Ask HN: Why is it so hard finding a Freelancer?

[thekillingtree]

I've been looking for someone to build a site for me and after emailing a dozen people, I've gotten no responses.

As a non programmer or a non billionaire, it seems like it is extremely difficult for average joes to try to get their idea built without resorting to the race to the bottom sites. ie: elance. Why does it have to be this difficult? I can't imagine that developers are so busy that when I'm saying "TAKE MY MONEY", no one wants it (despite saying they are looking for work). I've tried emailing the full idea with a detailed list of what I want vs emailing a quick summarized note and the results are the same. No response.

Am I missing something? Is there some sort of secret code I'm not using?

edit: Wow, thank you guys. I'm getting a crazy amount of information and can already see a few things I had been doing wrong.

[trotsky]

For whatever reason, most unsolicited leads from websites or email turn out to be garbage in that business. Meaning if you pursue all of them very close to 0% will turn into real work. Most emailers are dreaming, fishing for some free work, can't afford it or are trying to get bids for a job they already plan to hire their friend for.

Somehow you need to convince these people that you're not one of those folks, assuming you aren't. I'd make the note specific to the person you're emailing (I liked portfolio piece x and would like something like the operation of y which impressed me), state clearly that if you can come to an agreement you're ready to commit to work right away without getting competitive bids, provide sketches or something concrete that shows you didn't just dream up this idea an hour ago and will have forgotten about it tomorrow, state your approximate budget and note that the money is in the bank, and make it clear some how you're not emailing the whole planet.

Lots of these people will be happy to work with you - but if they state on the web they're looking for work they've probably been burned a number of times by people who demanded a lot of attention and yet never had the actual intention of hiring them (even if they thought they did at the time). Do make sure that's not you.

EDIT: I Just saw one of your follow ups where you said "I'm not sure if what I'm asking for is $1k or $10k" - that's your problem, you probably are one of these bad leads at least at this point. I'd consider offering a day rate of $500 to have someone help you flesh out your needs and set your expectations. If $500 is too much to move the process along you probably should reconsider what you're getting into.

[codegeek]

Freelancers who are worth your time are usually busy. If you want to get a response, try and include the following information as much as you can:

- HOW DID YOU FIND ME: This is important. Did you find me online somewhere or was I referred to you by someone I know personally? That could make a difference.

- NEW PROJECT vs. EXISTING ENHANCEMENT: It matters if you are looking to start a brand new project from scratch vs. taking an existing project/work/code from someone and enhancing it. Reason being: freelancers will get an idea what they might be getting into.

DETAILED PROJECT SCOPE: this usually refers to what you are trying to do. If brand new project, explain this in plain english without worrying about technical mumbo jumbo. Example "I want to build a website to buy and sell bicycles. It should allow sellers to create a listing, upload pictures and the buyers should be able to pay online using credit card". This is an example and any level of details will help. If existing project, you can then provide some tech. details if you understand it. For example, "the site is already built in Ruby on Rails primarily with mysql database" etc and I am interested in using/leveraging the existing code. Provide any URLs if available publicly.

PRICING: This is important. Even if you don't understand whether it will cost you 1K vs 20K (as you mentioned), you need to do some basic research about current market rates. If you have a fixed budget, mention it. If you have no clue, then your best bet is to try and say "Willing to pay market rates and you tell me what it will cost". Remember, if you low ball, you will never get a response from good freelancers. Also, there is no such thing as a high number :).

PROJECT TIMELINE: This is related to Pricing as well. You have to give the freelancer an idea of tentative timelines. Do you need something done in 5 days vs. 50 days ? Do you need somone Fulltime vs. part time. Weekends ?

LOCATION & COMMUNICATION: Do you need someone to work at a specific location for this or telecommute etc. Where are you located yourself ? How will you be communicating with the freelancer during the project ?

TECHNOLOGIES: If you already know the tech. stack because you know what u want or it is an existing project built using xyz tech. stack, then mention it. For example "the app is built in Python/Django,node.js, Postgres etc."

If you can try and put these in your initial communication, I think the response rate will be much higher.

[sopooneo]

I don't know if this is the case with you, but most of the time when someone pitches me (a developer) an idea, they have not thought it through. And I'm not talking technologically or how to program it, or what computer language/framework to use. I'm talking much more basic. I mean they haven't thought through what will happen when people click various things. They haven't thought through the basics of what information will be presented and in what basic way and what might happen in various circumstances.

Such people are generally unaware of how much they haven't thought through. They are super excited about a kernel of an idea without any of the details worked out.

