Wouldn't it be funny if a MVP uses one of those freelance sites and spends the $5000 on a team in India to finish the project in two months and then has the $3000 to promote it? Subcontracting can be fun you know.
I like this idea, I had it myself. I was even discussing this yesterday with a friend of mine. Two years ago I even put together a prototype and started experimenting with it.
Our conclusions? Yes, freelance sites suck. Do providers want something else? Hell yeah! Do buyers want something else? Hell no! Simply put; being able to first try to get your project done for $100 while you know the real price is at least $20k+ is compelling apparently. I know companies who had stuff we quoted for $50k done for $1k. And it didn't even suck too badly. Why? Because there is SO much competition on those sites that 'newer' providers have to compete on price to get anywhere. So you can get occasional solid work for 1/50th of the price. Especially if you know what to look for.
Then if it doesn't work you just go 5x that, doing it for $5k and most likely you'll have your $50k project done nicely. Note that most companies under $10k price point are willing to go no-cure-no-pay, meaning if it failed so far, you didn't pay a cent yet.
If you get farther than this, yes a different method would be better, however, most don't get to that online or they already have their preferred teams, meaning this won't help them. I already know that if I pay a Ukraine team with 400 5 star projects $50k I WILL have high quality; why do I need these moderators?
I'm not against this at all mind you; like I said, we thought about this seriously ourselves but we just didn't see enough interest from companies. Basically most companies on freelance sites who want to buy something still suffer from that Elance-Digg-syndrome; pay very little for top-notch stuff. And often you do get that.
Also for that $50k the site is worth, you can for instance put 6 teams for $5k on it, having a quite high (from experience) chance of success in at least 1 or 2 of them and banking $20k 'profit'.
I wish you luck but it's a very much uphill battle!
Reminds me of those posts where people create a project on one of those outsourcing/freelancing sites like "I want an eBay clone" and people reply "Sure, no problem, 2 days - 50USD"
I hire freelancers for $xxx-$xxxx contracts in the games industry, and I've set a blanket ignore to proposals from Indian contractors as well for the same reasons.
The other problem is that the person you speak to and agree to do the work with is often not the one who will actually be carrying it out. Generally speculative applications where the quality or focus area of the portfolio doesn't match the job is another problem.
OT: From where these "fortune" companies take big projects? I have seen many Indian freelancers bid as low as $50 for 1-week worth projects. (We have used http://www.cssilize.com/ that charges as low as $35)
As an extensive (and generally happy) user of elance and similar sites, this really made me laugh! This is fantastic example of the pitfalls of such sites.
Whatever the project, you get a bunch of replies (the majority from Indian) who either just say 'yes we can do that' or come back with boilerplate drivel without understanding the requirement.
The Indian guy who responded with a $300 bid and said:
"I can do this for you in php or javascript. If you want this work in one language, I can charge less."
Not sure about the OP, but to me...
The freelancer is building product on their own, or mostly so. Somebody hires them to do the majority of the project. "Hi, I need a website that does X, here's $20k to build it."
The consultant is embedded in an existing team and either building some niche portion of the product OR providing some sort of training. "Hi, I need a website that does X, we're only qualified to build subset Y, here's $20k to build the remained OR train us to build the remainder."
If I was younger, and cheaper, I'd consider working as a freelancer with these guys. Seems like a possible way to funnel in work while offloading a lot of the PM responsibilities.
I will say one thing though - fixed pricing on projects is tricky. I would be interested to see how they set and meet expectations, while also not charging for overages. It seems like the developer might have to be the one to eat the costs if it goes over.
Hey! Great to know that I was wrong! Do you know a lot of people doing it/did it, or are you an exception? And who were you clients, i.e, were your clients Indian companies or are people in the US, UK etc ready to invest in freelancers in India.
And did it pay well enough for other people to consider it?
The central value proposition here for employers is delivering talent that you can put faith in.
This definitely offers an interesting solution for those on the other end of the equation as well. As a contractor, a service like this would enable me to work like I was employed by a company without the corporate bullshit. Ideally I would get paid for the tasks I complete with little upfront time investment and know how much I'll get for it. Maybe if this project is really ambitious they could even do only part of the task and someone could do the rest, paying the developers appropriately by percentage.
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