DFHW: Living the 4-Hour Work Week

28 Responses so far | Have Your Say!

1. 

   Gary  |  March 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 am #

   Try http://www.oDesk.com. It is free to post your job and there are 50,000 providers available in the network. oDesk offers both fixed price and time based work, with real-time visibility into your providers desktop to help ensure quality.

2. 

   rexreed  |  March 23rd, 2008 at 11:12 am #

   Hi Gary –

   Welcome to my blog and thanks for the suggestion! I’ll give them a try today, and let you know how it goes.

   Rex

3. 

   Karen Swim  |  March 25th, 2008 at 10:05 am #

   I would like to offer you a different perspective. One reason that Elance has made those changes is in response to the provider community. Providers pay for their bids and were becoming disgruntled when the vast majority of Elance bids went unawarded. Any lead generation site that requires providers to pay and only has 1 out of every 10 jobs awarded is likely to receive negative feedback from its members.

   GetAFreelancer does attract a number of offshore providers who are able to provide high volume, lower priced work. If price is one of your key requirements then this site certainly will meet your needs. As a US provider, I can neither afford or desire to write 100 articles for $10.00 but don’t disparage those who can.

   None of the freelance sites is a perfect solution for providers or buyers. However, without denigrating a site and entire region of service providers, it’s important to understand what your needs are and choose the site that most closely matches those needs.

   For a true reality check of US rates, review Writer’s Digest market rates for 2008. You will find that even high priced Elance providers (many published writers, former journalists and others with impressive credentials) are charging far below “market value” even for the U.S.

4. 

   rexreed  |  March 25th, 2008 at 10:16 am #

   Hi Karen –

   Welcome to the blog and thanks for your very thoughtful and well written comments! Kudos!

   Are you saying that bidder are providers (provide my ignorance of terms), and that bidders on eLance have to pay to bid? If so, maybe that’s part of the problem too?

   All I’m saying is why should I as a buyer (I thought buyers were providers?) be penalized for posting my job req on multiple sites. Do you believe that eLance is right in requiring exclusivity?

   All I can say is that I would have loved to use eLance, but I simply found other places for my reqs. Price was only one consideration. Quality was really the bigger one. But now that I have found those requirements elsewhere, the 20% rule has blocked me from continuing to use the site. A pity!

5. 

   Brick Andrews  |  March 31st, 2008 at 7:54 am #

   I too have had to cancel projects on eLance due to the poor quality and limited number of bids. I had one project with very detailed requirements, etc., and where I had a single bid! How can I award a project with only one option? For this to count against me seems unfair.

   I understand that the bidders pay, but I don’t understand why eLance would do something to limit the size of the market for their bidders. It seems to me this would just cause the providers to also go to the other channels as well looking for more stuff to bid on.

6. 

   Niel  |  April 11th, 2008 at 7:38 pm #

   My first question to all the people who indicate that they are unsatisfactory responses on Elance or any other Site is -

   What type of job are you posting?

   To say that Elance has substandard providers without indicating what type of work you are looking to have done may be unfairly hurting provider in other categories where quality and overall performance is better.

   I am a provider in the Engineering and Manufacturing Section of Elance. I work hard and I do my best to provide top quality services to all my Buyers.

   Some times I spend almost as much time determining what the Buyer wants, needs, and expects as acutally doing the job.

7. 

   Chris  |  July 28th, 2008 at 7:49 am #

   Hey,

   I’ve only placed one project and rewarded one project on elance and it didn’t go as I wanted.

   First, everyone overbid what I was willing to pay. Seriously, what I needed could be done by a braindead monkey, it’s just repetitive as hell.

   I was able to negotiate privately with someone for a decreased rate (half price). I accepted their bid.

   Anyway, after day one it was pretty apparent that they did not read the parameters of the project. I gave them around 2hrs of work(I wanted 2hrs/day). The way they did it took them 20minutes. I was billed 2hrs for it.

   Than I pointed out that they did not read the project parameters because this wasn’t what I wanted.

   They went back and did the work the way I wanted and billed me an additional 2hrs for it. GRRR. Than they said they didn’t want to do it that way and wanted to do it their way.

   It was my first project and I didn’t want to end up having something bad put on my reputation there, so I compromised.

