Casual Contracting - our contract work website

by chrispesto • 15 years ago

35 58 15 years ago

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.

chrispesto11• 15 years ago

rhizome2• 15 years ago

Mailing list only? As in email?

orenmazor2• 15 years ago

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.

kaffeinecoma• 15 years ago

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?

omarish11• 15 years ago

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?

dbalatero• 15 years ago

<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!

chrispesto11• 15 years ago

@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!

kschua• 15 years ago

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

peng• 15 years ago

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

shaggyfrog2• 15 years ago

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.

omarish11• 15 years ago

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

simmons• 15 years ago

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

omarish11• 15 years ago

Ouch, that's our fault. I'll get it fixed. Could you please email me? omar.bohsali@gmail.com.

angryasian• 15 years ago

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

chrispesto11• 15 years ago

@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.

martinkallstrom2• 15 years ago

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

jarin3• 15 years ago

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.

logicalmike• 15 years ago

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

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

alextebbs• 15 years ago

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

reinhardt2• 15 years ago

Yeap, edit doesn't work here either.

scottyallen2• 15 years ago

Yep, I've got the same problem.

chrispesto11• 15 years ago

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

sam26880• 15 years ago

can you send an invite code please?

chrispesto11• 15 years ago

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

ddagradi• 15 years ago

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

rpwilcox• 15 years ago

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.

chrispesto11• 15 years ago

@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.

shaggyfrog2• 15 years ago

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

omarish11• 15 years ago

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

chopsueyar• 15 years ago

Also, how to change password?

jlvarner• 15 years ago

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.

chrispesto11• 15 years ago

@jlvarner Sorry, we'll look into this.

scottyallen2• 15 years ago

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

chrispesto11• 15 years ago

@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.

reinhardt2• 15 years ago

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

omarish11• 15 years ago

Added. Great idea.

jarin3• 15 years ago

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.

omarish11• 15 years ago

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

jarin3• 15 years ago

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.

joshontheweb• 15 years ago

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.

omarish11• 15 years ago

Could you @omarish on twitter?

snorkel• 15 years ago

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

endlessvoid94• 15 years ago

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.

masonicb00m• 15 years ago

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

omarish11• 15 years ago

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

garethsprice2• 15 years ago

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?

omarish11• 15 years ago

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: omar.bohsali@gmail.com / @omarish? I'll pass you an invite code.

Again, thanks for the great feedback.

garethsprice2• 15 years ago

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).

Vivtek• 15 years ago

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.

omarish11• 15 years ago

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

joebo• 15 years ago

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

Casual Contracting - our contract work website

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