Really neat interface. Also thanks for making developer/designer/copywriter checkboxes instead of radio.
Update: I just received an email with URL to edit my profile without having to create/remember password. Very neat but one problem: It's http. You really should make that https, especially when you start dealing with paying customers.
* Setting the expectation up front that these are paid projects
* Longer duration than a weekend's time
* Copywriting/Illustration as well
* Working on integrating with Forrst which should bring in many of the 40k members who're available for work, as well as making use of our reputation engine
Thanks for this. I've certainly got nothing against WH. I actually would rather Tinyproj not venture into the barter/cofounder space - others are doing that well already :)
I like the idea, but I would feel a lot more comfortable about "1,000 rad folks" if the site gives an idea of what kind of these people are. For instance, these are top 250 users in the category on Forrst. Sample profiles would help as well.
Because it's a popular way of showcasing one's work on Dribbble - a bigger and more successful Forrst competitor. A way that is also incidentally forbidden on Forrst itself.
I've noticed this need as well, and launched something similar: http://gun.io
It's free for Open Source, and a 10% fee for non-Free projects. Winner-take-all!
Hopefully we'll both work to create a culture which helps independent developers help each other. Good luck! Email me if you're interested in collaboration.
This space is interesting. A friend and I have been doing a weekend project in the same space: http://casualcontracting.com. Similar idea, but listing a project is free and it's invite-only for developers.
We'd definitely be interested in talking with you guys as well. Email is in my profile.
That would be awesome. The more collaboration in this space, rather than the competition, is what will make it amazing for those looking for work or hackers/designers/etc.
Kyle, huge fan, and we've talked via Skype in the past, so I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I'm curious...why not create this as part of Forrst instead of as a separate venture? It seems like you could get some reach, while also adding value to the people paying a monthly supporter fee.
I think this service looks great, but I'm bummed that it was integrated as a supporter benefit.
Edit: I see now that it is a benefit to Forrst members, but in the opposite way I had predicted. Any plans to allow the trading of acorns for job posts? Sometimes it's nice to have backup on projects :)
We can't really release the kind of quick, experimental MVP projects that I'm such a fan of on Forrst since we've got 40k people who will notice a lack of polish and so forth. I wanted to vet this idea quickly without the overhead of expectations from the community. That's not to say this won't be rolled back in somehow. That's a good idea about Acorns, I'll put some thought into it :) And no worries -- totally appreciate the question's directness.
They send an email every Saturday? That seems somewhat.. not very useful. A site with a list of projects and the number of interested bids and such would work much better.
Thanks. We'll see how it works out, but yes, that was the intention. I get 6 days to moderate and queue up projects for the next email. Plus, I like the idea of a low/no-effort set up for the talent side -- they get an email they can skim at their leisure, no browsing around and trawling for job listings on a site.
An odd comment I know but this is the second time Ive seen "made in NYC" today in the footer of a webpage. Don't know what to make of it. Perhaps I'll add made in Tijuana to mine?
Anyone can read about it, but you're free to use a pseudonym and generic email address. There is craigslist-style email anonymity, so you get to obscure your identity as long as you'd like to.
I like this idea a lot. I wish you could just view the listings on the site instead of having to wait for a weekly email. That's what I was expecting, and having to wait is just annoying.
I personally like the idea of getting the listings on email. Having the list of jobs online seems more vulnerable for spam. Let's see how it evolves. Thanks
I'm interesting in submitting a project but I don't know how much to offer for it. In a "marketplace" you get to see what other people are offering and what's being accepted. I'd like to see this sort of information.
How is this different than the ten thousand established freelance sites it's competing with? Everything from guru to odesk to rentacoder to scriptlance already does what this does, as well as handling payment and rating developers.
The Freelance game has plenty of problems, but frankly a shortage of places to post jobs is not one of them.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, though I'm focusing specifically on short-term work. It's also a set it and forget it scenario for the talent -- they just get stuff delivered. At the end of the day, it's an experiment and something interesting to work on that could benefit my day job, Forrst, pretty substantially.
Exactly my point. So are those ten thousand bottom scraper sites I mention.
What I'm asking is how you intend to stop the same people who post their "Groupon Clone: $500 budget" nonsense on those 'lance sites off your list?
And how you're planning to stop the 100-500 "sir, we are professional A++++++++ software firm. we review your project and are ready to start immediately" responses that will be auto-spammed to every job on your list?
Those are actually good problems to solve, and a site that solved them would be a great win for the small fraction of freelance work that's actually conducted above board by talented developers and non-flaky clients. But a quick spin through what you've presented here makes it seem like your quick & dirty approach will actually amplify those problems.
On the project side, I hand approve every post. Spam/recruiter junk/etc. gets deleted and the email address blacklisted.
For the talent side, yes, you're right; there's a good potential for A++++++++ firm nonsense.
