oDesk, RentaCoder, eLance

wodj

Howdy,
Just wondering if anyone has experience in working through any of the above sites and what the experience has been?

Just got redundancy notice yesterday and looking to get something sorted before the pressure hits!

TheWaterboy

Tough blow on the redundancy.

I have done a little work on these sites or at least bid for work on them. Unfortunately you are bidding against alot of people from India and places who can turn around work very very cheaply. Alot will quote prices of $5-$10 per hour. If your willing to work for the money then you will get work.

If I were you I would concentrate on Ireland and UK. There are plenty of job sites advertising work on a freelance basis or people looking for changes to their websites etc. Its about building up a portfolio and client base. Alot of work will come from word of mouth.

Trojan

TheWaterboy wrote: »

Unfortunately you are bidding against alot of people from India and places who can turn around work very very cheaply. Alot will quote prices of $5-$10 per hour. If your willing to work for the money then you will get work.

If I were you I would concentrate on Ireland and UK. There are plenty of job sites advertising work on a freelance basis or people looking for changes to their websites etc.

I'd agree with that. OP, what is your skillset and background?

yop

TheWaterBoy - What UK/Ireland sites are there? Will probably be out of work myself soon so trying to avoid having to do a Dublin 5 day week and weekend here in Mayo.
Thanks

blocparty

i have hired people from elance, they were indian based but have had nothing but hassle with them! they are really messing me around and would love to find an Irish developer who I could work with.

i think elance is very hit and miss to be honest so do a lot of research before jumping into anything!

if anyone is interested and has experience in xml, php, flash, ajax and ning then send me a pm

BostonB

I looked at doing some projects off those sites and I couldn't compete either on price or timescale. I think contracting is a better route, even if you have to take a low rate and less than idea locations.

Trojan

As someone who has outsourced many, many projects overseas and locally here in Ireland, I suggest the following:

Do not attempt to compete with folks from developing nations on price alone. Highlight strong communication skills, offer to call the customer on the phone to discuss the project (use Skype) - often overseas developers refuse to talk to people on the phone because of language barriers.

Get your CV up to date immediately. 2 pages max. Highlight all your development and project management skills. Attach it to any quotes you go for. Have an "Objective" on your CV so I know what kind of work you're looking for - you might not be suitable for my contract, but maybe for someone else I know.

Do not send a list of 50+ domain names or list of software products as a reference. I get these from web devs in particular and have to ask what parts of the site were they responsible for, how do I know that for sure, etc. Pick a couple of reference projects and detail what you were involved with.

Based on my experience, Irish developers strengths are very good communication, strong dev skills, and pricing has come down quite significantly (to where SMEs can afford contractors that they couldn't previously).

If you're working with Elance, Odesk etc, do some research on the sites. E.g. Scriptlance has cheaper talent, mainly focused on coding; Elance has higher quality but more expensive developers, but also has a broader spectrum of skills from video animation to graphics to copywriting etc. You should read the discussion forums on the sites. There is a method to getting a good reputation, and it's possible to optimise your path to that (i.e. doing several quick cheap jobs well to build a good rating).

I can't think of anything else off-hand, but if you have questions I'd be happy to answer.

RACNicole

Hi, this is Nicole from Rent a Coder.

While 1/3rd of projects on sites like ours and our competitors will be price conscious, the remaining 2/3rds are awarded based on ratings, certifications and expert guarantees. So Trojan is correct, it is better to concentrate on promoting your own skills. Some workers who've done so make tens of thousands of dollars a year and more (see the worker list ranking list at [removed] for details). In order to maximize your earnings, it's important to choose a service that protects you, and different sites vary widely in what they do for you.

I'd like to point out a few differences between our service and services like oDesk, Elance, and Scriptlance however, since those differences could influence your satisfaction and earnings.

The first issue is with guaranteed payment.

oDesk requires workers to move their mouse/keyboard every minute or two, or they don't guarantee to pay you. This can be very difficult (or impossible), when you're doing things like planning, design or other mental work. To protect yourself, you have to try to remember to constantly jiggle your mouse (which can be like "trying to talk and chew bubble gum at the same time"), or choose to forego the guarantee. Rent a Coder pays you for this sort of work without requiring you to do this. In addition, Odesk only guarantees to pay you for the first eight hours in a day. If you're working hard on a project for a buyer and have to go over that time, you do it at your own risk. At Rentacoder, every hour is guaranteed.

Second is the issue with escrowing.

Elance does not offer escrowing on pay-for-time projects so payment is not guaranteed on these types of jobs.

On pay-for-deliverables projects, Rent a coder requires the buyer to escrow 100% of the funds upfront and protects your money with arbitration (and will force a malicious buyer to pay you). We will even go so far as to test the deliverables if necessary to prove you met the contract. But Odesk doesn't do any of these things. So you can do all the work and end up not getting paid a cent.

Rent a Coder protects your money with escrowing on all job types.

A third issue is with bid limitations.

Workers on Odesk cannot place more than 2 bids a month unless they take certain Odesk tests, or receive feedback on a certain number of projects. Workers on Elance cannot place more than 10 bids a month unless they pay a subscription fee ($10/month for 20, $20/month for 40 or $40/month for 60). With limited opportunities, you may not be successful with a service that limits your ability to bid. Rent a Coder offers free and unlimited bidding without subscription fees or any other types of hidden fees.

Another issue is with arbitration.

