HN Explorer

Ask HN: What makes a great freelance portfolio?

30 points by invictrvs ↗ HN
We're building a new kind of portfolio site specifically for freelance developers. A place where top freelancers can share, showcase, and find high quality freelance gigs. Here's a demo of what we've built. https://theworkmob.com/demo/

44 comments

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[dead] bekeleftw
As a team with little programming experience, testimonials would be big for us. A reference we could talk to from a project you completed would be awesome as well. It's tough for teams like us to make a judgement based exclusively off looking at past work since we don't know what we're looking for.
[dead] ragingSloth
This looks like a great way to freelancers to interface with potential employers. The UX looks fantastic.
hansy
What seems to be the problem with current portfolio sites?
mttsn
(WorkMob Founder) We found that todays portfolio sites are great for freelance designers but suck for freelance software development. When work isn't visual most of todays options are not ideal. We also wanted a way to show real validated feedback from our past clients instead of having to send out referrals to every new potential client.
dip
We've found some awesome designers on dribble, I hope you guys can do the same for freelance dev's!
thenomad
Good lord, a Dribble for Devs would be absolutely wonderful.

I hate hiring devs on oDesk / Elance / etc - alternatives would be marvellous.

dynabros
are you competing with freelancer sites?
mttsn
Yes and no. We're building a place for freelance developers to share, showcase, and find new freelance gigs. We're not attempting to be a middle man in the actual transaction but to improve the process of finding the right freelancer for your specific job.
oneloop
"Top freelancers". So begginer ones arent welcome?
mttsn
We're definitely built for more experienced freelancers over beginners, but we're focused on talent over age or time : )
[dead] oneloop
"Top freelancers". So begginer ones arent welcome?
jmrobancho
As someone with little technical skills when it comes to software development, I like that I can see a person's past work and read reviews from people he/she has worked with in the past.
mttsn
What would you like to see specifically about a developers past work? Code? A walkthrough of what was built? What would be most useful?
jmrobancho
A walk through of what was built would be helpful to better understand what the project looked like (or how it functioned) before the developer came on board and what the project looked like/functioned after.

Also, knowing how a developer works best would be useful. For example, does the developer like to check in regularly or does he/she prefer a hands off experience.

svictoroff
As a freelance developer, I am very reticent to work with someone that doesn't know enough about what I do to actually review my work. However, I think people skills are important enough that I totally agree on the reviews point.
jonnathanson
Full disclosure / shameless plug: I've worked with these guys for a few months now, and they're a great team. They're freelance devs who built a site and service for freelance devs. Their approach -- matching portfolios, profiles, and feedback to available jobs -- is a good one.

There are a handful of similar services out there, and to be honest, I wish all of them well. This approach has worked for design-freelancing sites, and properly adapted and adjusted, it could work well for development projects. In the long run, the big win here will be in recommendations and semi-automation of matching portfolio signal with job characteristics. They're also doing interesting work on making the job posting, scoping, and selection process easier for nontechnical to mildly technical hirers.

notastartup
Great looking design. However, instead of outsourcing my portfolio I just got a domain and added my own stuff. check out http://appsonify.com, curious to know some actionable steps I can take to improve it. The whole thing is hosted on Amazon S3 bucket and it cost me like 50 cents in traffic so far. No need to run a static http server, just point your domain through route 53 and point it to amazon bucket.
tst
I can give you some feedback if you want. In the past I have searched freelancers in the web, app and design space. For each position I maybe look at ~200 freelancers. That means a freelancer is out on average in maybe 10 - 20 seconds.

What I like:

* You have a website

* Design is very easy and clean

* You show your references

* There's an e-mail address

What could be better:

* Your picture. If you don't want to show your face just leave it out. Otherwise take a nice picture and put it up without any effects / filters

* I don't know what you did on each of your projects. Normally, I assume that you either did the whole site or a minimal part.

Stuff that depends (if you mainly sell to technical or non-technical people):

* Your services part doesn't really describe technologies / frameworks. However, if I look for a freelancer I look for somebody knowing Django, Magento or whatever.

* Same goes for the projects

notastartup
those are great pointers, thanks a lot!
svictoroff
Actually, you don't even need to run route 53, you can just make the bucket public and do a standard dns lookup from whoever you got the domain from. That said, I think there's a huge value in having a central repository and a standard way to display a developer profile.
jlehman
I'd say that a great freelance portfolio would be one that conveys the freelancer's skills to a prospective client regardless of that clients' level of technical understanding.

It would be great to have a portfolio that could showcase a variety of different information (dynamically) catered to the person looking at that that profile.

tptacek
As someone hip-deep in professional services: consider whether the answer to "freelancing sites are terrible for software developers" is "we need better freelancer sites", or whether instead the answer is "freelancer matchmaking sites are generally not in the best interests of freelancers".