I highly suggest getting a pencil and bunch of paper and sketching pictures of what the main pages would look like. For every link or button you draw, you should have something somewhere physically drawn that represents what happens when it is clicked. You will likely be tempted in some cases to take a shortcut and just write a note that starts "Basically...", or "Kind of like..." Don't do that. Come up with specific (if not permanent or polished) pictures for everything.

The point is not to produce a prototype, but to uncover what you don't know about your own idea. If you are like most people (even me) you will find there are huge swaths of questions you hadn't even considered yet.

[clockwork_189]

To be honest, I am on the other end of that spectrum where I am looking to build my portfolio and I am finding it extremely hard getting clients.

In terms of your question, it could be a couple of reasons: 1) Either the price you are quoting is too high 2) You are asking for a long term commitment with little financial returns 3) You are asking for development, using technologies that are either a) outdated, b) The developer is unfamiliar with.

Any ways, if you are still looking for some one, you can find my email and github account in my profile. Shoot me a message if you are interested.

[chc]

> In terms of your question, it could be a couple of reasons: 1) Either the price you are quoting is too high

I do not believe I have ever turned someone down because they wanted to throw a large amount of money at me.

[clockwork_189]

Whoops I meant too low for too much work. hahaha, my bad!

[rush-tea]

I was in the same shoe as you. As other says, you have to state clearly what you want, for example, if there is a similar website already exist and you want to build something that is 90% the same, then say, I want to build a marketplace like ebay. Then people have ideas on your project.

Also, if possible, never ask for estimate on your first inquiries. Why? Because the freelancers do not have the complete details from you and can not provide estimate on something that is unclear.

You should try to gauge their interests first.

For example: I saw your profile at github and I have a project that I think it may interest you. It seems like you have interests in AI, and I have just a thought of building something...

How you are going to fish if you don't have the right bait?

by the way, there is nothing wrong in hiring freelancers on elance or desk. In fact, if you have limited budget, you can try build a prototype from hiring at elance/odesk. True, once you post at elance, you will get many garbage. Be sure to weed down the garbage, and ask them questions to truly gauge their interests. "why are you interested in this project?" show me some projects that you have done in the past that are similar to my idea. Interview them.

[BSousa]

You said you emailed a dozen of people, where did you get their emails?

If from popular blogs freelancers have, most of the time these freelancers have their schedule full and tired as many others pointed of getting contacted with bad offers so they just ignore them.

I'll be glad to take a look at your email as well and give you feedback, and if it is a small project (can't take full time projects at the moment) I may be able to help you.

[trezen]

I will append to most of the comments here. Describe what you want (describe as many details as you can without writing a book (ex. basic description, technology that will be used and a time frame of when you need it by.) Letting the freelancer know that the a budget has been approved will also help. Many times I've gone through the time and effort of quoting a project only to find out that it was in exploratory means of deciding how much it might cost. Include contact information and best time to call if they have questions.

Then tell the freelancer you are accepting quotes until a certain date and you will make a decision shortly afterwards. I can do the same if you send me the above information. I can take a look at your project and see if I can help you.

[e-mail]

[fest]

Taking on new customers when existing ones are sufficient is risky for developers as well. I myself only take on new projects from customers I haven't been working previously only under three circumstances: 1) I'm running low on my reserves.

2) The project is really interesting for me.

3) Someone I know has referred me, and I have checked with referral that the person is worth to work with.

Based on my experience with vworker and odesk, in both of which I have been in both sides (customer and contractor)- there are good freelancers out there- finding them is tough though.

I would suggest choosing top 3 contestants and giving a days worth of work to all of them- then continue to work with best performer.

[jf22]

What are you emailing them?

I get emailed daily by people telling me about great opportunities and exciting projects. Unless your emails stand out I'm afraid they may get lost in the noise.

[m2mapps]

It may be that your idea is not feasible - I commonly get requests for ideas that are just not worth investing time and effort in.

Cost is another factor - what is your budget, have you made that clear in your emails?

How are you locating these people?

12 people isn't that many, keep trying and hopefully this thread will get you the right person.

[timjahn]

Some freelancers prefer to get work through trusted channels, like a referral from a friend.

This is exactly why we built matchist (http://matchist.com). When you submit your project through matchist, our developers know we've vetted it and will only send it their way if it's legit.

[bmelton]

There are a ton of reasons for which someone might not respond to unsolicited quotes, and I'll do my best to explain. Without seeing the specific email you sent, it's all guesswork though.

