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The secrets of freelance workers.
You, like most webmasters, have literally hundreds of modifications you want made to your website. Better the look, feel, functionality, security, etc. I’ve looked here, and there, yellow pages, forums, but I get stuck with people who feel they are the only one who make a website and try to charge me hundreds upon hundreds of dollars. An answer I have only recently looked into. Freelance workers.
I am a stickler for security. This was my first question. How am I going get someone to build be something without first handing over the money? This was my first “shocker”. I check out a few sites, many of them I left within 30 seconds after seeing their site layout. How am I going to be helped if they need more help then me?! I stopped at one site and have stayed since. (http://www.exlow.com) I’ve only closed a few projects but I feel I have found the resource I need.
About the safety, I posted my project and said I was in a hurry to get it done with. I got a few bids but it took a couple hours. I said I would pay $100 for it but they started competing to win the project and I ended up only paying $20! Still, nothing I wanted to have stolen. So I used their feature “Safe Escrow” I was able to put the $20 into a midway point for the freelancer to see but not touch. They completed my project by the next day and I released the cash. Wow, not bad.
Ok, enough with my stories and back to the facts. The system seems to work a lot like an auction accept they are bidding to win the project and they go lower and lower. Like I said before I offered $100 and they kept competing back and forth “I’ll do it for 100”, “I’ll do it for 70”, “I’ll do it for 45”, “I’ll do it for 20!” until the other gave up. I was also able to see which had the best portfolio, etc.
Well, in conclusion, this is a pretty handy resource for finding cheap labour. Not to mention it gives the little guys a chance to prove themselves.
Oh yea, before I end this, I have to say I DID have an issue once. It was on my third project. I sent the escrow over and then found the site I was sold was a rip-off of another site! I immediately contacted the site. Slow response time (took them over 3 hours to contact me back) but it was fair. They looked into it and saw that they had indeed stolen the layout from another site and refunded my money the next day.
My advise, try a small project, see how it works then go bigger.
If you another freelance resource let me know because I am loving them.
I hope this helped you!
