[jake_morrison]

The structure of UpWork means that most people are inexperienced or scammers.

Developers start out doing freelance work with no history, so they bid low to compete. Once they do a few projects, they start to get direct referrals at higher rates without the UpWork percentage, so they leave.

Other people make bids at say 80% of the real cost of doing a project properly, planning to fight with customers to get more money later, e.g. claiming that things are not in scope. Once the customer is hooked, then there is more room to make money.

The platform incentivizes developers to respond fast with low bids, without thinking. If the requirements are not clear, then it's too risky for them, unless they are prepared to fight or play bait and switch games.

Customers can also play games, e.g. threatening to give a bad rating unless developers do more work. So it's hard for developers build a good reputation on the platform.

So the end result is that UpWork is primarily low-end, well-understood work like WordPress done by people in super-low-cost countries like Bangladesh. Everyone good leaves the platform for higher paying work elsewhere. But UpWork makes customers think that there is some magical source of great people at a low price, setting unrealistic expectations.

The biggest problem with new product development is that the requirements are inherently unclear, requiring insight and iteration to get right. You are doing something that hasn't been done before, by definition. Just translating the business opportunity into a detailed product spec that can be implemented can be very challenging. Until you have that spec, you can't use low end outsourcers. And then you will probably need to change direction based on customer feedback. So anything fixed price is going to be a problem, but you still need to keep things under control.

If you are a non-technical founder, then this is really hard, and you need to find someone who can bridge the gap between requirements and solution. There are product-oriented consulting companies (like mine) which focus on this problem. It's quite different from traditional outsourcing and freelancing, though.

[mytechtoday]

"UpWork is primarily low-end, well-understood work like WordPress" - This is what I was alluding to. Most of the Upwork devs only operate in "well-understood" work. Anything custom seems to be beyond them.

Also, Upwork devs never seem to ask questions. I'm flabbergasted tbh. Even the most detailed designs, stories and wireframes require questions to be asked. In my experience, the devs from upwork just plow ahead into the work without asking really any clarifying questions. weird.

[muzani]

"Other people make bids at say 80% of the real cost of doing a project properly, planning to fight with customers to get more money later, e.g. claiming that things are not in scope. Once the customer is hooked, then there is more room to make money."

This seems to be much of the consulting industry, not just Upwork. One of the companies I worked with paid managers bonuses based on the number of change requests paid for.

[jake_morrison]

It's a bit nuts to try to estimate software development. People want certainty that they can't actually get. Some will even overpay 2-3x just to have it be a fixed number. Having a good process for managing change and accountability is key.

In the case of UpWork, a friend in California was not particularly price sensitive, he just didn't like the bullshit. Every project would involve Skype calls in the middle of the night. He would ask for something for his website and someone would bid $500, then come back and try to fight for another $100. But if they bid $600, they would probably lose. You post a job and there are 100 similar bids. So you just choose the cheapest from the first page or two. Anyone who put any thought into the bid is on page five. And the cycle repeats.