hey everybody, i'm in the process of building a freelance hiring website. (yes, yes i know there's a lot of competition but ah well...). Now my question to everyone (all the freelancers out there.) what do you look for in a freelance site? Customers are easy, they want easy and cheap. My goal is to make it cheaper (10x cheaper than the others..) (no transaction fee etc.) I want suggestions, like -Mobile phone app that allows you to bid and control every aspect of the site -No advertisements -Something to prevent people frmo copying and pasting the same stuff over & over (also excl. bots)
What I look for (and the reason I'm disappointed with these freelancing sites) is serious work. And serious work isn't cheap. If you want my honest opinion, you're going about this wrong because you won't be filling a need that isn't already saturated. Sites like elance and oDesk have tons of freelancers who are willing to work for $5 an hour. I don't see how you can get cheaper than that. If you want to stand out from the competition, create a site that filters out the freelancers. Shopify is doing a good job of that. If you used their model and created a freelance site, you'd be a big hit.
Real job offers with higher budgets. That goes for both sides of the spectrum. As a freelancer I get lots of return business from people that enjoy my work because of: English as first language High quality work Fast turn around time Good communication Often making little fixes outside of the job description comparable to how car mechanics used to do their job. Come in for a brake job and I noticed you have a leaking steering pump. Switched gasket and didn't charge for it. Customer comes back for life. When I hire others I pay a premium for people that fit those five criteria. I hate those freelance sites mentioned above because automated bots answer my request with ultra low bids. If I try talking to perhaps the 2nd lower bid I find out I am Emailing with a bot! Then finally somebody answers and says it will cost a bit more for this or that... by then a day has been lost. ARGH! So I go with the guys with real bids that replied in proper English as a minimum. Then read reviews for who has 2, 3 and 5 and then choose somebody that way. Time savings alone pays for higher price.
Better mediums of communication between workers and employers. You should try to include as many channels for communication as possible, e.g. video call, click to call, screen share, etc. Try and leverage WebRTC and all that it has to offer and you may be able to do so cheaply. Good luck.