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Ask HN: Freelancers, what do you think of this idea?

10 points by vsakos ↗ HN
Being a student sometimes I found myself in a situation where I have a hour or two free time and I'm really border. The first thought was that I can do some freelance work to earn some money, but freelancing sites doesn't work that way, you have to bid, wait and pray you will be accepted for the job.

I thought maybe I can build some freelancing website where you can find short jobs that you can finish in half to 2-3 hours, like fixing bugs, errors in programs, writing articles, etc. Think of it like "Freelancer for short jobs".

The idea is that you can get jobs really fast, like in 10 min, but I haven't decided yet the model it will using:

a. Freelancers offer their services (like on Fiverr), but they will have to set their status as "Now available", and employers can browser only currently available freelancers

b. Employers post jobs, freelancers place bids, and the employer have to respond to every bid (to accept/reject it) within 10 min (since the point of the service is to get jobs instantly)

c. Both a. and b.

Now, I'm looking for the answer of two questions:

1. Is there a website/company already providing service like this?

2. Would people use this? Would you use this?

8 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 31.4 ms ] thread
radnam
I think this is rather interesting. Problem I see is, most coding jobs require you to have quite some context around the code you are working with. If there was a way to work around this or target some nice (e.g., visual design) that should be interesting.
nphyte
1. i haven't seen one yet. Also initially you might wanto focus on getting a few users as opposed to thinking of competition.

2. Would use it, provided there is a decentish flow of paid projects

Duhveed
I like it. I agree that there are limits to what can be accomplished in such a short timeframe, but there's plenty of work that could fall within those constraints. I'm often asked for opinions that don't involve code at all, just an overview of the tech that's out there that could be applied to a given problem. That sort of thing could easily fall in to a couple hour time frame. It could be the twitter of freelancing. :)
Duhveed
Oh, and to veer back to being on-topic, I'd likely use it and I don't know of another service like it.
mlwarren
I'd use this and I don't know of another service that does this.
bbcbasic
I would have used it back in the day when I used Fiverr alot.

Your idea is probably good for low-skill tasks where anyone could do it. For something specialised, for arguments sake I need an XSLT expert, I would probably still go for a traditional freelance site.

Another advantage of your idea is any problem that needs close interaction. Tutoring and coaching spring to mind but I am sure there are other scenarios.