Casual Contracting - our contract work website

[chrispesto]

Hey guys, we just hacked together this little site for casual contracting. The premise is there's no long-term commitment / equity payment nonsense. This is for small, quick cash jobs that take less than 40 hours (maybe a website proof of concept, for example). We think RentACoder, Elance and the like are too centered on heavyweight, long-term projects with extended commitments. We'd hope this would be something a Hacker News user might use to earn some extra money on the side. There are invite codes on Twitter http://twitter.com/casualcontract.

[chrispesto]

Hey guys, we just hacked together this little site for casual contracting. The premise is there's no long-term commitment / equity payment nonsense. This is for small, quick cash jobs that take less than 40 hours (maybe a website proof of concept, for example). We think RentACoder, Elance and the like are too centered on heavyweight, long-term projects with extended commitments. We'd hope this would be something a Hacker News user might use to earn some extra money on the side. There are invite codes on Twitter http://twitter.com/casualcontract.

[kaffeinecoma]

Are you planning on handling the money aspect (i.e. escrow) of consulting, like elance/odesk do? Or is this more of an introduction service?

[omarish]

We'd like to focus on introductions. Handling payments can be somewhat arduous. Would you be more/less comfortable with the service if it handled the financial aspects as well?

[rhizome]

Mailing list only? As in email?

[orenmazor]

it kind of makes sense, I think.

I'm constantly spammed by various notifications of all kinds, but email always is the highest priority way to reach me.

[rhizome]

That's what makes it ripe for abuse, and not something I'd elect to without some kind of up-front guarantee.

[chrispesto]

@rhizome Yes, that's a good point. We really want to focus on quality - both for developers and projects. That's why we're using invite codes. We're starting with them on Hacker News because we want to get things rolling, but we will focus on curating more.

[orenmazor]

thats true, but you just have to police it very, very tightly. if this service doesn't work out for me, I'll unsubscribe and filter (if I have to).

[kschua]

I like the idea and am trying to join in but it is really annoying to try to get the invite code that is working.

Entering one that is already used requires me to cut and past another one and fill in my password again.

On another note, isn't $99 a bit steep for people to list their projects? I believe Rent a coder charges less for this, though the charges are borne by the developer

[shaggyfrog]

It all depends on the quality of the talent pool from which you select. I paid $99 to get a job posted on authenticjobs, and while there was still a lot of chaff to wade through, it was less than what I got with Craigslist, and there were more suitable candidates to choose from.

[martinkallstrom]

It's steep if you don't get someone to take on your project. There should be a money back guarantee.

[jarin]

It's not bad at all if there is a quality pool of developers. 37signals charged $100 for a 30 day gig listing when they had gigs on their job board, and the job board doesn't email anyone.

[angryasian]

wtf, whats the point of having the invite code if you are just giving them away on twitter. Its more of an annoyance.

[chrispesto]

@angryasian Well, we are starting with the invite codes on Hacker News because we feel like developer quality is probably pretty good here and we need to get the site going. We are working right now on a more long term way to scale up the number of developers and still maintain high quality.

[martinkallstrom]

I think you should have patience with this and be very careful to not let someone in just because (s)he's a HN reader. I, for one, am a crappy coder after five years in the CEO seat of my startup.

[simmons]

I got signed up (I think), but I can't log in because my email address has more than 30 characters!

[omarish]

Ouch, that's our fault. I'll get it fixed. Could you please email me? [e-mail].

[omarish]

Sorry about that! I'll remove the used codes from our twitter feed. Thanks for the feedback so far.

[peng]

A higher listing fee results in less inbox spam and--in general--higher quality clients. A win-win.

[joshontheweb]

Would have signed up also, but Im not going to hunt around and try a bunch of invite codes that may or may not work.

[omarish]

Could you @omarish on twitter?

[garethsprice]

Good grief, talk about manufactured scarcity.

I am a senior developer who takes on side work, but I'm too busy working on client projects to be watching your Twitter feed all evening and pasting in codes hoping that one works.

Why not just post an invite code in the thread that's good for 24 hours?

[omarish]

Thanks for your feedback.

We spent a lot of time thinking through a rational strategy that would a) spur a developer list while b) managing growth and ensuring top-quality developers. It could look like manufactured scarcity right now, as we have people coming in from only one channel (HN).

We wanted to test our larger invitation strategy on a smaller cohort of people first, which is why we opted to do invite codes with the HN crowd.

Either way, I couldn't find a twitter or email address in your info. Could you please contact me: [e-mail] / @omarish? I'll pass you an invite code.

Again, thanks for the great feedback.