1) Freelancers are generally busy right now, and it's hard to keep up with potential customers that may or may not work out when you're already bouncing time between two or three active, paying customers that are a known-good quantity. This leads into,

2) Lots of freelancers aren't set up to be agencies. The main difference between a freelancer and an agency is that an agency has someone following up on potential work while there is someone different actually doing the work. For non-agencies, this means that every customer I'm ironing out terms with or trying to get a sale from is time away from paying customers and real money in lieu of potential money. Obviously, it costs a lot more to work with an agency because now you are paying for at least two people, and also paying for the time that gets wasted, but it is generally the more reliable way to go if you can afford it.

3) If you mention a specific toolset (e.g., Rails, Django) in your message, it might be that the folks you're sending to either aren't familiar with that toolset, or they don't think it's appropriate for the task, or in some cases, I've seen people simply avoid working with customers that asked for a specific toolset. The logic there is that people who ask for things like Rails, but that aren't competent to build the thing themselves, often don't know what they're asking for and that could be in indicator of a difficult client. Obviously this may not be the case, you may simply have another codebase that it needs to work with, or y'know, any of a hundred different reasons that you actually need something written in Rails, but that is the perception I've sometimes seen.

Obviously if I don't know your toolset, I can't help you. I've worked with a lot of customers on a lot of different technologies. I could build something in Django, Flask, or pretty much any Python Framework, Node, Express, or pretty much any new JS frameworks, etc., Java, .Net, but if you ask for Rails, I'd have to (at the least) tell you that I don't have any recent experience in it, and I don't really love it. The better freelancers will at least try to refer you to someone else they know, but many of them might just as quickly assume that there are a million Rails freelancers out there, and you're likely to find one with the very next email.

All this, and I haven't even mentioned budget yet. People have their preferred budget ranges. Some guys like small projects, some guys prefer 3-6 month projects, etc. If you specifically mention budget, it might easily be that your budget thoughts are too small for the work at hand.

Anyway, hope this helps.

[coffee]

I believe a lot of freelancers are busy right now. I know I get a ton of freelance email and I always respond, but that doesn't mean everyone does.

Shoot me a few of the emails you've been sending and I'll give you some feedback (email is in profile).

[Minneapolis1]

Because most good programmers regularly hear from people who want them to work for free on an idea someone has...with the chance that they will get paid well once the idea succeeds. Ideas are easy and we all have them; executing them well is very hard.

[thekillingtree]

Yeah, I get that. I do. In all of my emails I ask for a rough ballpark quote or an estimate of how many hours. I realize how hard it is to do this sometimes, but you have to start somewhere.

[fizzbar]

Wild speculation: if you're at the "ballpark" stage, you probably have a very vague feature list / overall plan... I suspect if you tighten up the description and scope you'll have more luck (although given how many offers for quotes you just got, perhaps a better method is to just post on YC ;)

[pc86]

I sent a quick note to your email. I'll be happy to provide a quote or just offer some feedback on why others may not have been responding.

[robflynn]

This has been offered by others already, but I can take a look over your e-mail as well. My e-mail address is in my profile.

[Jeremy1026]

As with the others, send over what you want to me via email (in my profile) and I'll see what I could do for you.

[twanlass]

I'd be happy to give feedback on your email and provide a quote - twanlass @ gmail.com.

[factorialboy]

Good freelancers are surprisingly easy to reach (hint: see profile) :p

[coderforhire]

How many quotes have you received? What is your budget?

[thekillingtree]

I've received 0 quotes and I'm not sure if what I'm asking for is going to cost $1k or $20+k.

As far as a budget goes, I'm not sure really. I understand that you get what you pay for and I also understand what it's like working as a freelancer, so I'm not trying to lowball anyone.

I mean, for a down and dirty idea of what I'm looking for is basically pcpartpicker.com but definitely not a clone and clearly a different industry. I saw this site the other day and it has a lot of things that I have written down for features of what I want.

Anyways, I just feel like I've been talking about this site idea for over a year and have yet to really find anything that's better than what I came up with and figure it's time to just get it out.

[coderforhire]

shoot me an email [e-mail]; we can go over a features list, and I'll be happy to send you a quote, at the least help out determining why you can't get any interest from other freelancers.

[bmelton]

You can bounce it off me as well - [e-mail].

I'll mail you back my take on the offer -- if it's turning someone off to responding to you, I'll respond as to why. If it looks perfectly reasonable, I'll let you know that as well.

I will also respond with a quote as to what I think it should cost, in terms of hours and dollars.

[ashraful]

I sent you an email. My portfolio is at madebyargon.com

[cgrusden]

Email me, [e-mail]

[centdev]

Let me know how we can help.