Slashdot Mirror
Freelance Programming Sites?
CarrotLord asks: "I have some small, fairly well-defined programming projects that I need done, but I don't have time to do them myself. So, I've been looking into sites like Get a Freelancer and ScriptLance. Does anybody have any experience of these types of sites? Specifically, I'd like to hear your recommendations and advice, as well as your experiences. My concerns include: getting very poor quality work; communication and language barriers and also losing control over the work that I've paid for -- if I'm paying for some work, I want it licensed on my own terms."
It all depends on how big the projects are. If you want something between notepad and say wordpad then you shouldn't have a problem. If you want something like more complicated (a project that will take more than a month) then it is fairly complicated and it will be easier if you are in the same room.
My Dad sells stuff on line and a few of his products are things that people have asked for that only cost $200 from a freelancer then he has sold about 20 copies and made the money back.
That being said his main product took about 6 months to make and other people keep on asking for resale rights (he does commission). He says no and they chuck a fit saying we'll just get a freelancer to make it and wipe you off the market. They get freelancers and say copy this. They always fail because 80% of the product is the little things that are done automatically to make it nice and easy to use.
Now there are also a couple of things to watch out for:
* Lots of freelancers don't care about copyright. They use other projects in your and your in other projects.
* Start of with a small contact and if your happy then get the same person to do the bigger one.
* Freelancers come and go. They might not be interested next time.
* Use an escrow service the first few times. It good for them and for you.