less than a custom website. Can you design something to guide someone posting a job to make it more clear in their head what they need, and use that to set a baseline budget. Allow them to post something for less than the budget, but in that case it needs to go through a 'review process'?

This is a sound recommendation in my opinion. What about commenting and asking questions in the thread (Q&A) even if they are not invited, BUT can bid only IF invited.

 

[James Fake]

@Icy - so you are saying to remove the filter and let everyone be able to bid regardless of invite or not?


@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.

 

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[911Carrera]

I think allowing workers to bid freely on projects is the way to go. People want to see bids asap and don't want to scroll thru discussions and invite workers most of the time. Part of re-inventing the wheel should be to make it easier for people to get stuff done, not harder. As you can see, projects are dying so you know what to do. I want to see your site succeed. So what you're like odesk and elance? Beat them on customer service, marketing, etc...Don't re-invent the wheel just to be different. You're in the business of meeting needs and making money, not being different.

 

[Icy]

@Icy - so you are saying to remove the filter and let everyone be able to bid regardless of invite or not?

What I mean is to some how filter out posts that have obnoxiously low budgets, for example:

Website Development
Drupal Developer to work on existing Drupal 6 Site

Those budgets, for those types of things just don't align with the scope of the projects. Is there a way you can set up a frustrating filtering process to get rid of 'crap' postings.

For example have a check box for clone\custom websites - and set a base line for either. Custom sites will certainly cost more.

I don't have a specific examples on how set up filtering so it feels like it's part of the posting process, and not be frustrating, but any serious about fulfilling anothers job, once they see such low budgets for intensive projects I'm sure they'll be turned away. Perhaps make your site the *premium* site for freelancing rather than allowing anything to go?

Just some random thoughts on it. Does that make sense?