I got tired of freelancers burying their best work in a thread. So I built Sharply.

I got tired of freelancers burying their best work in a thread. So I built Sharply.

Every week on X and in Facebook groups I see the same thing. Someone posts "post your work" and hundreds of talented people reply with a pile of screenshots, a dead Dribbble link, a Google Drive folder, and a "DM me for more."

The talent is real. The presentation is killing them.

These are designers, writers, photographers, tutors, electricians, stylists, event planners, editors. People whose income depends on someone looking at their work and thinking "yes, this is the person I want." And the only way they had to show it was a reply that scrolled out of sight in an hour.

So I built Sharply (sharply.me). It's a freelance directory. One link that holds all of your work, your skills, and your story in one place. Not a linktree pointing at other links, but an actual home for what you do.

Why a directory instead of another portfolio builder?

A portfolio only works if someone already has your URL. A directory means people can actually find you. Someone looking for a wedding photographer, a copywriter, a math tutor, or a carpenter lands on real freelancers instead of a wall of ads.

The build, for the IH crowd:

• Stack: [Laravel API + React SPA, TanStack Query, Tailwind v4]
• Solo founder, [X months] of nights and weekends
• Live at sharply.me, [free to build a profile / featured for $3]
• [Any numbers worth sharing, like profiles created, traffic, waitlist]

What I've learned so far

1. In-app browsers will humble you. The product worked fine everywhere except inside LinkedIn's and Facebook's in-app browsers, where people just got a white screen. It came down to my Cloudflare proxy not playing nice with those embedded browsers. The annoying part is that a big chunk of social traffic never opens in a real browser. It opens inside the app. So if you promote on social, you have to test in the actual in-app browser, not just Safari or Chrome. I lost more time to that white screen than to any real feature.

2. I had to keep my own product from turning into a dev tool. Every default wanted to lean tech. Example copy wanted to say "React developer." Search wanted to rank engineers first. The whole industry trains you to build for developers and bolt everyone else on afterward. Keeping Sharply neutral, with the same depth for stylists, tutors, electricians, photographers and writers as for designers and devs, took real effort every step. It would have been easier to just niche into tech. I think the broad bet is the right one, but it takes discipline to hold.

Where I need help

I'd love feedback from this community. If you freelance, or you know someone who does, build a profile and tell me where it falls short. What would make this a link you'd actually paste into one of those "post your work" threads instead of your usual scramble?

Try it: sharply.me