Ask HN: Your input on a platform I am building

[Ritu]

As a freelancer I have been extremely frustrated with how hard it gets sometimes to get work. Especially, if you are new to freelancing.

I think most freelancers ignore the value of testimonials and positive client experience. Although other platforms allow people to endorse, I think there is a need for a platform where client's positive experiences becomes the core feature of a profile and not side feature.

Currently, I am working on developing the site but went ahead and put up the sign up page, blog and all. Link: squiry.com

Would love to hear your thoughts on idea itself and if you have any suggestion.

[gerad]

The problem is real.

I'm not sold on the solution. Having built a successful consulting company, we've found that most of our business comes from word of mouth referrals.

After that, it comes from people who've found our side projects and wanted something like that.

Even after we get an introduction, people generally want to see a portfolio of work and get an estimate of time/cost before they go to check references.

Honestly, we don't even put testimonials on our web site, and that'd be an easy place to add them if they were valuable at all.

That being said, having reviews of things like accountants could be useful for us. Yelp never really caught on for that, and the reality (with accountants, and other service providers) is that you don't often get to experience many different types, so it's hard to leave a comparative review. Also, because they have fewer clients (than restaurants have patrons, for example) reviews are scarcer... and correspondingly I'm disinclined to leave a negative review. Sites like best vendor are ostensibly already trying to solve this issue. I don't think they've found success yet.

[Ritu]

Thanks for your feedback. What we are trying to do is give someone an idea about a particular freelancer, how they work, what was past experiences like and then the potential client can see their portfolio. It's basically a profile and they will have all the info needed to hire someone. The key focus is positive experience of their clients.

[revorad]

If you don't put testimonials on your web site, then how do you know they can't bring you new clients? Do you mean you tried before and it didn't work?

[earthshout]

I really like the idea but I think your greatest challenge will ensuring the site doesn't get spammed by false reviews.

I have nothing to add as far as a solution goes but I can say that when I see reviews or testimonials the first thing I do is try and verify the online presence of the poster. Whenever I see a link to LinkedIN it shows me that at least there is a real person here who I can check out.

If you can solve that problem without involving Facebook I'll signup. Good luck.

[Ritu]

Thanks for the boost. Reviews will be moderated. As of now the plan is to have all feedbacks/testimonials go directly into user dashboard which will then be approved or declined by the user. Of course, there will be some negative reviews as well but the user has the choice to either approve or decline them. This means there will only be positive reviews, but then again testimonials are mostly positive. Whether or not people choose to show both the good and the bad is upto them. Clients who want to leave testimonial won't have to sign up, ever. This is to encourage them to leave testimonials. The only way facebook will be involved is if the user wants to share their testimonials/review on their profile page.

"....reviews or testimonials the first thing I do is try and verify the online presence of the poster." --> We will have links to client sites or some form to verify that it is not fake. Still working out the details but definitely something we are considering.

Thanks again for your input. Very much appreciated.

[MarlonPro]

Would hiring companies just go to LinkedIN instead?

[Ritu]

Sure, they could and most likely will. However, in my experience - most freelancers don't get hired via LinkedIn. linkedIn, it seems to me is mostly used by big companies.

With this platform, new and upcoming freelancers have a way to show what their clients are saying. Of course, linkedin has an endorsement feature but it's mostly noise. The platform is basically a professional profile but with enough info and past experiences of the clients which I think gives enough info to a potential client to at least reach out to someone. We are still refining the idea and about how this could be even more useful, but the key thing we want to focus on is how we can reduce clutter and provide enough info to someone looking to hire a freelancer. Hope that makes sense.