Freelancing sites Archives - Homeprenuer®, Entrepreneur working from home.

February 23, 2012October 11, 2018

Shameless tactic by vWorker.com – poaching oDesk clients and providers

UPDATE on 28 Feb 2012

vWorker makes changes to its bid-alert mail

As any freelancer would agree, it is considered a smart move to sign up with multiple freelancing sites. The idea is to diversify and enable one’s (freelance) resume to be made visible to as many eyes as it can be. On the same note, clients (employers) also post the same project across multiple freelance sites to increase the chance of intelligent bids from serious freelancers…(oh yeah !.. and then, there is spam… but pros outweigh the cons)
Guess it comes as no surprise when I say that I had also signed up with odesk and vWorker (and few other freelance marketplaces as well), so that I have a steady stream of potentials. Predictably, I am subscribed to their bid alerts as well.
However, today I was taken aback completely when I read through their so-called referral campaign to their bid-alert mail.

Why should i even bother asking a client from Site1 to sign up at Site 2

I have active profiles in both oDesk and vWorker. Serious freelancers are busy bidding and actually working, rather than, cajole a client to sign up with a marketplace of (freelancer’s)choice. In other words, If i see a potential project on a different marketplace, I would promptly sign up at this new site and place my bid. All I care about is winning the project, and start working on it.. because.. thats what actually puts the copper in my wallet. Why should I go about telling the client to sign up with my-favourite site if he wants to work with me. It is likely that I might end up loosing a good project just for this one act.

Whatever happened to “healthy competition” ?

It is a thin line between competition and jealousy. Freelance marketplaces such as vWorker and oDesk (and other freelance sites) actively promote “healthy completion” between their users, so that the provider – the client – and – the site are mutually benefitted… which is in fact THE right thing to do. So, why take the Unhealthy route to boost one’s business?

Afraid of competition? Or, Last desperate attempt by vWorker?

Each freelancer has his / her favourite freelance site. There are scores of freelance marketplaces over the World Wide Web, and, each one of them are striving in their own way to get the provider’s and client’s attention. If oDesk works better for some, then vWorker works better for someone else. But it so appears that the user-base-at-oDesk is exponentially greater than the user-base-at-vWorker. But, this act by VWorker to poach oDesk users only comes across as a desperate attempt to boost their already declining user base.

… vWorker, are you really that desperate ?
… may be its time for vWorker to rethink their user-experience .

May 19, 2010October 11, 2018

Recognition from Zoho Creator Team – Thank you!

Let me thank my stars! Things cannot get any better than this.

Following oDesk’s provider spotlight, Zoho Creator has extended their regards and best wishes. Here is a short transcript of my interview with the zoho creator team.

Why did you choose to use Zoho Creator?

The drag and drop interface at form-design and at Deluge script won me hands-down. Additionally, the logic command blocks at Deluge Script , along with the help documents were very helpful in the initial stages. I sort of kicked-the-tires by developing some applications for personal use. ….

How do you pitch Zoho Creator to your customers? Has it been an easy sell?

In fact, I didn’t have to pitch it at all. Zoho Creator already did it for me! Anyone who has spent at least 30 minutes with Zoho Creator forms & the basic ‘Send Mail ‘ script will be able to comprehend what this could do to their business. So I was fortunate to have well informed clients who had tested Zoho Creator hands on. It has been my observation that, out of every 10 casual signups, at least 8 are willing to harness the developer pool for a decent remuneration. That’s 80% conversion rate, guys!

For Full transcript – See here

September 30, 2008October 11, 2018

oDesk and Me

A Couple of years ago, I would have brushed off any thought on freelancing if anyone had mentioned this as a career choice. I was happy with my 9 – 5 job, and life was going on (as it should be , with acceptable highs and lows.) Later, when the “wakeup call” hit me, it hit me hard. I decided to take a sabbatical from work, and turned to blogging to keep myself busy. Oh! Boy, I am hooked to blogging. I came across interests that I never knew existed in me. I could get in touch with few long lost friends, and make some new friends along the way. I was an 8 year old when I actually met my Blog-friend.( call it the new age pen-pal / blog-pal).

I was tired of getting typecast into Cooking – family-childcare-type of posts that were expected from a female blogger. I wanted to offer something different in my own special kind of way. It was during these times, I was searching for information on freelancing to make a blog post. So, in an attempt to gain first hand knowledge of the freelancing industry, I signed up at all major freelancing sites, oDesk , Va4U , Elance and several others (that’s from a spectrum of 10 -15 sites). I was awed at the kind of talent pool just waiting to be harnessed at all these sites, and now I was one of them.

You might be familiar with the phrase “Performance Based Incentives”. Well, I got a first hand experience of this at oDesk , one of THE BEST freelancing site ( from my own spectrum), I have come across so far for the same aforementioned reason. To prevent overbidding by service providers ( and flooding the buyer’s inbox), every oDesk user starts off with 5 bids per week. However, he can increase his / her quota of bids by taking skill tests with oDesk , ie at the end of 5 skill tests; you have about 20 bids per week.Moreover, These skill tests also put the provider on the buyer’s radar when a matching job is posted.

Although, seasoned providers don’t actually use more than 20 bids in an entire month, this matters a lot to newcomers, especially when they have to “apply for as many jobs as possible”, to get their foothold. But this is just one of the many aspects at oDesk that impressed me. Providers who stay and Buyers who come back at oDesk are professional in every sense. Others signup on a whim and expect a plum job to be handled over in a platter. It has more to do with lack of conviction and the rest is meaningless noise.

All of this started with a quest to make a single blog post on freelancing at my personal blog. I admit, I never made that post in my personal blog. Instead I now have a blog completely dedicated to freelancing and an Orkut Community to this effect. Now, who would have imagined that…. ? … ? … ?.

I no longer hold my 9- 5job, and the pay-packet is certainly not as regular as it used to be. Yet it makes me happy about the work minus the burnt out feeling coupled with the guilt of not being able to attend to family at short notice. But, Let me remind you, before my first VA-Project , I too had interview calls, that never saw the light of the day… but hey!.. don’t these things happen in the non-freelancing/ Virtual genre as well ???

September 22, 2008October 11, 2018

P2W2 – Freelancing portal with a diffrence

As a freelancer, I make it a point to visit and get acclimatized to the various freelancing portals on the WWW. This helps me to see the “skills in demand”, and also gives me an insight to hone my existing skills in accordance with this dynamic market place. There is no doubt that VA’s are self motivated individuals who are willing to go “the extra mile” for a project, being well within the reasonable limit, But the work of the virtual assistant scales up tremendously if the buyer is unable to communicate his requirement
Attention Service Buyers – Is your Project Worth Bidding for ?

Freelance marketplaces bring Service Buyers and Service Providers together so that both can mutually benefit . But in order to get the best result from the Virtual Assistant , it is of foremost importance that the Service Buyer has a well defined goal and understanding of his project requirement and communicate it as well. Just as a good project description can bring the best out of a mediocre Virtual Assistant, an equally bad project description is undoubtedly suicidal for an expert VA. It is hard reality that some Service Buyers don’t have the faintest idea of putting forth their project requirement, and “good” VAs do not bother to bid for such projects.

Project Description plays an integral part of getting the VAs to bid for your project

I understand that not all are capable of putting their requirements into words. Some times I have observed that Service Buyers whose project description is bad (to) worse, communicate much effectively over a voice conference session and are able to articulate their requirement in a more effective manner. But most freelancers do not give a second chance to such buyers. A Freelancer’s mind set says ” If his project description is so lousy, how is he going to understand / appreciate the work I will be doing. I don’t have time to sit through tutorial and walk-through session”.

P2W2 – Freelancing Marketplace with a difference
Voice Based Project Description.

Imagine my surprise, when I came across a freelance portal, which does exactly the same without having to schedule a voice conference between the Bidder and the Buyer. P2W2 – People To Work With is one such freelance market place.

What makes P2W2 really stand out is their facility to add “Voice Based Project Description” for the buyers. This does not mean “text” is out. The buyer can record his requirement and also point out the most important aspect of the project as text while posting a project. I was awed during my discussion with Chaitanya , CEO of P2w2 while taking a look at this feature..

By far, I believe this is the only portal that allows “Voice based Project description”. Now, this is what I call “Thinking out of the Box”. Not Stopping at “Voice Project Description”, P2W2 allows Voice recording for feedback and issue tracking. This is a busy world, and shows no sign of abatement. Thanks to technology. So instead of hurriedly typing some “not so meaningful” descriptions, buyers can now speak things out out. It is also noticed that, one tends to give more information while speaking, when compared to writing the same thoughts. As a bidder, I relish this feature. Once this feature kicks off with the freelancing community I am sure P2W2 is going to give other sites a run for their money.

P2w2 Blog

It was a lazy afternoon I was browsing through all my visitors who left me a comment.P2W2 blog is something I started off with an intention of a casual glance. But before I realised, I was reading away from their archives.