   I gave them what should of been around 90minutes of work. Nah, took them over 5hrs.

   Strike three you’re out.

8. 

   jay  |  July 28th, 2008 at 11:54 am #

   GetAFreelance is such crap. The people offering bids live in india who will bid 150 bucks to duplicate facebook. No respectable software firm would go that low. Low price, Garbage code.

9. 

   Melissa  |  September 28th, 2008 at 1:36 pm #

   I agree with you. But wouldn’t you rather support the American economy even if it means spending a bit more? I mean, this whole outsourcing thing is one of the MANY reasons America sucks right now. (I didn’t say the only reason, I know there are more.)

10. 

    Lyn  |  October 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 pm #

    Elance is an excellent place for freelance work. If you have a low budget to work with then you are better off using Guru, Get-a-freelancer, oDesk, or some other site where you can find thousands of folks to work for $1/hr etc. Somethings you should look at is how you are posting your requirements, are you using the provider search to invite qualified providers that are actively getting jobs and with good ratings etc. I have used other sights and elance has been the only place that has brought work and from quality providers. It’s a two way street when it comes to freelance work. The buyer has to know exactly what they want and the provider has to have the skills.

    On the note of paying, elance charges a membership fee…all freelance sites do, whether they charge the buyer or the provider. That’s how they stay in business. Without the sites providers and buyers would probably never meet to service and buy services. Many freelance sites have little quality control and have a lot of scam postings, not eLance. Buyers waste providers time fishing for information sometimes, not intending to award a project. And yes, sometimes there are poor providers, but that is everywhere. My suggestion is as a buyer work on your project posting because intelligent providers will choose to work with a buyer who takes just as much care in their postings, as the buyers expect the providers to take care in their work. It’s not all about the money. Sometimes it’s about the quality that both parties can provide. Business is business regardless if you’re dishing the dough or not.

11. 

    Charles  |  November 1st, 2008 at 12:47 pm #

    I would like to chime in and say that I’ve felt frustrated with elance on multiple occasions as well. It’s almost like they get their feelings hurt if they so much as catch wind you’re doing business with anybody else. I’ve found their rules and policies mind boggling as well. I’ve had jobs delisted on multiple occasions. When I call their toll free number to ask why, they simply look over my listing and say it was in error, and that the community must have flagged my listing. Well whatever, at least they have a toll free number. I’m going to be checking out some of the other freelance sites listed in this article and in the comments. Thanks!

12. 

    Stephanie Armstrong  |  December 1st, 2008 at 1:46 am #

    Have you all tried Amazon Mturk? I’ve had really good experiences with Mturk and it isn’t as complicated as Elance or oDesk. It’s very easy to use and I love how Mturk doesn’t act exclusive like Elance and bill the hell out of you. I also hate how Elance bans users. It’s insane! The users on Mturk are hungry for work and are willing to do it for a lot less. Just a thought.

13. 

    Sandra  |  December 5th, 2008 at 11:57 am #

    Hi,

    I am a freelance designer, and have read through all the posts here. I find it amazing that so many people are just looking to get the cheapest solution and do not seem to care about quality - or that they want amazing quality without spending any money since it’s “just design”. It takes hours of work to produce top quality work that has been actually thought about. Good design is more than just putting pen to paper, it is about thinking about a clients needs and then producing that in a way that will help push their business forward. By just choosing the lowest bid, it is just undermining the entire freelance market. Since quality professionals see value in what they do, unlike Joe Blow who is willing to take $50.00 for a 44 page website or magazine! It is just ridiculous!

    At a site like Elance providers pay money assuming that job leads will be awarded (otherwise why pay money to be part of a design site). When they are not however, faith is lost in the system along with lots of wasted time and on the designer’s side - money.

14. 

    rexreed  |  December 10th, 2008 at 10:20 pm #

    Got some nasty people complaining that we should all spend money on eLancers. Yeah, we would, if we actually got some quality bids. But we get a handful of crappy, poor quality bids (not talking about price, talking about quality), and then eLance penalizes you when you don’t select at least one out of every five crappy results.

    Also — for all you folks who think that if you aren’t using eLance, you’re outsourcing to India, I have a surprise for you: I outsourced a project recently to two great AMERICAN freelancers that I didn’t find on eLance.

