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LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

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Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#331

Post by rsj_hn »

seanwilson wrote: post #308
fabbari wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my head when I tell a client that a project/job is X hours it means that that is the market value in hours for that project. There is an old Italian story - I'm sure it's common in other places - about a TV repairman that goes to fix a TV at someone's house. He looks at the TV and tells the owner: "It's going to be 100$ to fix it". The owner agrees. The repairman walks up to the TV, hits it with his fist and the T…

> Option two: you charge 1200$ for an hour of work: none is going to hire you because there are people that are only charging 120$ an hour. The solution is to find clients that are prepared to pay for quality + reliable results and to avoid discussing work in terms of hourly rates then? Upwork sounds like it encourages hourly projects for clients that want the cheapest price. As a freelancer, your goal shouldn't be t…

Many times this option is the best option, but it's not the best available option. This is because of a lack of trust. People are worried they are going to be ripped off, so at least want some proof that a given number of hours that seems reasonable was expended and then they check that a reasonable rate was charged per hour, and it makes them feel more confident.

These people are often very frustrating to work with.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#332

Post by varispeed »

seanwilson wrote: post #328
varispeed wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country for example Upwork would fail for these reasons: Substitution - I understand that you cannot subcontract the work without the client knowledge and approval. That means the service is most likely personal. Even if the client agrees etc. and the subcontractor is only allowed to be from the Upwork pool (e.g. the client could hire them directly) then that also doesn't count as substitution. Control and dire…

> Substitution - I understand that you cannot subcontract the work without the client knowledge and approval. That means the service is most likely personal. Do you know the rational behind this one? Obviously when you hire a solo freelancer you want to work with that particular freelancer. Why would this single clause being false mark you as being an employee?

It's just how they defined it - essentially personal service == employment. They understand that if you really run a business then your client hires your company to create a product for them and it is up to the company who and how makes it, otherwise your company in their eyes is just a vehicle to avoid tax. What is most bizarre is that then you become an employee only for tax purposes - that is you are not necessarily gaining any employment rights, but in practice a freelancer has to be an employee of an agency, so you retain employment rights in exchange for severe pay cut. From April true freelancing will be very difficult because of that. For example if you are signed up to an agency, you are required to look for new contracts when you have a downtime and you may be required to accept contracts if agency finds one. My own opinion is that such agencies corrupted the bodies responsible for these law changes - agencies will be getting % for essentially doing nothing and freelancers won't be able to use profits to fund their own projects (not in the way it used to be - it has become much more expensive).

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#333

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

heavyset_go wrote: post #319
ryandrake wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool story, and sadly not unusual. I wonder if you (or anyone) ever managed to convince "boss" that the poor quality was due to these deficiencies, and that maybe cost was not the most important thing to optimize for.

> I wonder if you (or anyone) ever managed to convince "boss" that the poor quality was due to these deficiencies, and that maybe cost was not the most important thing to optimize for. In my experience, cheapskate employers are almost always pathologically cheap, so there is no amount of convincing or rationalization that will change their minds.

that's also my experience. when they're so far gone there is no amount of logic walking them back to reason. in my particular example the mistakes didn't make them act more rationally/logically and the money they lost was always blamed on the engineers (or other managers) who then got replaced (more employee turnover making the situation ever more desperate). They continued to throw money at upwork (reasoning it with "we need to hire more people so we can get the MVP finally finished"). What they never understood was that they were throwing good money after bad for 3 years (they spent USD 2MM and still had no MVP).

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#334

Post by f6v »

sitkack wrote: post #232
joshgachnang wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get hit with these constantly because I'm a US based Toptal freelancer. "Hey, if you take the meetings and let us use your account, we'll do all the work and give you 20%!".

So basically some folks just told you how you can be the CEO of InfoClone? How big are these deals, how skilled are the folks and how many people do they have?

If they have to resort to this tactic it’s usually not a good sign. Skilled workers will get the contracts without the shenanigans.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#336

Post by joshgachnang »

sitkack wrote: post #232
joshgachnang wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get hit with these constantly because I'm a US based Toptal freelancer. "Hey, if you take the meetings and let us use your account, we'll do all the work and give you 20%!".

So basically some folks just told you how you can be the CEO of InfoClone? How big are these deals, how skilled are the folks and how many people do they have?

