Ask HN: Review my startup CanYouCode.com

http://www.canyoucode.com

CanYouCode is a freelancing website, which is different in the following ways:

1. Minimum rate of $35/hr - likely more. (you can't find good freelancers for anything less.)

2. Profiles are reviewed before being allowed to bid - We verify LinkedIn profiles, Open Source contributions, Blog, proper web standards etc.

Basically the idea is to target developers who can't survive on the $10-20/hr at Elance or oDesk. Currently we are accepting signups only from the US and Europe.

We would like inputs on: 1. It is interesting? 2. How to get traction? 3. Should we apply for YC Winter 2011?

Thank you.

1. Yes, it's interesting to have a curated place to get good developers, even if it's more expensive. However, I think you might need to do more than the things you've listed so far.

2. Make sure your clients have a really good experience and then help them promote you.

Since this is a marketplace, you have to stimulate both supply and demand. Supply: contact good coders and ask them to sign up. Demand: work very hard to get clients into the system, and follow up with them.

Also: the name "canyoucode" is aimed at developers, that's not very good, should be aimed at clients. And finally: having the site full of dummy date is kind of crap. I would go with a closed beta. Again, you have to stimulate supply and demand: you need to make sure that your first coders get good clients (and then blog about that), and that your clients get good coders (and then blog about that). I would make it closed beta at first.

Fantastic design! It can really set you apart from the more "corporate" designs of Elance/oDesk. It's a great idea to have the marketplace have a good design and aesthetic to position yourself as different from the kinda sketchy RentACoder-type sites.

How will you distinguish your review process and qualifications from the certification tests that oDesk offers? Arguably your internally-reviewed approvals will be more valuable than "User X passed the HTML Level 1 test" but how will you communicate that to clients searching your site for freelancers?

I don't like the arbitrary minimum rate but I do see how it would differentiate you from the rest of freelancing marketplaces. I think it would be better to have different minimums depending on category and type of work. There is no reason why data entry or similar should start at $35/hr, It just shouldn't be $3/hr. Could also have different minimums for different countries, freelancers have different standards on what's a good hourly rate, many of them can do fine with $20/hr.

Other pain points to address:

It's very tiring having to bid on dozens of projects and never getting any work. This is a major problem for new freelancers. You have to lowball dozens of bids in hopes of getting your first ratings.

Something like Odesk's tests for freelancers but higher quality.

Buyers should also be reviewed not just freelancers. Putting money into escrow before accepting a bid should be mandatory, at least for new buyers.

I've used about five different freelancing websites in the past but it's been a while since then and I think a lot of problems are not coming to mind now. I'll let you know if I think of more pain points I would like to see addressed.

EDIT: I tried signing up but my current address is not in a country listed in your dropdown menu. I don't see why you would limit Europe to a handful of countries. If you can do business in one EU country, you can do in all of them thanks to the economic union.

Will be doing that tonight. The initial plan is to have North America + (all of)Europe.