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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?

#92
post #91

I would suggest the relevant IRC channel. First ask a smart question that is on topic, next PM those who answered, if they are for hire.

sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do you find the relevant IRC channel? i googled the issue and found a few search engines like this http://searchirc.com/. is this the best search engine for IRC? or what do you recommend? thanks!

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

#93
We started Tweaky.com to help with this exact problem. We only tackle small projects but we've built a system which makes this work for both customers and developers.

Our project managers break a project down into "tweaks" where each one is well defined and $39. We then curate the developers in the marketplace to ensure that only quality people are in there.

Once the tweaks are paid for the developers pick up the jobs they want to work on and get started.

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

#94
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…

From the point of view of the freelance worker, gun.io has been amazing. Interesting work and very nice clients!

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

#95
post #61
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP: "to complete a relatively simple job" I'm guessing the average HN freelancer will be overkill for the stuff he has in mind. Some tasks are incompressible, however good you may be, so there's no point hiring Michaelangelo to repaint your bathroom ceiling. EDIT: after making this comment I can no longer "reply". Is this a ban?

I'm not sure I see any reason to think that the "average HN freelancer" would be overkill. There are recurring posts here from people asking about how to get started in freelancing, such people will need a few low-risk small projects to get their feet wet.

You're rigth. I've been looking into freelancing several times (and I have a verified account on Elance), but I haven't found a project I'm 100% confident I can take on my limited time and skills, and which isn't overrun by cheap developers (Elance is really good at making me lose my confidence, lots of seemingly great developers at ridiculously low prices, so I end up not bidding).

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

#96
post #92
post #91

I would suggest the relevant IRC channel. First ask a smart question that is on topic, next PM those who answered, if they are for hire.

sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do you find the relevant IRC channel? i googled the issue and found a few search engines like this http://searchirc.com/ . is this the best search engine for IRC? or what do you recommend? thanks!

Most technical computer topics have an IRC channel on freenode.

Often google shows up a page for the active channels. The searchirc.com sometimes shows dead channel.

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

#97

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…

Same here, used vWorker both as provider and recently buyer. The quality of bids we received from vWorker was magnitudes better than the crap we are getting now on Freelancer. Already wasted time with one project there, and I guess its re-post will be the last attempt to get work done there.

vWorker worked well, and the quality of users was better. Good luck with your Workana, it looks good.

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

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well you can always ignore it? There are something things you might like to earn with the credits, for example the phone number for the head of support, a chat with me over skype with a cup of tea, or a t-shirt? It's not like you have to do anything extra.

I wish I could ignore it, but the problem is that it's something my clients have to see too, and it's very prominent. They want to hire me, I want to deliver quality software to them, but in between us is "level up to earn a free T-shirt".

Perks and rewards are OK, but the prominence the XP/Badge/level system is given presents a very unprofessional image to potential clients. It's a distraction, a sideshow that's given center stage. I'd love to do enough professional-grade work on freelancer to earn a quick chat/consult with you (or even something like a free t-shirt), but I don't want the site inundating me and my clients with bullshit that doesn't add to either of our bottom lines. Our business relationship is not a game, but Freelancer surrounds it with excessive of game terminology and game mechanics, which gives off an air of "this place isn't for serious developers".

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

#100
post #11

elance is good and the only site i use for this - mostly because i'm used to it and i find new sites confusing to get used to, more than that i consider it 'best'. it's dominated by the weak php developers you speak of, but if you just filter everybody out who charges less than $20 per hour[1], you'll get rid of most of them and be left with some good people. after you've gotten a few hundred proposals on elance it w…

well charging higher than 25$/hr cuts both ways I originally started from elance a few years back and gave a low-ish rate but I was being ignored or being asked for discounts on near bottom rates, I realized if you want to be valued you need to have a rate that's respected.

I have tripled that rate and the quality of projects and clients has improved considerably.

ps do give a rough range of budget on elance but never an absolute number, if someone invites me to a project offering 20$/hr I run the other way.

disclaimer: I run marketlytics and generally participate on these sites as a consultant so this maybe more to my benefit.

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