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Ask HN: What Freelancer site do you recommend?

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Re: Ask HN: What Freelancer site do you recommend?

#51

Post by octopus »

mattbarrie wrote: post #14

Hi there, I'm the CEO of Freelancer.com. I'd be interested to know what problem you ran into?

A few problems with Freelancer from a buyer perspective:

* If you post a project on something like C++, Android, iOS or web design you get about 10 generic bids in the first minute. I suspect some coders use bots to bid on certain categories. This should be strictly prohibited.

* Not sure how you can stop the coders to bid so low, when a guy bids $30 for 2 - 3 days of work the quality of his work can't be that great. Maybe enforcing some minimum bid limit ? I know this is a hard problem to solve.

* Another problem that seems to keep the prices and quality down: coders that take a project and repost it with a much lower price.

* A buyer should be forced to describe what he needs in the project description. Generic projects like Easy work, it can be done by an expert in a few hours. Details after you bid. should also be prohibited. These kind of projects keep the prices and the quality of the work down for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: What Freelancer site do you recommend?

#52

Post by Dove »

mgiglesias wrote: post #8

I've been the top #1 provider for years and up until vWorker got sold to freelancer. I honestly think that was an awful move, since what made vWorker different from the rest is that it had less number of providers (and clients), but with a much better quality. This, and the fact that being a freelancer for years helped me identify lots of things that were poorly done on sites such as freelancer, made me realize that…

I was a veteran of vWorker, too. I found the site quirky and ugly, but deeply functional. Freelancer seems to be the opposite -- very pretty, professionally aggravating. I jumped ship (to my own network) pretty quickly after the transition, and if I needed to find work again through a site, it probably wouldn't be that one.

Re: Ask HN: What Freelancer site do you recommend?

#54

Post by tejay »

tehwebguy wrote: post #45
tejay wrote: post #44

I really hate being so self-aggrandizing, but at gun.io, this is exactly the problem we're trying to solve. Open and extremely easy to use, while not sucking in terms of quality. I think we're doing an OK job, but this is more complex than it sounds, and quite obviously, there's always room to do better. (If anyone strongly feels that we just suck, PLEASE email me). Thanks for allowing us the self-promotional spot, h…

Sorry to hijack, but what's with the compensation estimates on gun.io? It seems like there is some good work on the site but everything seems to be $10k, but there is no basis for the price (is it project pricing, is it per week, did the client estimate it or did you?) I'm interested in using the site, I guess I just don't know how.

Hey man - awesome, thanks for the question. we clearly have a self-interest in talking about this publicly, but I don't wanna derail the ongoing conversation!! I'd track you down but maybe that'd be a bit weird! Just drop me a line at teja@gun.io and let's chat!

Although, just so it's not like I'm dodging your question for any onlookers, fixed price estimates are the way to go for a number of reasons (alignment of incentives, doesn't penalize high productivity, etc). The clients do the pricing, generally, but if something looks silly, we try to step in.

Re: Ask HN: What Freelancer site do you recommend?

#56

Post by rickdale »

mattbarrie wrote: post #14

Hi there, I'm the CEO of Freelancer.com. I'd be interested to know what problem you ran into?

Good on your for being here and looking for suggestions.

Never used your service, but I did use 99designs to design and build a site recently. And I can tell you that as soon as I got my design, I told the designer to email me and then I payed him through paypal for the design and for the website work. I was out some money to 99designs, but I was happier that random Indian dude got most of the money.

I think I have an account with freelancer.com, but the site comes off as so bloated to me that you need to be a regular to really navigate through it.

Re: Ask HN: What Freelancer site do you recommend?

#57

Post by brianbreslin »

mattbarrie wrote: post #14

Hi there, I'm the CEO of Freelancer.com. I'd be interested to know what problem you ran into?

I used to be a semi-regular purchaser of small projects on vworker (rentacoder), and didn't like the transition to freelancer. On freelancer I had mixed success with the quality, and also the timeliness of deliverables. I also didn't like the method for escrow/disbursement of payments. I do wish you could more clearly label payments and structures (vworker was super ugly, but much clearer in this respect).

Re: Ask HN: What Freelancer site do you recommend?

#59

Post by Dove »

rajjalan wrote: post #27
mattbarrie wrote: post #14

Hi there, I'm the CEO of Freelancer.com. I'd be interested to know what problem you ran into?

Why gamification if I am only posting jobs? It might make sense to people who are bidding for projects, but it is just too many unwanted features for posting a project.

It doesn't make sense for people who are bidding for projects, either -- at least, it doesn't make sense for me. It's a childish system, completely out of tune with how I want to present myself professionally. I don't want to Like You On Facebook or Follow You On Twitter, I don't want to Level Up For More Bids, I certainly don't want to bid on 200 projects a month, and I certainly, CERTAINLY don't want to see my clients spammed with similar requests.

I really liked vWorker, but I actively avoid freelancer, and the gamification is the biggest reason.

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