    I still believe that eLance has poor quality, poor selection, and penalizes bidders who are looking to find the best QUALITY, not necessarily the best PRICE. You freelancers who are dependent on eLance need realize that us buyers want to have choice. Don’t put all your eggs in the eLance basket. In my opinion (and about half of the commenters above), eLance provides poor results at ANY price.

15. 

    Marina  |  December 26th, 2008 at 8:19 am #

    to rexreed,

    I am sorry for your experience, but as a designer I can only say that you get what you pay for. Buyers on Elance are mostly after extremely low prices, but any good quality design needs time and investment, doesn’t matter if it is done by an Indian or an American designer, so consider it next time you bid anywhere.

16. 

    rexreed  |  December 26th, 2008 at 9:59 am #

    Hi Marina –

    Thanks for your comment. However, if you would read the actual post and the follow-up comments you would realize that the issue is not the price of contractors, but the quality of eLance itself and their cockamamie approach to banning buyers who are unable to find a resource they want. If this was the real world, and you were looking for a job, and the interviewing company had to stop interviewing after the fifth person they interviewed and were then subsequently forced to make a choice of the first five people, you would see that no one would get hired. Think LOGICALLY. This is why eLance is doomed for failure.

    People: PLEASE read the post before you reply with your knee-jerk, defensive reactions about cheap outsourcing, which is NOT what this post is about.

17. 

    Cody  |  January 6th, 2009 at 12:05 am #

    I would have to say most of the bids I’ve received on Elance have been from qualified people and have addressed the actual requirements of the project. Every project is different, but I try to put a lot of thought into the jobs before I post them there and I’ve had good results.

18. 

    rexreed  |  January 6th, 2009 at 8:58 am #

    Hi Cody — great to hear that, and I’ve heard the same from others. But once again, my comment is not that you can’t find success on eLance — you might. The problem is that eLance as a company has poor policies with regard to potential buyers of services. Sometimes you can make a match within the first five tries. Sometimes you can’t. But eLance’s policy is that if you can’t, you’re banished forever from eLance world, unless you force yourself to choose from one of the first five bids. If you’re bidding in an area where there is a very large supply of contractors vs. bidders (say, web design), and there is a high percentage of low quality providers, your odds of getting a match in the first five bids is very low.

    eLance — if you are reading this, please change your policy on buyers. At the very least, provide a mechanism by which they can provide feedback why they are rejecting bids WITHOUT penalty.

    I can only assume that because this post is now the #1 post on “eLance Sucks” in Google that perhaps the eLance folks are paying attention.

    Does anyone else have a beef / bone to pick with eLance?

19. 

    Jaz101  |  January 18th, 2009 at 12:13 am #

    I am a Graphic Designer on Elance. The following comments concerning ‘designers’ relate to Graphic Designers only and at Buyers.

    Sometimes I’m aghast at the utter crap that Elancers in the States are generating, having stated that it does get worse, a lot worse when it comes to India and Pakistan (a rank generalization indeed, but not an undeserved one).

    I reckon that there are several categories of designers on Elance. Here are just a few. There are the Busker’s; these are the guys who ‘look’ the part, have the porti (from who knows where?) but don’t have the experience to deliver. The Charlatans; the rip-off artists (literally) and there are several kinds too. The Foot-In-Door Elancer; low-ballers, who once they get the project add a good couple of hundred Dollars by the time they are finished. Plain and simple Low-ballers; right the way up from the crap to the excellent. The Outsources; these designers have the porti but hell, why do the work when it can be outsourced to India and Pakistan at half the price. The Clip Art Specialist; and let me tell you there are some very slick clip art specialists out there. The Fake; I have seem brilliant porti’s on Elance but the work is all fake (If I could barely discern them how does a Buyer). Lastly there are only a good couple of dozen Graphic Designers on Elance. But here is the clincher … how in the hell does the Buyer know the difference?

