Any success with Freelancer?

[Name Trader]

To be quite honest, all my freelancer projects, $20-$500, have all not been very satisfactory and most have been a waste of time.

OK. Some of it has been my not being able to express clearly what I want 100%. But I get the impression, that most of the freelancers are not as good as they say they are. And those which look ok and which have a track record, aren't much better, and always quote very high. Much higher than the work involved, IMHO.

Anyone else want to share their thoughts?

 

[Jason.tv]

Freelancer is great for quick fix type issues, I use it for wordpress fixes I need; however,wordpress is simple for all coders.

You kinda hit it on the nail; you have to know exactly how to break down the points needed in order for them to complete the tasks. Especially if you don't know what is needed they will keep asking for more and more money to complete.

I have been burned 2-3k trying to develop an iphone app from them, However I chose a Chinese company which was my fault; There is no language communication and they Hard coded the app; meaning the only person that could view the source code was them. Held me for ransom in order to give me what I needed and never got completed due to many errors and app completely hard coded.

Only select freelancers ranked In India to be safe. The communication is great and They are eager to perform for the money required.

If you want I am really good at seeing what is required in scopes of custom coding, code ignitor, wordpress, joomla or which ever way you want to take it.

So if you want to go over real quick what your doing I can guide you in the right direction.

 

[aramyus]

I have had mixed experience too with freelancers in general

- Outstanding experiences with programmers I have employed full time for ~ 5-10 years

- very bad to extremely bad experiences with small projects given to a freelancer

- good experience with limited 'programming oriented' tasks

- bad experiences with writers

- uniformly bad experience with all asian freelancers (India, Pakistan, China...)

- Good to extremely good experience with eastern europ freelancers (Russia, Romania, Bulgaria...). These people have the same thinking and education as europeans and it's easy to work with them

Some lessons learned

- Treat these people well like you would do in your office. Don't underpay them, encourage and reward them.

- Communicate frequently (daily)

- Multiply trial jobs: Some freelancers need weeks to perform programming tasks that would take you two hours to do yourself. Drop them quickly

- Don't expect they will be able to conduct projects unless you have been working with them for quite a while (To be honest, it would be exatcly the same with a us or european programming team who charges you 100 or 1000 times more)

- Employ individuals and beware of 'companies' who pretend to do a 'global' job.

- Subcontract only tasks you could do yourself or at least you fully understand.

 

[Name Trader]

Thanks to @Jason.tv and @aramyas for your replies.

Does anyone have any experience with ELance.com, or UpWork.com, who seem to have taken over oDesk.com? Or any other freelancer service.

 

[Asfas1000]

I have both freelancer and buyer accounts at most of those sites. Freelancer.com, I would not recommend.
I have had good experience as a buyer with Upwork.

 

[Name Trader]

Thanks @Asfas1000. I only have just found UpWork, because I started looking around for an alternative. If I don't find a suitable freelancer at freelancer.com for my current project, I'll give UpWork a try. I actually regret, getting involved with freelancer. Nothing has worked out well for me there. But I have learnt, expensively, to better prepare my project.

 

[Silentptnr]

Just finished a project. The guy was a week late. The work got done, but was OK, not great. I would use him again though. He didn't stop until it was done correctly. I think they bid jobs before they fully understand the scope.

 

[Name Trader]

Just finished a project. The guy was a week late. The work got done, but was OK, not great. I would use him again though. He didn't stop until it was done correctly. I think they bid jobs before they fully understand the scope.

I agree they mostly all bid without understanding the scope. My average increase from their bid is x4

 

[Silentptnr]

Yes over budget as well.

 

[Name Trader]

Which is why I'm going to try UpWork, if the project I'm running fails to find a suitable freelancer. And it's not looking good, at the moment. But I have too see it through to the last bidder. Even the Freelancer Staff helping me add very very little to the experience/information.

 

[Wallnut Host]

I would recommend odesk and upwork. Better check out reviews from their previous employers...

 

[Aamsra]

To be quite honest, all my freelancer projects, $20-$500, have all not been very satisfactory and most have been a waste of time.

OK. Some of it has been my not being able to express clearly what I want 100%. But I get the impression, that most of the freelancers are not as good as they say they are. And those which look ok and which have a track record, aren't much better, and always quote very high. Much higher than the work involved, IMHO.

Anyone else want to share their thoughts?

I don't think so. I've very good experience with this. Thousands of freelancer there to choose among on freelancer.com specifically, cheap exist too.

 

[Name Trader]

I would recommend odesk and upwork. Better check out reviews from their previous employers...

UpWork took over oDesk.

 

[Name Trader]

I don't think so. I've very good experience with this. Thousands of freelancer there to choose among on freelancer.com specifically, cheap exist too.

Thousands to choose from, all claiming to be the best at what they do. How do you find any good ones amongst thousands. Perhaps you could recommend me 5 good freelancers who can develop a PHP website for me. Probably in WordPress.

 

[Aamsra]

Thousands to choose from, all claiming to be the best at what they do. How do you find any good ones amongst thousands. Perhaps you could recommend me 5 good freelancers who can develop a PHP website for me. Probably in WordPress.

Sure, I would, after having an idea on budget and requirements.

 

[Name Trader]

..

 

[Aamsra]

Ok, ll shoot a pm soon with preferred list of developers for it.

 

[Name Trader]

Ok, ll shoot a pm soon with preferred list of developers for it.

Thanks.