In this rare instance I think I'll try speaking for Patrick McKenzie, a fellow consultant, along with myself: we think the answer is the latter.

If you're aiming for the most lucrative work, the conversation you want to be having with prospective clients has very little to do with anything you'd put on a developer portfolio, and a lot more to do with (a) being able to speak the language of business (ie: making a credible benefits-focused pitch and understanding how "customer service" principles apply to our kind of work) and (b) being able to tailor a case study or two to a client.

The latter might sound like something you could profitably host on a freelancer site, but the kind of case study I'm talking about works more like a resume cover letter than the resume itself.

patio11
Thomas wrote substantially what I wanted to write.

Edit to expand:

So some of the features of WorkMob were easy for you to write, but are not in the best interests of many people who could potentially work for you. If your design showcases to clients that "Number of OSS projects" or "Number of Github followers" are how you rate developers, your clients might actually develop the impression that those two numbers a) matter and b) matter quite a lot.

Instead of being inspired by freelance portfolios, which devote 95% of the emphasis to What and 5% of the emphasis to Why, maybe you should look at case studies by consulting firms who are good at what they do.

One I wrote which drove substantial additional business for me: http://blog.fogcreek.com/our-marketing-is-up-fog-creek-and-w...

One which I was not involved with, but which I routinely recommend for people when they ask "How do I write a case study?": http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/seomoz-case-study/

You'll note that neither of these is particularly intensive from a features-required-to-support-the-case-study perspective. All you need is a blogging engine that lets you add images. For bonus points, email capture.

tptacek
Segmenting freelancers by technology is an even more fundamental problem with this design.
mttsn
Thanks for the detailed response Patrick,

I see your point. We're finding that we want to focus in on real validated feedback from past clients and simple case studies of the work.

We're still thinking through the actual metrics that make sense to profile, and I can definitely see that Github scores might not be very important.

I'd love to go deeper in how we can create a framework for case studies if you're free to connect offline. matt@theworkmob.com

sjs382
I hope this conversation can continue online. There's a lot to be learned from it.
mttsn
We agree that freelancer matchmaking sites are generally not in the best interests of freelancers.

We've taken the position of freelancer discovery over matchmaking. Our goal is to give freelancers a great way to be discovered by filtered clients, based on specific skills and experience qualifications.

We want make it possible for freelancers and clients to find each other more efficiently, and we're not going to be involved with the actual project or contract.

For your example, we might serve as the place where the client found the 3 consultants that were invited to pitch with a cover letter, resume, and case studies.

tptacek
The philosophical problem with all freelancer sites is that they position consultants as substitutable offerings that can be selected off a shelf. There are some fields (graphic design, for instance) where this is apparently not too damaging. But I think it's (in practice) very bad positioning for software consultants, and, not coincidentally, an unhelpful mental model for buyers to adopt.
mttsn
The PG review is not real! This is a demo of what we think an awesome freelancer portfolio should look like. Sorry if that was at all misleading.

I hear you on the "commoditization" of freelance software work, and we're actually trying to fight that. We're trying to build the freelancer site that actually built for the freelancer, and gives them a way to be found by the types of clients they're looking for. VS. what exists today where freelancers bid against each other, have to deal with shitty job descriptions, and less than awesome clients.

Would love to talk more offline if you're open to it. matt@theworkmob.com

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mttsn
So scrubbed. Good call
[dead] SalesZip
Feedback. If you have a great feedback tool, your market will grow. We at Saleszip got most of our initial clients from a market place. Ranking system also helps.
[dead] yoelhatzadik2
We used these guys to get a freelancer for a development project. The dude was LEGIT. He operated well on his own and delivered to the SOW. Keep it up guys.
[dead] BenDavidson
The ability to show validated work is invaluable. If someone made something pretty, that's nice, but I want to know if it worked as needed. If a dev portfolio site can do that, it'd be awesome.
dang
We've buried this thread for two reasons: the use of (to put it charitably) misleading material [1], and the sockpuppets posting in this thread.

I hope it's obvious that such tactics are not ok here.

1. https://theworkmob.com/demo/#/projects/hackernews-stability

invictrvs
Felt it right to respond to the bury. The Hacker News Stability project on the linked demo was not meant to mislead, only to be a sample and show planned product features. No harm or false representation was intended.

Respectfully - Travis

wglb
Sorry, The Hacker News Stability project on the linked demo was not meant to mislead

How could it not mislead? With a obviously fake quote from PG?

pbhjpbhj
It looks really bad (your [1]) until you realise that it's fictional placeholder data for an imaginary entry??! In the demo we're supposed to be looking at the UX/UI and possibilities of presenting one's portfolio rather than paying attention to the placeholder data.

That should obviously have been made clear; a large oversight.