    A couple of pointers:
    1) Anyone who tells you they will provide 7-10 original designs in 24 hours (or even in two days) is talking crap. There is just no way that anyone can originate that kind of creativity and be original.
    2) Anyone who tells you they can complete the project in an unrealistic time period is suspect.
    3) Anyone who doesn’t respect their own self-worth by under quoting should be questioned on their ability to deliver. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in India or in the States. Having said that the opposite is also true, many Elancers over-estimate their value and are downright arrogant.
    4) Good design requires a certain amount of discernment on the part of the Buyer. There is no shortage of lack of taste in both Buyers and Providers. I have seen clients praise the most appalling work. The ‘Feedback’ system is therefore actually not a good indicator of the quality of work. Indeed it is often the case that the Buyers are giving good feedback to absolute drivel.
    5) Design is not about ‘pretty pictures’ rather design is about understanding the Buyers brand and making a positive contribution to the brand in the mind of the consumer. Will the chosen designer contribute to the brand identity?
    6) A three line brief or a three paragraph brief should be a three page brief else the Buyer is only responsible for his own plight. It is often the case that Buyers do not even understand their own brand much less communicate it.
    7) Buyers are not designers. Some Buyers find this hard to believe. I have 16 years industry experience but I will never understand the client’s business better than he will and vice versa.
    Buyers should understand that they are dealing with another business. I’m not in this for ‘beer money.’ This is my livelihood, I don’t do it after hours or in my spare time. Buyers need to watch out for these guys who do.
    9) Most designers on Elance are mediocre irrespective of porti’s, feedback or cost. Some are really bad and some are really good.
    10) Lastly, anyone who tells you that they will do the project for an unrealistic amount can only blame themselves for the crap they get.

    How many companies would value their brand at anything less than a good couple of hundred thousand, yet when it comes to designing those very brand items, most want to skimp their way through!

20. 

    David  |  January 22nd, 2009 at 11:33 pm #

    The quality on elance has degenerated either way, irrespective of whether you are a buyer or a provider. Any self-respecting provider would obviously refuse the hundreds of invitations that come from buyers with a budget of a dismal $100 for 100 articles. I have no clue as to how writers could even think of bidding and accepting such low rates. I have come across buyers with loads of specifications (running into pages) with severe warnings about taking you to the gallows in case of plagiarism and substandard quality, after which comes - “I will only pay $1 per article of 500 words. DO NOT BID if you do not agree to the price”. Thank you very much Mr. Buyer, I wouldn’t even touch your bid with a ten foot pole. How do they have the audacity to talk about quality at $1. Wow! That beats me. Woe is me. Shame on elance.

21. 

    James  |  January 23rd, 2009 at 11:15 am #

    Elance sucks for these reasons. (1). Buyers expect tons of work for little pay. The overseas outsourcing is the problem for this. Programmers in India will work for next to nothing, Americans’ standard of living is much higher. (2). Buyers don’t provide enough project details. You can’t really bid on something without all the information. There needs to be a better means of communicating with buyers to understand the project and get a better sense of exactly they are looking for. (3). You are bidding against way to many people, 25, 30 people. Unless you low ball, chances are you are not winning the bid. But if you low ball, then you are basically working for less than $10/hour. That’s garbage! What needs to be done, is that providers need to unite. Remember the good old UNIONS?

    DO NOT ACCEPT, OR EVEN BID ON PROJECTS THAT ASK FOR BASICALLY WORK WITH NO PAY.

22. 

    Matt  |  February 24th, 2009 at 2:24 pm #

    I think part of the problem may be elance’s pay-per-bid system.

    It doesn’t seem to be successful in limiting spam, or in limiting cancelations, but it does seem to discourage quality bids from good contractors.

    Just the other day, I had a project canceled the very last day. Why? The bidder read my project description and decided it was too much work. Note: I had changed absolutely nothing since he bid on the description. Oh, and eLance won’t let me leave feedback. Bah.

23. 

    antimony  |  March 5th, 2009 at 6:04 am #

    Tim’s discussion began on a healthy unbiased note. One thing that I would like to mention here. Elance’s policy on cancellation and exclusivity is basically to protect the providers(sellers). There are pseudo buyers who post projects to get an estimate of what would the project cost. They then go back to their pet vendors and negotiate rates with them. Elance wants only genuine buyers to post their projects. On Elance the providers pay for bidding. I am a buyer as well as provider on Elance. As a provider I found that around 60% of the buyers do not award the project or cancel the project. To keep frivolous buyers away probably the policy of Elance is good.

