Archives for June 2010

Now that I’m back to freelancing full-time, standing on the virtual street-corner waving at people looking for a good time with their web projects … it’s been interesting. The good news is that there’s still plenty of work out there to be done. I’ve been looking for work all over the web, and here’s some of my observations:

Elance

Elance is the gold standard of freelance project marketplace websites. Sure, there are a lot of jokers out there with “champagne tastes and beer budgets” that you have to filter through, but there’s also lots of legitimate work that people are looking to get done. Competing against foreign currency leverage is difficult, but there are buyers out there who aren’t only shopping by price alone. There’s no coincidence that I’ve made the most money through Elance so far, out of all the various places I’ve tried to source work from.

Freelancer.com

If Elance is the gold standard, then Freelancer.com is the bargain basement. There’s a constant stream of new projects showing up, most of them not even worth looking at, and the Indian mass-bidders have pretty much automated away the usefulness of the site. Still, I keep an eye on it just in case. I’ve only generated 1/10th the revenue on Freelancer.com as I have on Elance, so far.

Guru.com

Ah, good old Guru.com, there were great projects being posted to it in the late 1990’s, but the site’s functionality hasn’t improved in 10 years and the quality of the projects being posted have also declined. I’ll still check it every now and then, but I don’t expect it to lead to any real work any more.

Craigslist

Let’s not forget Craigslist, the proverbial junk drawer of the Internet. Don’t go expecting to find anything of real value there, but you might be able to turn a few tricks, and there’s likely to be less competition by Indian low-ballers.

Overall, this week has been encouraging and discouraging in its own way. I’m only making 20% of what I need to be in order to stay doing this full-time, but I am getting some decent work and it’s trending upwards. Just gotta keep hustling and shaking, smiling pretty and getting out there.

If you’re looking for short term help, almost doesn’t matter what as long as it can be done remotely, let me know. We’ll work out a good price and I could definitely use the work.