Ask HN: The case for middle men in freelancing, do agents exist?

Out of the 9-5, we as freelancers or self-employed are all facing same problem: the ups and downs of the workload. And if you, like me and others, are counting on the steady stream of income to cover expenses, those gaps/downtime are horrible.

For the past several years, I've been relying on Upwork for work, and found that it's actually not that bad. Just like in the talent pool there are great freelancers and mediocre ones, there are high end clients with good projects and pay, and they try to stand out from the pack as well.

Think about it, the kind of agents that you are thinking about, who can broker work/projects between a certain type of freelancer(skills, pay, etc) with a matching type of clients, are going to be expensive and perhaps in high demand. That would be another problem you need to solve.

That's the problem platforms like Upwork is trying to solve. For me, they have a good enough solution for me to use their service. They are the agent for me.

I haven't tried them yet but 10xmanagement is pretty much exactly what you're describing. They get mentioned here from time to time. The model always sounds great to me.

https://10xmanagement.com/

It’s basically how almost all freelancers get work in Sweden, via “consultant brokers”.

Basically a bunch of sales people whom you call and say “I want an assignment and I know X, Y and Z” and they hook you up with an assignment in exchange for 5-15% of what you invoice.

I’ve been using them ever since I started in 2018 and never spent more than 1-2 hours to land a 6+ months long assignment

I was thinking about this and even tried to create a product around it. I named it a collaborative marketplace, where people collaborate to make money. Salesmen need something to sell, freelancers need more clients. This has to be a commission based, as the freelancers are not going to pay anything in advance.

Yes, they exist as the principals of multi-employee consulting firms. Keeping the worker bees busy is what a principal does if they are successful.

It's really the only model that works because having a stable of happy clients means managing production work to keep them happy. At scale, the only way to do that is control of resource allocation and the ability to scale up when called for.

The entertainment industry is not a good analogy because there is big money floating around looking for projects and projects are largely similar affairs with stable institutions supporting them like unions, guilds, and prop houses.

Maybe if I squint, I can see the principal of a consulting firm as the equivalent of a Producer, and that leads me to suggest marketing yourself to existing consulting firms as a scale-up-and-scale-down option.

A challenge is having the person estimate the projects and writing the bid proposals has to be technical.

A common pattern is someone like yourself becoming an agency by trusted hiring out to a group of freelancers. Overtime you become management, dealing with the clients and your crew of freelancers.

Our you could find one of these “hub” type people and get into their talent pool.

i think that your rate should take into account any down time.

the problem is that engineers charge rates that are too low in general. if you do the math you should be somewhere around the $500/hr figure if you are on the west coast. i fear that most people bill lower than that. which is a problem…

i think the agent model makes a lot of sense. the problem is that they have to be able to sell your value and actually do the work instead of waiting for you to do it and collect a %. another challenge i have firsthand noticed is if the agency has its own employees they might give them the work first, even if they do not have the skills. still not sure what to do with that one.

juggling multiple projects at a low rate sucks, i have been through that and have no interest in doing that again. i just want to do one thing and charge a realistic rate to stay in business. the alternative is fixed price projects but then you take on a big risk potentially….

Recruitment agencies don't exist in your country?

https://www.jobserve.com/gb/en/JobSearch.aspx?shid=2894DD3A5...

10X Management represents programmers with in-demand skills. 10X has represented me since 2013. They have consistently sent good gigs my way and taken care of the marketing, legal/contract, and invoicing/payment side for 15% of gross. Generally they negotiate higher rates than I used to get on my own. I can decide which gigs I want to take.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/programmers-pri...

Toptal works more like a traditional outsourced development shop than an agency, you might want to look at them. I haven’t worked through Toptal but friends who have or still do report consistent work but sometimes complain about low rates. Toptal reportedly requires getting through a challenging vetting process.

You’ll find these four models:

Traditional recruiters. Focused on f/t placement, paid by employer, usually geographically specialized. Barrier to entry low for this career so finding a great recruiter takes time and effort. Some recruiters will do gig/freelance placement but generally that’s not their strength.

Outsourcing firms, development shops, sometimes called “body shops.” Have their own pool of talent on their payroll. Fill seats at companies and/or take on projects. Often taking up to 50% of gross. May specialize geographically or in specific verticals, i.e. government jobs.

Online gig services, e.g. Upwork, Fiverr. More or less a self-matching service with an auction model, like eBay for gigs and talent. Main value-add is breadth of gigs and talent and handling at least some of the billing/payment process. Rates often far below local market because of global competition.

Agents, e.g. 10X Management. Do not employ talent themselves, but represent freelancers/consultants like an entertainment or sports agent. Responsible for marketing, contract/legal, billing/payment, and dealing with conflict. Take a percentage of gross.

Toptal has some attributes of the agent model and some attributes of the outsourcing firm model — I’d call them a hybrid.

Disclaimer: I have tried all of these models during my career. 10X Management has represented me since 2013.

I took the simple route: I am an employee at the cloud consulting division of one of the major cloud providers.

I get all of the benefits of consulting - remote work, varied projects, direct customer interaction, decent compensation (about 10%+ less at each level as the equivalent SDE).

I also don’t have to hunt for clients or prove myself. They automatically trust that I know what I’m talking about since I work for their cloud provider.

Yes, I could probably make more going independent if I had the network. But I make more than enough now.

As an aside: I have a firm rule against staff augmentation “consulting”. While I am hands on, my goal is to level up clients, “teach them how to fish” and put myself out of a job.