    I also found a lot of requests for mock-up coming from buyers in spite of my telling them that it is against Elance policy to ask for such mockups.

24. 

    Sue Thomason  |  March 17th, 2009 at 5:48 am #

    I agree that Elance sucks. I’m a freelance editor with 20 years experience and I joined Elance two weeks ago after a friend recommended it. I spent two full work days uploading my employment history, getting referees, doing the online tests and adding pdfs and jpegs of my work.

    The redesign happened and I could no longer sign in. A week later after waiting for Elance to get back to me, I can sign in but my profile has disappeared. There’s just a photo, my name and the rest is gone. Two full days work - gone. What a waste of time. I shall certainly be spreading the Elance sucks message as far across the Net as I can.

    Thank you for providing me with a place to rant or I might have exploded.

    Sue Thomason

25. 

    Sue Thomason  |  March 17th, 2009 at 5:57 am #

    PS After reading these comments, it looks like there’s a good business opportunity for someone to start up a similar site where the users and content are monitored to assure quaility from both sides.

26. 

    Dynise  |  April 5th, 2009 at 9:34 am #

    From the standpoint of a provider on Elance I can tell you that if you are getting poor quality responses and bids it is almost completely your fault. Sorry to be harsh, but that is the reality. If you take a few minutes of your time to read through other posted projects that actually are receiving a high number of bids you may see some differences.

    First: the insult of the provider, in most cases a braindead monkey can not do the job, or saying how easy the job is, or saying any writer, designer etc can do it quickly. Any provider that has any level of skill and professionalism has immediately been eliminated from the job pool because they will not work for those that disparage their skill set.

    Second: price to value, the old expression that you get what you pay for is apt. And the vast majority of postings on Elance request dirt cheap pricing but demand quality work. It does not work that way, just as when you buy a TV a pair of shoes or a piece of clothing the better product comes at a higher price, so does web design or well written web content. Yes, you can get articles for $1 each, but they will look exactly like a $3 pair of shoes.

    Third: Format and design. When a buyer requires in a two page long request that he have this, this, this and Xkeyword density and you must not question this format or requirement, guess what? The good providers click on the next posting. Unrealistic requirements show two things, the buyer is inexperienced and/or unreasonable to work for. I very politely explained to a new buyer recently that their request for a keyword density of 18% would mean their keyword was used twice in every sentence—what reader would get past the second sentence and stay on the site?

    The buyers that have listened to the irrepressible “internet marketing gurus” that have told them articles can be written in 7 minutes, a logo can be designed in an hour, a website can be launched in a day and it will all cost a minuscule, fraction, portion of an American dollar have been deceived. Can you find reasonably priced quality on Elance, Guru and other sites, certainly. Can you find pennies on the dollar rates in combination with the quality you seek, chances are that unless it is the first project for a provider, no.

    One thing to remember in business, in dating, in friendships and in karma, if there is always a problem outside of you, with the people you try to do business with, the people you day and your friends, chances are it’s not all them, it’s the common factor, which is you.

27. 

    Ikin  |  April 30th, 2009 at 5:14 am #

    Elance sucks because even if you are an experienced provider, if you just sign up on elance you will appear very inexperienced

28. 

    Jennifer  |  May 18th, 2009 at 6:14 pm #

    I was a long time writer on Elance, and the providers AND the buyers are horrible. Because Elance does not monitor their jobs on both sides (providers who scam buyers and buyers looking for “free samples” to scam providers) it is the worst place to do business as a provider. For instance, if you go through the top providers in the Writing and Translation category they are all article farmers. They claim to write the material, but it’s well known among the other writers on the site that jamos, ladywordsmith, jkwelch22, and flour69, to name a few, are all article farmers who will charge buyers high prices out outsource it to some overseas provider for $1 per article. It’s one of the main reasons buyers in the W&T category think Elance sucks. Additionally, many providers claim to be in the US, but they are not.

    Because of the frustrations, I decided to open my own site ePubster for authors and ePubster for buyers to help bring quality writers to buyers. I hope to eliminate the frustrations from both sides especially since I’ve seen first hand the horrible place Elance has become. Elance does not care either. They listen to no one and continue to let the scammers on both sides steal money from each other. As long as they get their cut, Elance does not care.