Freelancing is a two-way street
I wanted to talk about some of the questions I’ve been asked recently about Speedlancer. A lot of people have been looking to learn more about the way we work (and how we are different), what makes us a good choice for freelancers who want to make additional income and why we believe in our mission so strongly.
For freelancers, we see Speedlancer as being a lot like Uber is in practice. In fact, Inc.com called us the Uber of Freelancing, in that we’re a gap-filler; an opportunity to supplement your income.
We recognise that the idea of building a side-hustle is more and more attractive to professionals who want to add to their cash flow (the Gig Economy everyone is talking all about!), save for a big purchase or put away money for their own future.
… Or simply as a way to take on interesting pieces of work to expand their repertoire. We don’t see the gig economy as having to be a replacement for full-time work, but rather it can empower freelancers to generate more income on-demand when it’s convenient for them.
Old freelancing platforms, and the old way of freelancing, are flawed.
The issue I see is that talented freelancers should NOT need to hunt for work. They should be on an equal playing field with every other talented freelancer and be able to take work when it is available.
As Mitchell Allen (one of our Speedlancers) wrote in an open-letter, Speedlancer turns the freelance economy from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market:
Instead of freelancers bidding for posted projects and letting the employers pick (possibly on price), why not have the employers tell the freelancers how much they will pay for a specific gig? Just as the traditional model is a buyers’ market, Stone’s model leads to a sellers’ market.
If the freelancers don’t feel that the price doesn’t adequately reflect the amount of work requested (25.00 for a website? Really, Mr. CEO?), the gig is ignored until it expires in ignominy. This should teach the employers to be more realistic / less stingy.
According to Upwork’s own research in 2015, for 51% of freelance jobs it took freelancers at least 1–3 days just to source the job (in some cases, it took over a month).
Moreover, the report showed that 76% of freelancers are concerned about unpredictable income, 68% concerned about difficulty in finding clients, and 65% concerned about late payment. Crazy!
Still, the above research neglects to point out that freelance employers don’t emphasise freelance job training, nor do they consider the needs of niche freelancers who prefer to focus on their specific skill-sets.
Therefore, freelancers are often siloed in the companies they work for, without access to work in a team environment, meaning they aren’t able to collaborate as one naturally would to deliver impactful projects.
At Speedlancer, that’s the way a lot of our curated tasks and Bundles have been designed — as work that can be accomplished by talented freelancers on the go without extensive back and forth messaging, letting them tick off tasks and make money without adding stress to their working lives.
Our pro writing Speedlancers for example have created content for The Guardian, Inc, Huffington Post and other platforms, and through Speedlancer they’re able to write blog posts for clients on our platform and make the equivalent of USD$60+ per hour. The same is true for our designers, developers, programmers, researchers and VAs. We think we have a fair, equitable and pretty awesome setup.
Not only that, but we don’t require any job hunting, interviewing, negotiating, endless revisions, nor payment follow-ups which can easily take up a majority of a freelancer’s time.
One of the most positive parts of the platform is that there is no bidding on projects, meaning our Speedlancers can’t undercut each other or be undercut by overseas freelancers who are able to charge a lower rate. We are democratic; that’s the seller’s market Mitch mentioned in his letter. It’s our way of pushing back against the de-valuing of freelance workers. On our platform, you’ll never be asked to write a blog post for $10. It just doesn’t happen! (and if it does slip through as a ‘custom task’ from a customer, nobody would be crazy enough to pick it up before our admins remove it from our system)
We believe that every single task and Bundle has a fair tag on it that can empower our freelancers to make money when and whenever they need to. We let the market inform the prices by discovering what buyers are willing to pay and what amount our freelancers consider equitable for a given task. We are in constant communication with our freelancers to keep that balanced out.
There’s a lot more room on the platform too — with our custom tasks, clients on our platform can order bigger and more involved projects, pitch their price and have work completed at a first-class level, while our Speedlancers get to enjoy the added income of a bigger project, again without even bidding or applying for it! It’s handed to them on the silver-platter that should have always existed, but for some reason they have forever been deprived of.
Here’s a testimonial from another one of our pros, Fiona McAlpine (a human rights lawyer for Human Rights Watch):
My name is Fiona. I’m a co-founder at The Fabric Social — a Melbourne and India based conscious clothing company with one important difference. We work exclusively with women in war torn areas, with the aim of ending their economic isolation and rebuilding the social fabric of their communities. Our pilot project works with silk and cotton weavers in Northeast India, creating ethical fashion for the Australian market.
As the head of fundraising and communications I love my job, but working in the social enterprise space is hard on the hip pocket. Most co-founders famously don’t make any money on their new business for the first two years. This is why I sought out freelance writing work, so that I could make a little bit of extra money on the side.
Last July quite suddenly, my partner was offered his dream job in Silicon Valley, so we packed up all our things and moved to San Francisco. I … was working remotely with my team in Australia and India. I had a big gap in the middle of the day where our time zones didn’t overlap, and I found Speedlancer as an ideal way to utilize those daytime hours and make a little extra cash.
Coming from the not-for-profit world, I have worked as an unpaid intern for years doing report writing, grant writing, press releases and web copy. It was great to be able to put these skills to work in short bursts, and to be paid for it. I am always on the move and always busy, so Speedlancer was ideal for me. I love the four hour window to get something done, the 24-hour model, and the fact that I could be based anywhere geographically. I completed tasks in Melbourne, Delhi and San Francisco.
I’ve tried a few other freelancing sites which have poor transparency and ridiculously low returns for the amount of work. I have come to know the Speedlancer team because they are very open and responsive to questions I had. I’ve recommended Speedlancer to several friends, and will continue to do so!
Fiona’s story tends to be pretty typical of what we’re seeing at Speedlancer — as you can see in the word-map above which covers 1000+ real Speedlancer applicants! :)
Our Speedlancers are talented, well trained and seasoned professionals , and they use the platform as a stop-gap to make money, achieve a little more independence, gain a wider-variety of experience, and reach the flexibility that they need, without being undercut and underbid and devalued.
That’s why we believe so much in what we’re doing. We can see the hugely positive impact that our platform has for our pros.
Speedlancer is a platform that really has been built with our freelancers’ best interests at heart. It’s a platform that’s designed to be as fair and equitable as possible, while also being a competitive option in the freelance space.
We are the future of project-based work, and I cannot wait to show the world what we have in store next!
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I’d love to invite every single one of you to check out the platform. I believe in it, I love working on it, and I can’t wait to do some big things.