[garethsprice]

Thanks for the response Omar! Glad to see that you're having trouble keeping up - means that your idea is being well validated!

Here's a few items I noticed after logging in that I e-mailed to you, thought I'd post here to see if anyone else on HNN had feedback.

After signing in:

1. Would be good to see a list of projects that have already been submitted that can be searched, or if you're e-mail focused, an archive of past projects.

2. Would also be interesting to see a list of other users (if they opt in to the public list?) and/or information on what other skills people are listing.

3. Also, as it's an invite-only site it does have some level of exclusivity, so a public profile with a dofollow link to my website would be another incentive to sign up and maintain my profile. Actually, the exclusivity angle might be an interesting way of attracting high-end/well paying clients (see: A Small World).

[endlessvoid94]

Yeah, sorry. I just tried 3 of the invite codes on your twitter account and none of them worked. Wtf? This is an unnecessarily high barrier, and will probably alienate many, many potential users.

EDIT: I am a total hypocrite and found an invite that works. Looking forward to it.

[jarin]

Looks great, and I'd like to sign up, but having single-use invite codes and putting them on Twitter is kind of a pain. I tried 3 or 4 that didn't work, so I guess I'll sign up if I ever see it around again.

[omarish]

Got it. I just sent a working invite to your email. Enjoy.

[jarin]

Thanks! I'll try to send along some clients too, I get requests here and there that I can't take on for whatever reason.

[rpwilcox]

Nice idea. I especially like the <40 hour jobs only - makes estimating much easier. Also, the $100 fee for projects to enter weeds out the low-ball projects that want 12 hours of work for $50.

[chrispesto]

@rpwilcox Yes, that requirement is taken from our personal experience / preferences. We like contract work because it's varied and interesting, but we don't want a long term commitment that turns into a full-time job.

[dbalatero]

<40hrs is a perfect time commitment for me when it comes to side work. Thanks for putting this together, and hopefully it works out for everyone!

[chrispesto]

@dbalatero Yeah, that's taken from our personal experience and preference for no long term commitments in contract work. I'm glad you like the idea!

[Vivtek]

I seem to have broken the signup (or, more likely, you may have) - after trying new tokens w/o success for a while, I was presented with a login strip across the top of the page with Chrome's guess at my password. But the login doesn't actually work - and yet I can't get to the signup page again either.

I allowed Chrome to save the password on this final step, so that might be the problem.

[omarish]

Just followed up with an email. Sorry for the trouble!

[scottyallen]

Love the idea. The concept of short, self-contained projects is really appealing, particularly if they're for high quality clients.

[chrispesto]

@scottyallen Thanks! Short and self-contained is kind of the ideal for us, too. We think lots of good developers like that kind of work so they have the free mindshare for their other big ideas.

[jlvarner]

I'm getting this error when I try to log in:

Ensure this value has at most 30 characters (it has 36).

There was an error during the sign up as well, but on the next attempt it told me that e-mail was already in the system.

[chrispesto]

@jlvarner Sorry, we'll look into this.

[logicalmike]

The "Your Skills" field on the "My Settings" page is showing my password.

Site looks great otherwise. Looking forward to seeing what pops up.

[ddagradi]

Did you type your password twice? Pretty sure the second field was "My Skills". I almost submitted that accidentally too.

[alextebbs]

I am getting the same issue. Also cannot seem to modify any fields on the 'My Settings' page.

[reinhardt]

Yeap, edit doesn't work here either.

[chrispesto]

We're working on fixing it right now! Thanks for the feedback.

[omarish]

Fixed.

[chrispesto]

Hey guys, the Settings page bugs should be fixed now. Thanks!

[chrispesto]

Sorry guys, we're working on that. Should be fixed soon.

[sam26880]

can you send an invite code please?

[scottyallen]

Yep, I've got the same problem.

[reinhardt]

After the reported bugs are ironed out, can you also add a 'weekly' option to email frequency? Thanks for the invites!

[omarish]

Added. Great idea.

[shaggyfrog]

I'm hoping I can use this site both as a contractor and as a client with the same login. Will that be possible?

[omarish]

Great point. This is in the works right now; we'll get it working shortly.

[chopsueyar]

Also, how to change password?

[chrispesto]

Yeah, we need to put that on there today. This was really going for the minimum viable product. We wanted to see if there was interest, and apparently there is!

[snorkel]

I'd like to be able search/browse the available projects before signing up.

[joebo]

how do i know it's high quality developers or high quality clients? do you screen somehow?

[masonicb00m]

i'm interested. can i get an invite code?

[omarish]

Yup - just sent one to the address on your google plus.