By Alexander Polezhaev
Having worked for about 6 years at Elance, I finally decided to try and see what other similar platforms look like.
A quick web-storming produced 4 popular sites:
Rentacoder.com
Guru.com
Odesk.com
Getacoder.com
But let’s start with Elance.
Elance is a b2b platform not for just IT. You can also find here projects in such areas as legal, architecture, finance, writing and others. This means that companies and freelancers can find here jobs in all industries that can virtually be outsourced.
Elance offers a very straightforward and easy interface for bidding. In the Project Description view, you can read what your potential client wrote and bid right there in that window. It’s very handy to see the description when you post your bid, unless it’s a canned cut-and-paste response.
Elance is very popular among Indian (and US-Indian) providers. At the same time, people from all over the world post their projects there.
Elance charges 6.75% to 8.75% depending on your level of earnings, which is a very low commission. We also pay $459/quarter per category for Select membership that gives us access to more projects.
What can be improved? I’d like to see all projects posted by a buyer. I’d like to see a better interface for My Activity – it’s where you can see all the projects you bid on, all accepted and archived projects. Sometimes it’s very painful to find a project there.
What else would be nice to have is multi-user functionality. It’s when a sales manager can see only his projects (the ones he placed a bid on), a CEO/CFO can see all projects etc. Another good feature could be some API for integrating the Elance system with our CRM via SOAP. Generally speaking, these two features would be helpful for any b2b platform.
Rentacoder is where many Russian and East European freelancers live. It provides a very good browsing interface where you can filter projects in certain technologies such as C++, Linux, Ruby on Rails and all other. That’s very convenient when you’re a specialist in just one technology or have available resources in one of your teams.
Rentacoder charges 15% off your bid amount, and deducts it from your bid when you confirm your posting. This may be convenient but this also may get you stuck when you try to calculate how much you should bid in order to get, let’s say, $1000. A bid of $1150 won’t make you earn $1000, because now you will have to pay 15% of $1150.
Rentacoder may also leave you in a tricky situation when you post a bid, a buyer leaves a message and selects another provider. In such case, you can’t reply to that buyer and it means that you lost your business with him.
Just like Elance, Guru.com has several subscription levels, and if you’re a free user, you can’t apply to most jobs.
In order to place a bid, you have to go through several steps. First, you read the project description. Click Next. Then, you select a profile you want to use for bidding. Click Next. Now, you can enter your bid amount, check 4 checkboxes that you comply and agree and click Next. Okay, eventually we’re allowed to type in our proposal. If you have already forgot what the project was about, you can open it in a new window. After you have done all that, you confirm your bid and it’s placed. Agree, not a kind of daily routine you want to go through.
Guru.com has several membership options, free and paid, that can be found at their Membership Information page.
oDesk is a platform with tons of Russian programmers. If you look at the list of providers, you will everywhere see Sergey, Aleksandr, Aleksey, Andrey, Artem and other Russian names.
oDesk has a very long and strict registration process. You have to submit several legal documents, then download their software oDesk Team to track the number of hours you worked on the project. When I asked their support how should we, having about 100 developers, manage to have all them running their program, they said that unfortunately that’s a requirement. Otherwise, you may take only fixed price projects, where this program is not required.
It seems that oDesk is good for individual freelancers, but not optimized for companies like ours.
And, finally, GetACoder. It has a very simple and fast registration process. But when you place a bid, you again can’t see the project description. While in Guru.com, you have a link to open the description in a separate window, in GetACoder there’s no such option.
Premium membership costs there $7.95/month, which is very reasonable.
These 5 b2b platforms are the most well-known ones. Each of them targets for a specific market. Some of them, such as Elance, are easier to use for providers. oDesk is more friendly for buyers. It’s a good question, which category of users generates more money for these sites, but I would think twice before going through a long and painful process of bidding.
Please note there are many other web sites for IT projects
Of course there are many. Have you had experience with any of them?
Alex
it is recomended to use such sites to find clients/partners/affiliates and after initial steps to work without the site
I’m disappointed with mental abilities of rentacoder team. For me there is obvious pattern in their behaviour: they are proficient to make patches, for bigger projects they make mistakes and they blame some else for their mistakes
you can read more about my experience with rentacoder at http://kamen123.blogspot.com
rac is excelent source of fun and jokes
The rentacoder team – you mean their staff or providers working at rentacoder?
I mean rentacoder staff, they created the platform
you can see, rac owner even is not able of understanding the documentation of ASP/IIS. As result he makes mistakes for years and blames Microsoft
this is just perfect example
Alex:
>> Rentacoder is where many Russian and East European freelancers live.
Russian coders consistently form a solid base for the Rent a Coder community. For March 2007, The Pulse of Rent a Coder shows the fifth largest population of coders are from the Russian Federation, followed by Ukraine then the United Kingdom.
>> It’s a good question, which category of users generates more money for these sites
Unfortunately, some sites might do their clients a disservice when they pander to one category over the other, because they might see “available money” from the buyers… or “available resources” from the providers.
A site would have to be friendly to both sides if it’s to be a marketplace of value to anyone. Providers and sellers have to feel secure working there. They have to be treated equally… Otherwise, they’re conducting business on an unstable foundation.
