Validate this - a free freelancer network
I'm trying to validate an idea, to see if I should build it.
Freelancer networks usually take 25-45% commission on your work.
I want to build a free freelancer network, based on a different business model.
No commissions taken from freelancers.
Focused on making freelancers part of teams, getting equity, etc.
Potentially user-owned (maybe through a token).
I've made a landing page here if you want more info on the vision: https://hyperwork.co
If you're a freelancer, would you sign up?
Upwork fees are by far my biggest expense in my freelance work. I pay less in taxes.
Another problem I see on Upwork lately is that the posted project are not of high quality. Clients who need low-to-mid quality work and who want to pay as little as possible dominate the network.
The quality of the projects is something that definitely needs a really creative angle.
I know when I was working for Toptal that the projects were decent, but the fees were close to half of what I was making. That was a painful trade-off.
I want to position this at the higher end, both for clients and talent. Vetting the client's request before it's posted is at this point the best idea I have.
Toptal also had a good idea of introducing agents. They are freelancers who acted to assure a project is going well and got a cut of the fees. Sometimes they weren't really that helpful, so I'm thinking of a similar role dynamic but better incentivized.
I would love to have a place to find clients easily, get paid for what I offer. Yet couldn't find anywhere.
Upwork seems to dominate this niche, TopTal somehow becoming an alternative. I spent a few weeks on Upwork couldn't find a single client.
Here are the problems I see;
Upwork takes 20% fee until you make $500 with a client then decreases to 10% and finally 5%. So whoever in this market will know 25% is not true.
As every marketplaces' problem, chicken and egg. I'd sign up if there were enough jobs I could apply. One way to do it unfortunately fake it till you make it.
Cutting the revenue may mean less budget for marketing and administration.
I may suggest you to spend a little time on r/upwork to see if those fees are the real problem. People seems happy with those cuts as long as they get jobs consistently. A quick work-around would be to to charge more to compensate that fee.
There are more problems as I've been thinking to move this to web3 as well. So I'd generally suggest to pivot it to agency model for starter rather than a full blown marketplace.
These are all good points, thanks for sharing!
The fees are definitely a competitive advantage (I've left Toptal mainly because of high fees). But you might be right that the actual jobs might be more attractive to freelancers. It's an angle I'll definitely follow up on.
I have an idea about how an MVP would cover the demand side (clients) so might start from that - just a board with interesting projects that people can bid on.
Not having some kind of fee is going to be hard to get around due to licensing new products etc. But I really think you are onto something that could be great.
Once all the kinks are worked out, as a freelance writer myself, I would give it a go.
I've built a platform for freelancers that is like the other "half" of Upwork -- the payment half, without the "finding work" half.
We hold money in escrow to mitigate risk for clients and freelancers, kind of like what Upwork does, but we charge 2% instead of 20+%.
If you build this thing (or something like it), I'd love to chat about potential partnership opportunities.
And as a freelancer, yes, I'd sign up for this, if it seemed likely to generate work, though really, I get most of my work through word of mouth, at this point.
There are a couple of other platforms that seem sort of similar... https://www.a.team/ and https://contra.com/ are the first that come to mind.
Thanks for sharing and for the links. Very interesting.
The escrow service definitely sounds good and that's a very competitive rate.
I don't really know how it would work with no fees, but I'll definitely take it into account as I'm thinking of where to go with this.
Looks like a general theme is:
I'm thinking of making the MVP focused on supply, like a list providing quality freelancing opportunities. AKA the 'finding work' half. I can work my way up for there.
Is this based on crypto tokens? It's a really interesting space for crypto, given that platforms charge a horrendously high fee for transactions. Would be to outline a bit more how you are different to existing platforms.
Are you targeting specific markets first?
Most likely a tomorrow problem, but how are you planning to scale the vetting process?
Good point about targeting! That would give it a good focus, seriously considering it.
I'm still thinking about how the tokens would work. I know several other networks are doing it, so looking into their approach. I know Braintrust does a good job with that: https://www.usebraintrust.com/
I'm thinking of letting the network do the vetting (just like Toptal's agents are actually freelancers themselves). But early days so fuzzy around the details.
If you plan to make money with it - validation will mean making money with it. Not sure how you'll tackle it if you don't plan to take money from freelancers.
Idea of helping freelancers become part of the teams sounds like LinkedIn.
Ain't this already validated?
Upwork, freelancer, fiverr, peopleperhour, mechanicalturk...
It either requires capital to compete head to head with existing solutions or a twist to distinguish.
Thanks for the comment!
Validation through paying customers is the end goal, but at this stage, I'd be happy to see if there's general interest.
I've done this with other projects, and validating it as a concept saves you a lot of time. If there's no interest in a project, I just drop it or pivot. Only projects worth building are those which can generate a minimal amount of buzz when you just explain the concept to people.
As I didn't manage to monetize products that generated buzz, I now only rely on cash as a validation method :)
Buzz is too tricky to track. Let's say you get 10 more upvotes. Will this mean it's the time to invest 3 months into the project?
I've become the evangelist of collecting cash asap after spending years on useless products.
That's a good approach, in terms of the risk sounds much safer.
I'd throw a month or two of development in there for an MVP. Riskier, true, but I'm technical so I can spend a bit of my time instead of $.
In any case, I usually share ideas to eliminate red flags I might not consider. Works out very well usually.
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
Three ideas I have in mind:
Might be good options, thinking any of these could potentially be as productive as % fees.
I also want to avoid % fees because it creates a huge workload on developing the payment system and keeping payments within the network. Much of the effort of freelancing platforms is focused on making sure freelancers don't work out arrangements outside the network. If the platform didn't care about that and focused on providing worthwhile projects, I think that would be a win for everyone.
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
First thoughts for pro profiles: