Ask HN: Would you like a referral fee for projects you can't do now?

1 points by marcamillion 9y ago ↗ HN

As a freelance developer, I deal with the typical feast & famine problem of projects. Some times during the year, I get lots of project requests and other times I get none. When I have lots, I leave a lot of money on the table because I usually am up to my ears and I don't want to take on any more nor do I want to hire someone.

But when I am free, I have to start looking for projects again.

Then it occurred to me that I would love to be able to pass along the excess projects I get, for a referral fee (say 5% of the value of the project). But the obvious issue with that is that I would need to have a constant network of developers with different skillsets that can competently complete those projects.

So what I would like to do is develop a network that does two things.

1. Rewards you for passing along a project/client. 2. Manages the completion of those projects.

So my questions to HN are: 1. Do you have excess projects that you get from time-to-time that you would be willing to pass along to a network like this? 2. Do you have projects that you would like completed where other marketplaces/platforms haven't worked well for you? If so, would you care to share your concerns. 3. Would you want to be a participant in this network to work on projects/gigs that are passed along to you?

Another thing I was thinking is that say you have a project you want to pass along, but you want to project manage it (almost like being a product owner), then we could facilitate that for a higher fee than the 5%.

All of this is obviously very immature, and still at the idea stage.

I would love your feedback on everything, how I can improve the idea, what are things I am not considering, etc.

4 comments

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jwong_ 9y ago ↗

Don't sites like upwork do the same thing? The referrer is Upwork, the fee is whatever Upwork charges.

The only real difference is personal referral, but in that case, you'd probably want to actually know the person, and not have a huge network. This plays into whatever developer review systems sites like Upwork have.

marcamillion 9y ago ↗

Not sure if Upwork does it, but Upwork is the antithesis of the type of network that I am interested in building.

The projects you get are usually bottom of the barrel.

I have no interest in those types of projects.

Yeah, Upwork is terrible, but that's because it is trying to compete on scale and price.

It seems the idea you have is a way to pass on high-quality projects that you'd otherwise take, to someone you know and can vet. You'd likely have someone in mind already, versus having it be a huge network of other people.

Unless you wanted to hire someone who administers this group, and keeps it close-knit so that people don't dump crap projects onto good workers, or good projects to crap workers, I don't see how this can work. I don't see it as being able to grow very much besides a group of friends or former colleagues.

Yeh this is exactly the problem I am trying to solve.

Not quite sure how to do that though, and if it is even possible.