Elance, Rent-a-Coder, Freelancer, and other Freelancing sites are Terrible

A big Thumbs Up for you Brian. I tried to work with Elance before, and they are Terrible.

A lot of these types try to at least impress you with a lot of fluff. They don't even attempt to do that. They are just a bunch of noise but there's no music.

Bev King, Virtual Assistant

Thanks for posting this article! Hopefully others will review this before signing up with these companies. I had a terrible experience with rent a coder. I have not worked with the others. I totally agree with you Bev!

I'm really glad that the article resonated with you guys!

The painful experiences that my friends and I have had doing freelance work has inspired me and my team to create a new type of marketplace! One that gives people complete freedom to do their business, saves them time, and leads to better results!!

Our mission is to create a marketplace that makes clients and freelancers happy!

Elance. rentacoder, and getafreelancer are all the same - bidding blind while the site blocks your ability to directly contact the customer outside of pm. It's a great deal for elance who get a piece of each transation.

Brian - the marketplace you are working on sounds interesting. Please keep me in the loop on launch. We too have had our challenges with freelance sites. We however create detailed RFQ's and project descriptions that we require to be signed before a provider is chosen. Of course this doesn't always assure that the project will be completed correctly but it does help. It also helps that we ourselves are programmers and techie people so we can better communicate project details. I think there are many issues going on here much of which you already detailed.

1. Complete project descriptions are not given so there are no clear guidelines to the freelancer. The freelancer is then expected to bid a flat fee on a project that has not been detailed or communicated well.

2. Freelancers on these sites try to low-ball each other to get the job. Our company always dis-regards low ball bids but then again we understand what it takes to complete a project.

3. It is too easy for freelancers to drop off and just stop communicating (no accountability).

4. You are not always hiring who you think. Oftentimes who you hire is a project manager who pushes the project down. We have had this issue going through professional US based companies too. You know the ones that charge 5x as much and claim they only have top level, highly skilled programmers? These companies often act as the project managers and simply push the project down to low-level programmers. This is even worse because you now have to deal with an extra layer of communication. I guess what I am trying to say is these issues are not only present through the sites you mentioned but the freelance (contract) industry in general.

4. Often times project owners don't understand how things really work. They do not have an understanding on programming, web development, etc. so do not have a realistic view of what a project really takes to complete. They can not effectively troubleshoot or test the delivered project because they don't have the skills to get into the code or backend to see how things look/work.

We personally never outsource core business development. It is just too risky. We do all core business development in house and will only outsource small projects. If your new system addresses many of the things I outlined above we will absolutely check it out.

Misty Lackie
Go Smart Solutions, LLC
http://www.gosmart4u.com

Exactly Misty, they are trying to make a commodity out of a professional service, because the people doing the decision making do not understand the technological impossibility of their approach working well for services: it is like the guy who wishes he could represent himself in court: he lacks the background knowledge and experience to make informed decisions, and he has a idiot for a client, too LOL

If any body requires clarification, call me, I do not bite: 805-827-2450

Very nice, site, Misty, at http://www.gosmart4u.com, excellent navigation and calls to action: no video?

I would love to, John. Thanks for your thoughts.

My thoughts in response to the initial post of this blog:

I understand some of the points the author was making, however at the same time I'd like to share my own personal experience with Elance.

I hired a programmer via Elance about 45 days ago. The process was much different than when I had originally tried their site out about 5-6 years ago. I was able to have a real-time chat interview directly with three prospects I had narrowed it down to, and was able to set specific milestons withe regards to the project at hand. I had specific and direct communication with my hire throughout the job, and he performed the exact duties we had outlined for the job, and to the exact specifications the project entailed. He did all this and finished up ahead of schedule and nailed our budget to the penny.

I believe part of the reason he was able to bid a better price was not only that he was an independant programmer, but also located in Ireland. The pay scales for the same programming services found outside the US are often considerably less than one would find hiring a company or individual located in the United States.

Yes it's true that some of these sites had a rather rough start, and that these sites aren't necessarily for everyone. However with proper communication (this means both asking AND answering questions) they definitely can fill a need, and can fill it well.

I'm currently in the middle of another contracting project that I filled via Elance, and believe it or not, this hire is from Kathmandu, Tibet! He's doing an excellent job thus far, had excellent references, and a comparatively high percentage of repeat customers. This "repeat customer" value that Elance displays, I personally feel, is a very good way to judge a potential hire. If a customer hires a programmer or company a second time to do work for them, then there obviously must have been a good value during the first go-round.

Again, these services might not be for everyone, but they by no means can be classified as "terrible" in general.

My thoughts only, please feel free to respond on the board if you have any specific questions with regards to my experiences with Elance.

best Regards,

-John Mizerek

So can I then conclude that this was not you first experience in doing something like this and perhaps for that reason, it went better than has been previously noted in this chain?

May I ask what you paid for these projects, so I have some idea what to expect?

Thanks,