Elance charges $66.66 or $133.33 for each arbitration, which may make it too expensive to be a legitimate option on your project. In addition, a buyer intent on abusing the system can stall the start of arbitration on Elance for 21 business days and during this period your money is not available to you. You also won't find any detailed rules on how Elance arbitrators make their decisions.

oDesk's limited arbitration could prevent you from getting rightfully paid for the work you do. oDesk won't test your work to make sure it meets contract requirements.

Scriptlance doesn't act as an arbitrator between parties, should a dispute arise, except in limited situations. Problem is, the site doesn't publish its arbitration details, so no one knows what those cases may be.

At Rentacoder, we offer arbitration on all projects free of charge and we test your deliverables to make sure they meet requirements so that you can get paid. We also prevent abusive buyers from stalling the start of arbitration. As a result, 45% of our arbitrations are completed under a day. 75% under a week. We additionally publicize the detailed rules of how our arbitrators make their decisions.

There are other differences as well. I invite you and your visitors to compare the 7 major services through this link to learn even more: [removed]

If you have any questions, please let me know. You can also call in to talk to a facilitator 7 days a week, or email us (see [removed]).
Nicole
[removed]

Sparks

Locking this temporarily, back soon folks.

Trojan

Sparks, I'm real interested to see the outcome here - PM me if you need it moved forward. I think Nicole has a point, but there is plently of counter-argument ready for posting here

I am a relatively neutral end user, so I am *really* interested in their arguments & thoughts

Sparks

The outcome is that we've asked Nicole (and an earlier poster as well) to become commercial reps and they should be in contact with Darragh fairly shortly about that.

was.deevey

First off I'm on odesk / freelancers and rentacoder and all are great outlets, some are more difficult that others to get off the ground, but once you get a few "cheapy" projects off the ground you'll get more serious work.

oDesk requires workers to move their mouse/keyboard every minute or two, or they don't guarantee to pay you. This can be very difficult (or impossible), when you're doing things like planning, design or other mental work. To protect yourself, you have to try to remember to constantly jiggle your mouse (which can be like "trying to talk and chew bubble gum at the same time"), or choose to forego the guarantee.

Just a heads up this only applies to "hourly" work .. and MOST of the hourly work is pittance anyhows...I rarely bid on any hourly work unless its solid hourly stuff like tech-help or Audio editing with a decent rate allowed. If a job shows $12 per hour, an average bid of $10 and they interviewed 3 people bidding at $4 an hour I don't bother applying they obviously want cheapest rather than best.

I've done a number of fixed rate jobs on odesk that have turned into much bigger projects outside of odesk, likewise i've had employers change projects from hourly to fixed rate after an interview.

Like any contract work you take, have a chat with the people in question and feel-em out, your bullsh1t3 meter should start twinging pretty fast, and like any job interview its a negotiation.

Yes there are a hell of a lot of programmers and web-dev's who post at ridiculous rates (-$3 an hour), but the number of re-listed projects seems to have exploded since the start of the year with specific mentions on "Good English" and "Relisted due to communication issues"

NATIVE ENGLISH speaker will be a big bonus. I've taken over two projects that were killed previously due to bad communications with Asian Companies.

Rent a Coder pays you for this sort of work without requiring you to do this. In addition, Odesk only guarantees to pay you for the first eight hours in a day. If you're working hard on a project for a buyer and have to go over that time, you do it at your own risk. At Rentacoder, every hour is guaranteed.

Again only applies to hourly work.

Great to see some reps from rentacoder round here BTW, but just felt the post was a little "salesy" and offputting.

Oh and Odesk lifts the apply limits on your account by doing a (very simple) based around your familiarity with Odesk .. which I actually think is a great way of getting people to realize the features and limitations of the system.

P.S.. Just be prepared to work US times for some of the better work.

BostonB

Do you genuinely get much money from it?

was.deevey

You can get some decent contracts if your willing to put in the hours and are genuinely good at what you say and not charging the earth... getting those contracts is not easy with so much competition from lower wage economies but its possible.

If you were to put in a solid 40+ hours a week at developing and another 10 applying for contracts you'd probably make an ok living on it... making dependable income is the hard bit and you must be willing to take crappy lil $10 - $20 jobs frequently to get your name up there. I spend way too much time applying for $500-600 jobs and only recently getting responses as the employers can see the history and amount paid (with comments).

If your used to 30k+ a year, I don't think bother, but if your out of work or trying to just make ends meet its a good way of making a few extra shilling's

The really important thing with any of these sites seems to be getting your bid in first.. Its a fact there are agencies and companies in Asia who hire people who's sole purposes is to keep browsing the freelancers sites for potential contracts and apply immediately. Hence the reason you'll see alot of "no standard letters / no agencies" on some jobs.

Tip: Get online around from 9am USA time.

master100

I've actually worked on oDesk before but stopped. I've been a service provider, specifically an article writer and virtual assistant. I actually rate low so that contractors will hire me because of the cheap rate I have. That's actually what my friend advises me. Purpose is to work with quality and get good feedback from those contractors I've worked with so that other contractors will see the good feedback I've got and eventually I can raise my rate. Well I stopped because was too busy with school.

If you want to know more about outsourcing sites, here's one good article comparing outsourcing sites like oDesk, Elance, Freelancer, etc. : http://www.timedoctor.com/blog/2011/02/22/the-top-6-outsourcing-sites-and-how-to-use-them