I always wonder when I hear these sort of stories out coming out of odesk, freelancer or elance, if the sort of highly qualified developer is actally their target market. Now I am not saying that people on freelancer are incompetent but like the original post said they now don't have a network outside of freelancer which is far more imporant for an actual freelancer web developer as opposed to someone in india or the phillipines were freelancer.com or similar is their only opertunity for work.
Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
41–50 of 71 posts
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#42Freelancer is awful. In fact all of those sites are. I made my living off Freelancer for a few years and I can't count the number of times they severely screwed me. I move to Elance which, although much better, has it's own issues. I try to find long-term clients on those sites and move the business away from them as quick as possible and that seems to work well.
ODesk is the least bad of the general sites. There are a few niche networks that are decent also, e.g. TopTal.com.
I have worked with both elance and odesk. I shifted to Odesk after some issue with elance and never looked back.
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#43I wasted some time testing those sites: freelancer, odesk and elance
here is my conclusion: whatever you do, you will always end up having problems with those kind of site.
Either the escrow can be reverted, or the site side with the "employer", how about installing that odesk thing that take a screenshot of your desktop every few minutes ? and on, and on, etc.
I worked as a freelancer without such web sites for 10+ years (both in France and UK), either solo by networking etc. or via an agent that was finding clients for me in exchange of a 20% commission (yes that's not a typo) and this was 10 times better that any freelancer web site.
So what is the real problem ?
you (the freelancer) are actually the product
so called "employers" can play the game "let's find the cheapest product" (eg. let's hire a freelancer that can work for $8/hour in some other country)
you can not do any margin with a competition toward "cheap" either you invoice per hour, so even if you do the job faster than someone else you just invoice the actual hours, or you bid on a fixed price which is also a race to lowest amount of money.
It is absolutely a no-win situation
as an individual or a company wether you're building web sites, applications, mobile apps, etc. all those things have high values it is absolutely OK to invoice more that the time it took you to do it eg. make a margin to make a living
also those sites tend to concentrate "bad clients" eg. the one who don't understand technology, why it cost so much to do this, why you can not build something complicated in 10 minutes, etc. exactly the kind of clients you try to avoid at all cost
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#44This is Rishi, and I am the Co-Founder at http://dreamlance.io/ We are starting Dreamlance, a curated marketplace for projects and professionals. Here are 3 ways how Dreamlance is different from all other “curated” marketplaces: 1. The Dreamlance Team actually vets each project that gets posted on our boards - We make sure the project description is complete - We make sure the project deliverables are crystal clear -…
"40% of all freelance projects end in dispute."
What is your source on that stat?
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#45I own a company and have been using ODESK for the last six years. I have spent nearly 35,000 on above average programmers, their normal rate of pay is anywhere between 15 and 65.00 an hour. At first, i selected this site because it was a good source of low paid talent, but then I realized there were some really solid developers/programmers using the service.
I only really had problem with 2-3 guys who said they were good, but you know during the job they were Googling answers to the problems I had and had no real experience, but for the most part, some great programmers there.
I recommend ODESK, as a buyer, I am super protected from people not following through, so i have some confidence, aside from hiring locally for temp/programming work, I always use Odesk.
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#46As a western developer, is it possible to earn six figures (US) from any of the bidding sites? Which would be the best to focus on?
Anything is possible, but keep in mind you'll be competing with people (individuals as well as companies) who will happily bid very low (even down to $5/hr or so, possibly less). You will also be wrestling with clients who see pages and pages of projects (with accepted bids) along the lines of "Build me a Facebook clone, I have a budget of $250" and think its normal. So not only do you have all the marketing issues of a freelancer, with all the time sinks that go with it, you are targeting an audience of clients who are unlikely to pay well.
In other words, these sites are sites where a specific commodity--dirt cheap developer labor--is bought and sold. You'll almost certainly do better in the commodity market of well-paid, but not as plentiful, developers in your home country.
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#47I wasted some time testing those sites: freelancer, odesk and elance here is my conclusion: whatever you do, you will always end up having problems with those kind of site. Either the escrow can be reverted, or the site side with the "employer", how about installing that odesk thing that take a screenshot of your desktop every few minutes ? and on, and on, etc. I worked as a freelancer without such web sites for 10+…
odesk's time tracking app seems extremely scary ( watches keystrokes and takes screenshots ). Can't believe people actually install that thing.
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#48Use your Freelancer portfolio to get contract work with agencies. They tend to fancy themselves one stop shops for clients and you can capitalize on that.
This, quality work is going to be brokered through an agency, not an eBay for freelancers.
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#49I own a company and have been using ODESK for the last six years. I have spent nearly 35,000 on above average programmers, their normal rate of pay is anywhere between 15 and 65.00 an hour. At first, i selected this site because it was a good source of low paid talent, but then I realized there were some really solid developers/programmers using the service. I only really had problem with 2-3 guys who said they were…
$35,000 over six years.
This is why if you're a programmer of any substance, you should avoid oDesk.
Re: Why you should think twice about Freelancer.com
#50I wasted some time testing those sites: freelancer, odesk and elance here is my conclusion: whatever you do, you will always end up having problems with those kind of site. Either the escrow can be reverted, or the site side with the "employer", how about installing that odesk thing that take a screenshot of your desktop every few minutes ? and on, and on, etc. I worked as a freelancer without such web sites for 10+…
odesk's time tracking app seems extremely scary ( watches keystrokes and takes screenshots ). Can't believe people actually install that thing.
I occasionally hire on Odesk and never require or even ask that the contractor use it. I refuse to use that feature. It's degrading for the worker. Digital slavery in a way.