Odesk is not that bad
my experience is different.
I am using odesk for the last 4 years spent there tens of thousands of dollars, most of the time it is incredibly useful. granted i had some failures but with "normal" hiring I had higher failure rate and each failure is much more expensive.
the biggest power of odesk is the speed of availability. within minutes i get many qualified contractors. ready to work. speed unmatched.
last week i ordered a logo from a contractor on odesk and 24 hours later costing us 44 dollars, i got a logo for my new startup. (there was a full process of selection) this logo would cost me hundreds of dollars going the normal path and will take forever. (you can see the logo at www.glue.im)
a while ago i got in trouble while administrating a server, 15 minutes later I had a great guy, a knowledgeable system admin to the rescue - problem solved. he also showed me what i did wrong $12. now i use him to save my time.
as you can see English is not my native language, 3 hours before deadline for ycombinator submission, I need a quick English fixer 30 minutes later Evan from florida is with me on skype going over the document. $50 incredible job for the time he had.
ramen profitability - at glue (http://glue.im) we try to keep burn rate low while supercharging our code writing. with Odesk and our charm, we keep burn rate < 5k while having 3 full time employees writing code + 1.5 founders. (the other half founder is writing this) we develop our mobile app on Android, iOS, and Tornado backend together. with a diverse team from England, Ukraine and Bulgaria.
9 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 25.4 ms ] threadI think Odesk is probably decent for certain businesses, but I can't imagine using it for a startup. You get tacky, inconsistent results.
I will say this though: the landing page tells me nothing about what the startup does, which IMO, is the bigger issue.
And your logo looks like a $44/24hr logo. It's unbalanced, uses simple stock colors, stock fonts and was probably tossed together in a matter of minutes. It looks like something a professional design firm would whip up internally as a way to start building mood boards and ideas to build off of.
> this logo would cost me hundreds of dollars going the normal path and will take forever.
No it wouldn't. If you're typically paying hundreds of dollars for something that looks like this you're either very bad at writing a branding/logo/identity brief or you're hiring the wrong people.
> there is a never ending stream of ... horror stories about odesk.
And your story is now one of them.
You can find cheap made in volkswagen parts in AUDI cars too.
Even if it was $8/1hr logo no one would care if the final product was good enough.
MDX, I fear that you're being flagged only because you took a stance (go you! :) ), and that stance doesn't keep the 'bigger picture' in mind. Allow me to elaborate -
Any branding around that price is going to yield something that simply says "Try us out. We're serious about what we're doing, but we haven't reached success yet". Once more successful, sure, they should look to spend thousands on branding; it'll be worth it. But even if the OP had spent twice the amount (still <$100!), they would still be delivering the same message.
What's more important - and this is the OP's argument, and which I am supporting - is that his Odesk experience was positive because of the time saved, i.e. the "Ship Shit Quickly Principle". The cost difference for finding an equivalent logo (say, -$20 or -$30) is minimal compared to the opportunity cost of spending time searching for such a logo. Instead, the logo "does the job" - it's not perfect (or even good), but it presents a fun, memorable brand and getting it done quickly (which is what Odesk allowed him to do) allows OP to focus on the other important facets of their startup (which hasn't even launched yet).
Of course, I might have the 'bigger picture' wrong or even share a flawed view with the OP. In that case, I invite explanations against this view.
P.s., OP, and this may not be your priority... but I have no idea what glue.im does; "gluing phones together" doesn't mean anything to me :( (though is a fun catchphrase that I'm sure will make sense :) )
If you're a freelancer, oDesk is awesome. It doesn't mean you have to charge any less than you normally would. When I hire people on oDesk, I filter all the developers that charge a low rate. I've found they are not worth the headache.
So don't think you need to compete on price, there are a lot of contractors like me looking for high quality designers/developers and are willing to pay for it.