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Ask HN: Is it me or there aren't many jobsites for freelancers?

9 points by mythriel ↗ HN
After quitting my job I found that being a freelancer is not a easy thing. I got a lot of emails and call phones from employers, but only 1 email from a client that wanted some freelancing work on a project that I wasn't too fond of. I see a lot of good job postings, but for freelancers I don't see so many opportunities if you do not market yourself and do not start looking for projects and sacrifice a lot of time ,that you could be coding, on marketing yourself. Elance from my point of view is really bad for good developers and for developers that want to work on interesting stuff. Also the payment is low on that site and it is a bidding war with developers that work for 10-15$/h. Am I missing something or this is the truth that if you want to be a successful freelancer you need to work hard on your marketing plan? Are there better websites than Elance where good freelancers can find projects? I am really thinking of making a platform for good freelancers where they can be matched with interesting projects and high paying clients. Not sure tho if this hasn't been done or if it is a good idea.

7 comments

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dlrush
I think your general reaction is correct. The successful sites for freelancers are engaged in a race to the bottom since they are open to and often overwhelmed with offshore developers.

There is plenty of opportunity for new sites to solve this problem in various ways. Specialized skill sets, the ability to do onsite work, training+coding, all provide angles that I believe could be effective, potentially each as the basis for standalone services.

I've contemplated the idea of a marketing site to promote a very specific service: - 2 Days Onsite: 1 Day Training, 1 Day Hacking with Your Team - 3 Topics to choose from: * High Performance Rails, * Customized ElasticSearch, OR * Ember.JS-enable your App

No offshore firm could provide this service, and few freelancers tout their most specialized skills effectively.

mythriel
Your idea is really awesome....also I think a site like this would be bring better quality to the web development or for those clients that look for quality. Really the quality on Elance is so low that someone showed me a project made with an offshore freelancer and the website has no security at all...not 1 database query is sanitized.
IsaacL
There's a few sites focusing on offering a "vetted freelance marketplace" of some description. Toptal, Scoutzie, and one or two others that I can't remember the name of right now.

I actually just quit working on a startup that aimed to do exactly that: http://endorse.io. Turns out that some of the bigger sites, PeoplePerHour and especially oDesk are already working hard on ways to ensure quality of their workers. Although oDesk has lots of cheap third world coders, too, I've known first world contractors get lots of quality jobs through there.

But yeah, if you're actually looking for work, try tapping your network and hitting up local tech meetups. I found a tech recruiter through my university alumni network who gave me some useful pointers about the London freelance market, so try that as well.

sharemywin
I usally do fixed bid on these sites. I'v been able to find kinect programmers using the point cloud library to tell the difference between the wall and things in front of the wall. This is pretty complex programming and I paid $300 for this. I think it's a myth to assume you can't find good workers on these sites.
websitescenes
Best clients for freelancers are actually web development companies. I have worked as a freelancer for It companies, web development firms and graphic design/marketing agencies. Find companies in your area that are over loaded and offer a helping hand.
tzaman
Although the wording on our landing page (https://codeable.io) may be slightly off, this is exactly what we are after. We hand-pick and invite high quality freelancers to work through us, there is no bidding and they all have clear guidelines about pricing ($35 - $70 per hour, depending on complexity).

We are focused on WordPress for now, but long term plans to venture into other CMSs, frameworks and languages also exist.

mythriel
Hmm...wordpress...not really inspires quality but meh...how can a developer join codeable?