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Casual Contracting - our contract work website (casualcontracting.com)

35 points by chrispesto ↗ HN
Hey guys, we just hacked together this little site for casual contracting. The premise is there's no long-term commitment / equity payment nonsense. This is for small, quick cash jobs that take less than 40 hours (maybe a website proof of concept, for example). We think RentACoder, Elance and the like are too centered on heavyweight, long-term projects with extended commitments. We'd hope this would be something a Hacker News user might use to earn some extra money on the side. There are invite codes on Twitter http://twitter.com/casualcontract.

60 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] thread
chrispesto
Hey guys, we just hacked together this little site for casual contracting. The premise is there's no long-term commitment / equity payment nonsense. This is for small, quick cash jobs that take less than 40 hours (maybe a website proof of concept, for example). We think RentACoder, Elance and the like are too centered on heavyweight, long-term projects with extended commitments. We'd hope this would be something a Hacker News user might use to earn some extra money on the side. There are invite codes on Twitter http://twitter.com/casualcontract.
rhizome
Mailing list only? As in email?
orenmazor
it kind of makes sense, I think.

I'm constantly spammed by various notifications of all kinds, but email always is the highest priority way to reach me.

rhizome
That's what makes it ripe for abuse, and not something I'd elect to without some kind of up-front guarantee.
chrispesto
@rhizome Yes, that's a good point. We really want to focus on quality - both for developers and projects. That's why we're using invite codes. We're starting with them on Hacker News because we want to get things rolling, but we will focus on curating more.
orenmazor
thats true, but you just have to police it very, very tightly. if this service doesn't work out for me, I'll unsubscribe and filter (if I have to).
kaffeinecoma
Are you planning on handling the money aspect (i.e. escrow) of consulting, like elance/odesk do? Or is this more of an introduction service?
omarish
We'd like to focus on introductions. Handling payments can be somewhat arduous. Would you be more/less comfortable with the service if it handled the financial aspects as well?
dbalatero
<40hrs is a perfect time commitment for me when it comes to side work. Thanks for putting this together, and hopefully it works out for everyone!
chrispesto
@dbalatero Yeah, that's taken from our personal experience and preference for no long term commitments in contract work. I'm glad you like the idea!
kschua
I like the idea and am trying to join in but it is really annoying to try to get the invite code that is working.

Entering one that is already used requires me to cut and past another one and fill in my password again.

On another note, isn't $99 a bit steep for people to list their projects? I believe Rent a coder charges less for this, though the charges are borne by the developer

peng
A higher listing fee results in less inbox spam and--in general--higher quality clients. A win-win.
shaggyfrog
It all depends on the quality of the talent pool from which you select. I paid $99 to get a job posted on authenticjobs, and while there was still a lot of chaff to wade through, it was less than what I got with Craigslist, and there were more suitable candidates to choose from.
omarish
Sorry about that! I'll remove the used codes from our twitter feed. Thanks for the feedback so far.
simmons
I got signed up (I think), but I can't log in because my email address has more than 30 characters!
omarish
Ouch, that's our fault. I'll get it fixed. Could you please email me? omar.bohsali@gmail.com.
angryasian
wtf, whats the point of having the invite code if you are just giving them away on twitter. Its more of an annoyance.
chrispesto
@angryasian Well, we are starting with the invite codes on Hacker News because we feel like developer quality is probably pretty good here and we need to get the site going. We are working right now on a more long term way to scale up the number of developers and still maintain high quality.
martinkallstrom
I think you should have patience with this and be very careful to not let someone in just because (s)he's a HN reader. I, for one, am a crappy coder after five years in the CEO seat of my startup.
martinkallstrom
It's steep if you don't get someone to take on your project. There should be a money back guarantee.
jarin
It's not bad at all if there is a quality pool of developers. 37signals charged $100 for a 30 day gig listing when they had gigs on their job board, and the job board doesn't email anyone.
[dead] jpadilla
Wow, I was definitely looking for something like this yesterday. I was looking for quick freelance work on Forrst, Elance(which is way to annoying to even get started), FreelanceSwitch... All of those(except probably Forrst) have tons of projects which are not that cool and/or require too much time. So Casual Contracting is a great idea, so I just subscribed! Cheers!
logicalmike
The "Your Skills" field on the "My Settings" page is showing my password.

