Freelancer / Agency hybrid Concept
TL;DR: A platform where freelancers work with the agency direct. The agency handles everything from sourcing work to managing clients and freelancer is responsible for delivering to the agency.
A friend of mine and I are thinking of putting together an agency and we don’t have time to prospect and vet out freelancers. After brainstorming we came up with a hybrid concept Agency/Freelancer concept and wanted to get some feedback from freelancers.
The concept is rough but it goes like this:
the agency would source all project work, write the requirements, manage clients expectations, etc. We would post the jobs/tasks where you as a freelancer would just choose the job you want to work on and deliver the project to us.
The caveat is this – first initial 3 jobs would be small jobs paid at $25/hr, our team will assess areas like communication, quality, delivery time, etc (simple standards). The next 3-5 jobs would be paid at $50/hr (medium in complexity), again assessing areas as previously discussed. The next 3-5 jobs would be paid at $100/hr (hard in complexity) again assessing the same areas. After that, you would be put on a curated list for our largest paying jobs at $150/hr.
We plan on having a limited pool, depending on work available, but the goal is freelancers who consistently deliver will be kept on our platform, freelancers who perform subpar or don’t meet expectations will be removed and new spots will open up
Pros:
- Constant stream of work
- have to meet SLAs – Example, if we estimate a project can be completed in 4hrs or 2 days, we would expect delivery within that time frame
- Work when you want – IE browse available jobs, take on what you want
- No need to source clients / deal with clients
- Guaranteed payment since the Agency is the client
- You’ll be dealing with the agency, not clients
- No creating proposals / bids – just pick what you want to work on
- Simple application process
Cons
- Initial jobs maybe low paying for experienced freelancers
- First time you fail to deliver, you maybe removed – we want to work with people who will only take jobs they can deliver
- You can only work on 1 project at a time – if you finish a job early you can take on another one
- No client interaction
- Trial by fire -if you don’t perform at expectations, you’re basically removed and a won’t get future work
Would love feedback on potential pitfalls/issues or opportunities to improve.
Thanks IH!
Hey!
Seems like an interesting idea, but there are some things I'm sceptic about:
How do you make sure to provide constant stream of work? You're very likely to experience ups and downs, and when a 'down' comes, you will have a pool of experienced freelancers fighting for a job. It can quickly become Upwork 2.0. Freelancers will then have to take on other jobs and the quality of work will drop
How do you ensure consistency on task by task basis and thus keeping clients satisfied? Clients often have multiple tasks in queue, so by having two freelancers work on it, the work quality will fluctuate.
You will have to put in some serious work to translate client briefs into well rounded briefs served to freelancers in order to minimize the freelancer-PM communication and even then PMs will have a lot of work on their hands. It can be very frustrating for a freelancer to not have direct communication (solving problems on the spot).
Shit happens. Even the most professional freelancers get sick and injured. It's a big risk to focus on 'one client - your agency' for 100% of their work. As a freelancer, when you have good relationship with a client, they will understand that sometimes shit happens, and I believe so should you.
Just some obvious things I could think about. Anyways, If you'll ever be looking for UI/UX designers or just want to have a chat, you know where to find me :)
Good points and i appreciate your input. Long back story short, we both worked for an app development startup from 2014 - 2016 in SF. We had 3 sales guys, including us 2. We have great experience in sourcing projects from connections, prospecting etc. On average we sourced any where from 4 - 6 projects monthly at an average for $330k a project. In regards to UpWork 2.0, that is what we are trying to avoid. That's why we have the perspective of, if you take on a job you better deliver, if you don't deliver, trust is gone and a new spot has opened up. The philosphy that if you take care of the talent they will take care of your clients. IE We will do all the hardwork prospecting/getting jobs, in turn, you help us deliver a good client experience which in turn will bring more business. The goal is to create some accountability, meaning if we limited a platform (based on need) and you wouldn't have to fight for work, wouldn't that be a platform you would want to stay on? Every platform wants to grow and grow quickly but that is not the goal, steady growth is more important
Sounds interesting! Would be interested in testing the idea when you launch. Keep it up!👍
We are still refining the idea but will keep you posted. Thanks!
This is a cool idea.
How does this play out from the client's side? Do they know that their job is up for grabs on the backend? Are they aware of the freelancer or is that completely abstracted out?
The hard part from the freelancer side will be the varying quality of the work. Gotta standardize that somehow.
On the client side, they would know we are working with freelancers. For clients the benefit is we are guaranteeing the work meaning there will be a review process and if it passes our review process (yet TBD) the freelancer will be paid by the agency because we signed off on it. if for whatever reason the client insists on getting a refund or griping about the work, the freelancer will still get paid. The sub-goal is to create a platform where freelancers will want to work without fighting for jobs, that jthey will work hard to stay on, creating an exclusivity feel. AND clients who are diffucult to work with, will be fired. We did this at our last development shop we worked out and it worked will, clients are surprised when we fired them. In our minds, that will happen maybe 2 out of every 10 clients. We aren't trying to be UpWork 2.0, but we want a platform where clients don't have to look for good freelancers and freelancers don't have to deal with troubled clients that if we, as the agency, have to take 2 losses for every 10 wins, that's an acceptable amount if it means we can deliver a 5 star expereience