I have no idea. I usually tell them I'll consider it if I get to keep 80% instead of 20% and then they disappear heh

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#337

Post by seanwilson »

varispeed wrote: post #332
seanwilson wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Substitution - I understand that you cannot subcontract the work without the client knowledge and approval. That means the service is most likely personal. Do you know the rational behind this one? Obviously when you hire a solo freelancer you want to work with that particular freelancer. Why would this single clause being false mark you as being an employee?

It's just how they defined it - essentially personal service == employment. They understand that if you really run a business then your client hires your company to create a product for them and it is up to the company who and how makes it, otherwise your company in their eyes is just a vehicle to avoid tax. What is most bizarre is that then you become an employee only for tax purposes - that is you are not necessari…

This includes solo freelancers though? So I've always seen the advice that to earn more, you can't be seen as a replaceable commodity and you need to attract clients that want to work with you in particular. This ruins that?

I heard that as long as your contract includes something about how you could be replaced by someone equally skilled, you can work around this? The client can still terminate the contract if they didn't like the replacement.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#338

Post by atleta »

seanwilson wrote: post #313
atleta wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we're talking about software development. Because it depends a lot on the kind of the job (or maybe I'm just ignorant and someone else's job seems simpler ;) ). But if we talk about software only, then estimating is hard, creating a strong and stable enough specification (that can be used for estimation) is hard, you have to sell it to the client - most clients are not willing to pay for it, for they don't un…

On the other side, if you ask a lot of good questions and give a quote that's within budget, the client is going to be suspicious of another quote where similar insightful questions weren't asked first. If another quote is very cheap, the client will probably question if that's going to reflect the quality of the work. There's also risk that the developer they take the requirements + design doesn't really understand…

Yes, good questions are important in order to convince a client (whether the project is hourly or fixed price).

> There's also risk that the developer they take the requirements + design doesn't really understand what they're getting into and can't execute.

Yes, and I've mentioned that. But what matters is if the client is aware of it or not.

Yes, you always want to aim for quality clients, still with all this planning and estimation, even with the best intentions I think that a lot of time gets wasted on lost bids.

> It's great when you get to charge for the planning phase though

Now that I think back, I had exactly one project like this, more than a decade ago. I've created the requirement specification based on client interviews, they paid for it then sent it to a few competing companies and all of us made a proposal. We didn't win it in the end, but at least that was a pretty fair and transparent process. (The company was owned by Deutsche Telekom, so it wasn't exactly an accident.)

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#339

Post by anovikov »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #129
Ayesh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But that's what market places are for, to reach out new customers. If you have a relationship with a client for more than 10K, why continue to pay 5% on top of payment fees? They messaging software is not very useful, and time tracking feature is hostile for many. A more comparable feature would be for the client to pay a fixed fee to post, and allow them to work outside upwork.

> why continue to pay 5% on top of payment fees? Because without Upwork weekly charges clients might “forget” and “postpone” and “delay” payments. 5% is ok to know that money will be paid by the schedule.

It's not just that. If you made a million or two on Upwork, it makes you stand out making further deals easier. These 5% are money well invested, not just spent.

Re: LinkedIn is building a gig marketplace

#340

Post by josephjrobison »

algo_trader wrote: post #104
josephjrobison wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiverr - best turnaround times and least hassle, you can see all the gigs, pricing, and expertise up front. But have to do hard filtering. Upwork - Biggest range. Can get a lot of crap, but the volume means a few diamonds. Better for open ended or larger engagements than Fiverr. Individual freelancers - great if you find the right one that delivers. The downside, is without the middleman platform, there's more risk t…

> Fiverr - best turnaround times and least hassle, you can see all the gigs, pricing, and expertise up front. But have to do hard filtering. I certainly get a "fast and simple" vibe from the app. But what is the experience in practice? Do you get (semi)functional work or just a 3rd country bot trying to upsale u ? I agree you need to in a "good PM" mode for these services

Fiverr is excellent for very tight well defined projects.

There must be something that Fiverr is doing to incentivize the freelancers to deliver quickly. They are very fast.

I have yet to work on a complex project. What I would do would be to take tiny starting points of the complex project and test it with a few of them.

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