Most corporate blog tend to fall into the trap of “frequent updates” and do not give much needed attention to the quality of their content. But same could not be said for P2W2-blog. With an average of 4 posts per month, each post is a content to be relished. If you are in a hurry, read the headlines and comeback when you have time to pay attention. Never have I seen headlines that convey the gist in such an effective manner.

By reading no more than 2 blog posts, it becomes evident that this blog has “class”. The posts are informative and well researched. But the best part is the presentation is simple and devoid of any technical jargons

Some Interesting read are :-
1. How to Lock-in Your Clients – 1: Listen to them
2. Small business cash flow crisis: Psychology, not economics, is to blame
3. The changing rules of the game in a small business

These are my Top3 picks, tell me about yours.

August 8, 2008October 11, 2018

PPH just became 'UN friendly' – for independent providers

I visit PeoplePerHour few times a week to check if any projects matching my profile are available. Personally, I would say that PPH projects are more professional than other freelancing sites, where you see more of ‘Clone a website’ or ‘Criaglist postings’ or ‘Post our links where ever you can’ kind of projects.

You don’t need any special expertise for that. A little bit of common sense, an internet connection, lots of time, and the willingness to ‘underbid’ other bidders will land you these projects.

Given the class nature of PPH projects, and an excellent support system ( they respond within 24hrs after placing a ticket and donot leave any issue unresolved), I never felt bad for loosing to a fellow bidder. The winning bidder sure must have something more to offer.

But their recent update is shocking, disturbing and depressing for independent freelancers. We don’t stand a chance again all those Affiliates and Virtual Staffing agencies who bid with “We have the people who match the skills required for your projects”.

It makes me sad to say, I shall not be recommending PPH at any more independent providers. PPH has come up with a perfect strategy to chase their independent providers to other sites such as scriptlance, oDesk, and Get a Freelancer. Sure, they too have their restrictions on bids and other things, ( For instance oDesk gives you more bids, if you take up more skills tests). But they are more than enough for an independent provider.

Here is why I would drastically cut down on my PPH visits.
Monthly Membership fees (7.95£ – 14.95£):

Affiliates and VA staffing agencies:-
Appears affordable to me given the fact that they have ‘n’ number of freelancers ( Virtual Assistants) already in their database, all they have to do is win bids and subcontract those projects to specific VA’s in their list

Independent Providers:-
Cannot afford, unless they are already established, and have a steady income from this, and / or other bidding sites.
If you are one of those listed VA’s with these staffing agencies, then chances are you will get a project. Else, start looking elsewhere if you want to operate independently.

Service Categories
This is I guess means, you are expected to be an ‘expert’ in just one field. Lets say, you are good at writing articles, and also good at logos and banners. You also have a portfolio that support this. Yet, PPH will allow you under standard membership to place bids in EITHER copywriting projects OR Graphic projects. You cannot bid on both.

Affiliates and VA staffing agencies:-
Gold members get 2 categories to bid on and Platinum members don’t have this restriction (Lucky !). Is it just me, or do i see more Platinum members at PPH from the staffing agencies in future. After all, they need to cater to the skills of all VA’s in their database. ….

Independent Providers:-
Think, how many projects will be posted per month on ‘your’ category. Btw, did I mention that you can ‘purchase categories at 5.95£ / month’. Well, you might as well go for a gold membership. It seems to work out cheaper.

Monthly Credit allowance
Affiliates and VA staffing agencies:-
These guys get whopping 20 – 80 bids per month. Remember platinum members don’t have the service category restriction. ( who ..independent provider !)

Independent Providers:-
Not worth the time, skimming through posted projects. Did I mention you can ‘buy’ more credits at 5.95£ ( per bundle of 10). Well, if you can !.

If you are still an independent provider, you must seriously start considering finding one of these guys and get affiliated. There is no way you can win independently here.hey!.. PPH guys !, it is not just you, we are also affected by the Credit crunch

A word to independent providers
Fret all you want There is nothing you can do about this. Take a detour

A word for PPH guys.

How about allowing the buyers to present a standard set of questions which can be answered by genuine providers (who have the subject knowledge). This should eliminate most of the bogus bids.
3 bids per month for one category is practically useless. And the category restriction add insult to the injury.
Providers will act more responsibly if you would release the category restriction, and instead enforce a 5 bid per week restriction. I hope asking for 1 bid per working day (Monday – Friday ) is not too much.

Think about this guys,