Site looks great otherwise. Looking forward to seeing what pops up.

alextebbs
I am getting the same issue. Also cannot seem to modify any fields on the 'My Settings' page.
reinhardt
Yeap, edit doesn't work here either.
chrispesto
We're working on fixing it right now! Thanks for the feedback.
chrispesto
Sorry guys, we're working on that. Should be fixed soon.
sam26880
can you send an invite code please?
chrispesto
Hey guys, the Settings page bugs should be fixed now. Thanks!
ddagradi
Did you type your password twice? Pretty sure the second field was "My Skills". I almost submitted that accidentally too.
rpwilcox
Nice idea. I especially like the <40 hour jobs only - makes estimating much easier. Also, the $100 fee for projects to enter weeds out the low-ball projects that want 12 hours of work for $50.
chrispesto
@rpwilcox Yes, that requirement is taken from our personal experience / preferences. We like contract work because it's varied and interesting, but we don't want a long term commitment that turns into a full-time job.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
shaggyfrog
I'm hoping I can use this site both as a contractor and as a client with the same login. Will that be possible?
omarish
Great point. This is in the works right now; we'll get it working shortly.
chopsueyar
Also, how to change password?
chrispesto
Yeah, we need to put that on there today. This was really going for the minimum viable product. We wanted to see if there was interest, and apparently there is!
jlvarner
I'm getting this error when I try to log in:

Ensure this value has at most 30 characters (it has 36).

There was an error during the sign up as well, but on the next attempt it told me that e-mail was already in the system.

chrispesto
@jlvarner Sorry, we'll look into this.
scottyallen
Love the idea. The concept of short, self-contained projects is really appealing, particularly if they're for high quality clients.
chrispesto
@scottyallen Thanks! Short and self-contained is kind of the ideal for us, too. We think lots of good developers like that kind of work so they have the free mindshare for their other big ideas.
reinhardt
After the reported bugs are ironed out, can you also add a 'weekly' option to email frequency? Thanks for the invites!
jarin
Looks great, and I'd like to sign up, but having single-use invite codes and putting them on Twitter is kind of a pain. I tried 3 or 4 that didn't work, so I guess I'll sign up if I ever see it around again.
omarish
Got it. I just sent a working invite to your email. Enjoy.
jarin
Thanks! I'll try to send along some clients too, I get requests here and there that I can't take on for whatever reason.
joshontheweb
Would have signed up also, but Im not going to hunt around and try a bunch of invite codes that may or may not work.
omarish
Could you @omarish on twitter?
snorkel
I'd like to be able search/browse the available projects before signing up.
endlessvoid94
Yeah, sorry. I just tried 3 of the invite codes on your twitter account and none of them worked. Wtf? This is an unnecessarily high barrier, and will probably alienate many, many potential users.

EDIT: I am a total hypocrite and found an invite that works. Looking forward to it.

masonicb00m
i'm interested. can i get an invite code?
omarish
Yup - just sent one to the address on your google plus.
garethsprice
Good grief, talk about manufactured scarcity.

I am a senior developer who takes on side work, but I'm too busy working on client projects to be watching your Twitter feed all evening and pasting in codes hoping that one works.

Why not just post an invite code in the thread that's good for 24 hours?

omarish
Thanks for your feedback.

We spent a lot of time thinking through a rational strategy that would a) spur a developer list while b) managing growth and ensuring top-quality developers. It could look like manufactured scarcity right now, as we have people coming in from only one channel (HN).

We wanted to test our larger invitation strategy on a smaller cohort of people first, which is why we opted to do invite codes with the HN crowd.

Either way, I couldn't find a twitter or email address in your info. Could you please contact me: omar.bohsali@gmail.com / @omarish? I'll pass you an invite code.

Again, thanks for the great feedback.

garethsprice
Thanks for the response Omar! Glad to see that you're having trouble keeping up - means that your idea is being well validated!

Here's a few items I noticed after logging in that I e-mailed to you, thought I'd post here to see if anyone else on HNN had feedback.

After signing in:

1. Would be good to see a list of projects that have already been submitted that can be searched, or if you're e-mail focused, an archive of past projects.

2. Would also be interesting to see a list of other users (if they opt in to the public list?) and/or information on what other skills people are listing.

3. Also, as it's an invite-only site it does have some level of exclusivity, so a public profile with a dofollow link to my website would be another incentive to sign up and maintain my profile. Actually, the exclusivity angle might be an interesting way of attracting high-end/well paying clients (see: A Small World).

Vivtek
I seem to have broken the signup (or, more likely, you may have) - after trying new tokens w/o success for a while, I was presented with a login strip across the top of the page with Chrome's guess at my password. But the login doesn't actually work - and yet I can't get to the signup page again either.

I allowed Chrome to save the password on this final step, so that might be the problem.

omarish
Just followed up with an email. Sorry for the trouble!
joebo
how do i know it's high quality developers or high quality clients? do you screen somehow?