Dawn Ippolito
Rent a Coder
On a side note… Rent a Coder makes public the records with Kamen123. We prefer to give all the facts so people can decide for themselves whether or not Kamen was treated fairly, rather than ask people to simply accept one side or the other’s opinion.
Dawn, thank you for your valuable comment. It’s good to know that Rentacoder reads our blog too!
For your information, we are not affiliated with Kamen123. We believe that any conflict can be resolved to mutual appreciation of both sides.
yes, rentacoder staff is reading and is working hard to create good image of the site, I appreciate their hard work
But is not easy for them to admit their mistakes, they are proficient to blame some else
RAC owner was not able to understand recommendations and best practises perfectly described by Microsoft
As result he was fighting for years against problems
This shows that arbitration of bigger projects is far beyond his mental abilities
And he is senior arbitrator, you can imagine mental abilities of junior arbitrators…
The same case is with me too…
It’s fair rentacoder staff to warn in advance that they are specialized in making small tasks and bigger tasks are beyond the skills of the arbitrators
>> It’s good to know that Rentacoder reads our blog too!
Well, where else could I have located the not-so-fine points on “How to Work with Russians”?
It liked seeing the issue of “valuing your time” discussed in the Do-It-Yourself article that one of you wrote. I hope people realize it’s importance.
>> We believe that any conflict can be resolved to mutual appreciation of both sides.
Your success with online outsource work might attest to that.
Thanks for your reply, Alex.
Dawn Ippolito
http://www.rentacoder.com
probably now rentacoder staff will start sending emails to you telling you to disable comments or to hide my comments
I appreciate that is not easy for them to admit their mistakes but this is the life, nobody is perfect
kamen123 is famous insulter. He was banned from RentACoder. This is full story of kamen’s personal failure at RentACoder.com:
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/ArbitrationInfo/KamenKaburov/RentACoderArbitration/KamenKaburov_RentACoder_CompleteArbitration.htm
kamen123 post fake info about RentACoder in revenge.
very funny I see TakeReal/Sergey
Every wise man will confirm that I’m right and will laugh at the attempts of rentacoder staff to escape
Sometimes I can’t stop laughing at people like you
Sergey I have offer for you and rac staff:
please admit the obvious fact that you are not right
and I’ll not post facts/examples about rentacoder
I appreciate your hard work to make good image of rentacoder but I’m not the right man to be excuse for stupidity
:-)?
Very interesting post, and threads !
I’m some one-man-band buyer at Rentacoder.
My experience has been overly frustrating and negative. I must say that i didn’t know 1 year ago about the whole workflow of web development.
Rentacoder is only for highly experienced buyers, who themselves understand perfectly any particular field, and need to subcontract some of their own workload.
IF, they pick ONLY coders with a 10 mark, and who have completed similar jobs, on time, they might get lucky. they might ….
My own experience has been catastrophic ! I’m 120 days behind, i have had to post and extend several extra projects, and the developer won’t even finish the job. This guy had a “top coder” status !
And THAT’s why i’m angry with RAC. I also had a similar negative experience for a smaller job prior to this, also with a “top coder”
Very very amateurish !
DO you know what it is 120 days waiting…whilst i’m not earning a penny, supporting my family, waiting for a job that will never materialize ?!
So i’m moving to oDesk, see how it goes.
But i know i will ONLY hire somebody with top marks, that already knows perfectly what’s asked, and has duly completed similar size project with similar budget.
Hope this help .
laurentsj,
What is actual deadline in this project
“I’m 120 days behind, i have had to post and extend several extra projects, and the developer won’t even finish the job.”
?
I mean: did you set deadline for this project? How many days?
Hello Sergey,
Sorry if this is a slow reply … but that’s how long i’ve been waiting to progress on my projects.
I’m definitely quitting on RAC now… waiting for refund to arrive.
My deadlines were:
Approved on: Feb 26, 2007 6:02:46 AM EDT
Bidding Closes: Mar 13, 2007 6:02:46 AM EDT
Deadline: Tuesday Mar 25, 2008 11:23:46 AM EDT
(195 days after 9/12/2007 11:23:46 AM)
As aforementioned, i must admit that i am a non professional buyer, as i do not master php-css-javascript-xml-flash
… but i would have hoped that “Buyers” meant actually people who precisely, do not master particular technical skills, and therefore, call upon sites such as RAC to outsource pros.
i’ve since posted jobs wire more realistic price ranges and time scales, and i’m still struggling to find freelancers willing to work.
I was hoping to find pros to work on the 30US$ range. Above this, i’m going to start lookingi for freelancers in France (if i’m willing to grant them extra time) who have a main job, and take on work “on the side”
At least, I’ve tried !
wow
its very unconventional point of view.
Nice post.
realy gj
thx
Elance just published new version with team features, we would keep updated regarding usage and experience.
New resource on the subject: Outsourcing Through Rentacoder explains the proper way to outsource online before making mistakes via trial and error.
Chiteswar Solutions is doing good. If you want to outsource , please visit Chiteswar Solution
Hi Sergey,
You can get much more information about IT Outsourcing in my blog which is updated day to day basis.site is – http://blog.outsourcing-partners.com/