The quick and dirty approach is probably not accurately reflecting the work I've put in/will be putting in behind the scenes, through methods we've developed at Forrst for dealing with reputation, throttling one's ability to mass-contact project owners, anonymizing email on both sides with a one-click "this is spam" function, and so forth.
Ultimately, I agree -- they're great (and hard) problems to solve, and I'm eager to do so.
Project approval will likely just be a matter of human scale. It takes < 1 min to figure out if it's going to be approved or not. I do have a bunch of automation around stuff like "this isn't quite ready to go out because of X/Y/Z, click here to edit it" and so forth.
Talent side is more interesting. I'm leveraging Forrst's reputation engine to do some behind the scenes ranking of users, at least for the users who have Forrst accounts. Have sketched out some other ideas, but first want to see how the first email fares.
As to whether this works the way I'm anticipating, only time will tell! I'm predicting, though, that this works as a nice adjunct to directly contacting designers (or anyone else) -- you never know who you're missing, after all. If I've learned one thing from Forrst, it's that for every well-known designer (or developer) out there, there are scores of undiscovered, awesome designers waiting to knock it out of the park on your project.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] threadUpdate: I just received an email with URL to edit my profile without having to create/remember password. Very neat but one problem: It's http. You really should make that https, especially when you start dealing with paying customers.
You're welcome. It's the same on the project side, so should be interesting to see how the targeting works out.
* Longer duration than a weekend's time
* Copywriting/Illustration as well
* Working on integrating with Forrst which should bring in many of the 40k members who're available for work, as well as making use of our reputation engine
a) TinyProj is focused on exchanging work for dollars, WH leaves it open to barter, finding co-founders, etc.
b) TinyProj has an actual user interface for input vs. WH which asks you to write an email.
c) WH is FREE, TinyProj is $25
For now. As TinyProj and when it taps into the Forrst userbase, you'll be looking at a solid, skillful, and numerous candidates.
In any case, signed up :P great idea btw
Thanks btw! :)
The ones interested make it known and then you can get in contact with them and decide who you wanna work for.
It's free for Open Source, and a 10% fee for non-Free projects. Winner-take-all!
Hopefully we'll both work to create a culture which helps independent developers help each other. Good luck! Email me if you're interested in collaboration.
We'd definitely be interested in talking with you guys as well. Email is in my profile.
I think this service looks great, but I'm bummed that it was integrated as a supporter benefit.
Edit: I see now that it is a benefit to Forrst members, but in the opposite way I had predicted. Any plans to allow the trading of acorns for job posts? Sometimes it's nice to have backup on projects :)
enjoy
I'm in semi-stealth. I want few people to know what my project is, and nobody to know that it's mine (except the designer).
Few points:
Good luck on your project. Lets see if you are able to find someone for our project.Maybe we can help each other out :)
The Freelance game has plenty of problems, but frankly a shortage of places to post jobs is not one of them.
Exactly my point. So are those ten thousand bottom scraper sites I mention.
What I'm asking is how you intend to stop the same people who post their "Groupon Clone: $500 budget" nonsense on those 'lance sites off your list?
And how you're planning to stop the 100-500 "sir, we are professional A++++++++ software firm. we review your project and are ready to start immediately" responses that will be auto-spammed to every job on your list?
Those are actually good problems to solve, and a site that solved them would be a great win for the small fraction of freelance work that's actually conducted above board by talented developers and non-flaky clients. But a quick spin through what you've presented here makes it seem like your quick & dirty approach will actually amplify those problems.
On the project side, I hand approve every post. Spam/recruiter junk/etc. gets deleted and the email address blacklisted.
For the talent side, yes, you're right; there's a good potential for A++++++++ firm nonsense.
The quick and dirty approach is probably not accurately reflecting the work I've put in/will be putting in behind the scenes, through methods we've developed at Forrst for dealing with reputation, throttling one's ability to mass-contact project owners, anonymizing email on both sides with a one-click "this is spam" function, and so forth.
Ultimately, I agree -- they're great (and hard) problems to solve, and I'm eager to do so.
Do you have a plan for scaling that up? ("I'm gonna hire more warm bodies" is an acceptable answer, imo.)
Talent side is more interesting. I'm leveraging Forrst's reputation engine to do some behind the scenes ranking of users, at least for the users who have Forrst accounts. Have sketched out some other ideas, but first want to see how the first email fares.
Is this a good way to get designers, I wonder? The alternative that seems that it might work better, browsing portfolios and contacting your favourite designers, as written by Andrew: http://andrewseddon.com/post/3402344430/how-to-find-a-design...
As to whether this works the way I'm anticipating, only time will tell! I'm predicting, though, that this works as a nice adjunct to directly contacting designers (or anyone else) -- you never know who you're missing, after all. If I've learned one thing from Forrst, it's that for every well-known designer (or developer) out there, there are scores of undiscovered, awesome designers waiting to knock it out of the park on your project.