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Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#201

Post by jason_slack »

remyp wrote: post #199
jason_slack wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Here is to hoping, I have had a few e-mails of people that seem amazing to talk to.

As the creator of Kismet I'm a user just like everybody else and your experiences echo mine. I did recently release an update to match users with empty profiles only against each other, so that should help. Measuring responsiveness would require me to "get in the middle" of the conversation a la AngelList or CoFoundersLab, which I don't like for privacy reasons. I compare it to real-life networking events: the majori…

I agree with also that you don't need to measure responsiveness.

However, one thought I have is if the user doesn't fill out pros and cons, what good is making the match? They either don't need anything or have nothing to offer. Perhaps match with other users that also put nothing?

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#202

Post by scottydelta »

philip1209 wrote: post #98
saltydogdev wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started the process of signing up, but stopped when you wanted me to sign up for a stripe account. I would prefer to look around more, see what kinds of things jobs are posted before I go though the hassle. Maybe you're the best thing since sliced bread, maybe not (there are a lot who aren't) and I would like a better opportunity to see what you offer. I'm also confused about what exactly you offer. Are you more li…

> I started the process of signing up, but stopped when you wanted me to sign up for a stripe account. I would prefer to look around more, see what kinds of things jobs are posted before I go though the hassle. Valid feedback. We have been concentrating on improving the client signup experience for the past couple weeks, and it has made a huge difference. We will focus product efforts on improving the contractor sign…

can your service be used by a non-US company?

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#204

Post by e_reder »

I've been in the freelance game for the last five years.

If you're based in the US or Europe I wouldn't waste my time with Freelancer.com or Upwork. The competition for jobs on these platforms is usually too high.

Here are my best resources for finding freelance jobs:

1. And Co's gig list And Co is a true life saver for me as a freelancer. Their app is 100% free and does everything I need: invoicing, contracts, payments, time tracking, etc.

They send out a weekly newsletter with lots of opportunities from all over the internet. It's kind of a hidden gem. Lots of value >> https://www.and.co/gig-list

2. Angel List

3. Remote.io

However, there are lots and lots of other platforms. I recommend you look at this article https://www.and.co/freelance-jobs

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#205

Post by neltnerb »

maratd wrote: post #184
neltnerb wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More specifically, don't do fixed cost contracts. They misalign all the incentives, and encourages you to do a worse quality job. And it encourages them to take up your time with meetings and support and new "quick" features to add. Best is a fixed hourly rate, providing them an estimate, and setting it up so that you won't exceed a maximum (after which you can reevaluate with them whether to continue). This lets you…

> More specifically, don't do fixed cost contracts. Strongly disagree. I've been doing fixed cost contracts for a very long time with great success. You just need to know what you're doing. > They misalign all the incentives, and encourages you to do a worse quality job. Billing hourly does that. It encourages you to "fit" yourself within the estimate that you had to provide. That's fine if you overshot, but if you w…

Thanks for the really detailed thoughts. I've been thinking about it and I think our difference in perspective is rooted in repeatability.

The vast majority of the kind of work I do is one-off prototypes that are very customized, and the rest is research and development where how to get to the answers is not at all clear.

For one-off prototypes, I think the most sensible thing is hours plus materials. You have a limited picture of how hard it will be, it turns things into molasses if the goals changing based on new information requires renegotiation, etc.

But after you've done it once, I think it makes sense to use a fixed price for replication, with variations in price based on small changes from a base design.

That makes sense to me. It has flexibility early on, like a stage A of the process, paid hourly. Then there's a stage B for replicating it once the product is stable, for which a fixed price is a better deal.

Re: Ask HN: How do you find freelance work?

#206

Post by langitbiru »

philip1209 wrote: post #155
langitbiru wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to sign up for this service as well. But Stripe is not supported in my country. Why not Paypal? Or maybe cryptocurrency? :)

We are looking at alternatives like Payoneer. I have a personal moral opposition to PayPal :-) We very seriously investigated cryptocurrencies. We found that companies would have to pay with crypto to make it legal under us law, and companies were not ready to do that yet. Details here: https://www.moonlightwork.com/blog/cryptocurrency-and-compan...

What about normal bank transfer? Is it really cumbersome?
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