Startups: Quit Asking for Spec Work

http://www.followthegospel.com/post/24146731512/startups-quit-asking-for-spec-work

by rglover • 14 years ago

42 28 14 years ago

arkitaip• 14 years ago

I'm curious to know what others think of using services such as 99designs, a kind of spec work market place. Most designers absolutely hate it [1].

[1] http://www.no-spec.com/archives/tag/99designs/

mnicole2• 14 years ago

All you can really say to the people that use 99designs is "You get what you pay for."

There's always going to be people that don't understand the cost and importance of good design, and as much as I am continually put off when I hear business owners praising it, these are the types of people that would rather use WordArt for their logo if such a service didn't exist anyway, so there's not much to complain about.

I've also heard horror stories from both sides in the process, particularly when these cheapskates tend to be the ones who are the most nitpicky.

slantyyz5• 14 years ago

>> "You get what you pay for."

That really is the key point.

For a one or two person bootstrapped startup, a designer can be cost prohibitive, especially if there's not a lot of money in the bank.

For a sustainable multi-person company that's making money, they should really spend more money on a freelance designer vs going the crowdsourced route.

The companies that could afford to hire a designer but opt for something like 99designs are usually difficult/annoying customers, so in some respects, sites like 99designs are doing the higher end designers a favor.

psylence519• 14 years ago

You imply good design cannot be had at places like 99designs. I find that unfair, and a bit conceited.

slantyyz5• 14 years ago

I've used a service like 99designs (logosauce, I think it was), and I was relatively happy with the results. I will probably use a crowdsourcing service for upcoming projects as well.

I can understand why designers hate it, because the industry becomes a race to the bottom, and devalues the profession by making it seem like a commodity. The same thing happened with professional photography, especially in the wedding photography segment.

But I don't have a lot of money to spend on design. I can mock a piece of crap myself, or pay what I can afford to someone willing to do the work (or in the case of a crowdsourced service, compete) for it.

A higher priced designer isn't really losing revenue from me, because I was never able to afford him/her in the first place - and at least a designer is getting some money from me.

Having said that, you do typically get what you pay for. For $300, you're typically not getting as well thought out a design as you would for $10,000.

dj_axl• 14 years ago

> For $300, you're typically not getting as well thought out a design as you would for $10,000.

You're likely to get a temporary logo that lasts you 6-12 months until you need a real logo. On the other end of the pricing extreme, Vancouver supposedly spent $239,000 on a logo design.

http://archive.citycaucus.com/2009/12/239000-dollars-for-gre...

nswans• 14 years ago

As a designer, spec work an annoying* fact of life but no more than that. There are two reasons to use a service like this: 1] They don't care about design enough to pay for an experienced professional to handle the project, or 2] they care but cannot afford it.

Either way, they aren't my target market. My target market is the overlap of those who care and can afford to pay what I require. Outside of that, companies can do what they feel best for them.

* Annoying because it does promote cheap+fast design, which doesn't usually provide the desired results, and these companies may possibly devalue design even more.

saddino• 14 years ago

If you have no problem entrusting your software architecture and development to someone on oDesk, then yes, you will have no problem entrusting your design work to someone at 99designs.

Devilboy• 14 years ago

Hey, if people can get something for free, they'll take it. I think you're talking to the wrong people here.

kirillzubovsky• 14 years ago

We are completely with you here. When people aren't willing to pay for work, they inherently value it less too. If a startup needs to get something done, they should be willing to pay for it. It doesn't mean that you need to fork over 10K and then stuck with a sucky design, but at least pay the designer for a trial period. If you don't get along, you don't lose much money and the designer is happy. Win-win.

slantyyz5• 14 years ago

Not to defend startups, but it's not like they don't have a reputation for paying less than full value for their technical staff either.

If I was a designer and a startup wanted spec work, I'd just politely say no.

Wagging a finger and telling a startup why they shouldn't do so is time better spent on something else, because there's a big assumption that they care. If they did, they wouldn't have asked for freebies in the first place.

jaysonelliot• 14 years ago

I have no trouble with the concept of spec work as a way of judging ability, but I do have a problem with it being approached the wrong way.

I recently applied to join a YC-funded startup as their UX designer. We had a lot of discussion back and forth, and went through several (very fun) interviews. Then, after we'd all met and gotten along very well, and they liked my background, they asked for a spec design.

The spec was both the UX and design for an upcoming feature on the site. I asked as many questions as I could, although being an interview process rather than a client, I found that I wasn't able to have the kind of back and forth, collaborative discussions that I would normally. Presumably they wanted me to just show them my chops, and didn't want to invest the time in longer discussions, or felt a successful candidate wouldn't need that kind of involvement from them.

My first step was to provide a set of detailed user scenarios, laying out the rationale behind my approach, and showing how a typical user interaction would play out through a series of steps. I included some wireframes of the screens I felt would be needed for the scenario. The feedback they gave was positive, and I moved on to the design.

A couple days later, I delivered my design. I asked if I could present it to them, explain the reasons behind it, and get any feedback, maybe even make some edits if it wasn't where they wanted to go. Instead, they asked me to just email them the designs without any discussion. I sent them off, and waited.

Two or three days after that, I got an email saying simply that they had shown the designs to a creative director that was helping them out, and decided not to proceed with me. They cited as negatives several things about the UX that were clearly shown in the earlier deliverable, which surprised me, since I had kept them in the design based on the positive feedback I'd heard earlier. The startup didn't have any established look and feel or branding yet, and they told me to just do whatever I felt like doing. With nothing to go on, I had to take a shot in the dark. When the feedback came that it wasn't the kind of look they wanted, I felt frustrated because there was no opportunity to revise it to go in a direction they would like. There was no opportunity to talk about the work, try to get on the same page, or see how I actually performed in a startup environment. It just felt like I'd been participating in a "spray & pray" design competition.

I'm not upset that I didn't get the job, although they were great guys. I don't think they owed me any "do-overs" or anything like that. What I did feel was that my time and effort was taken for granted, and having my work dismissed by someone I'd never met did feel disrespectful and a bit ill-advised.

When you're running a startup with limited resources and tight schedules, you have to be very careful about the hiring decisions you make. Asking someone to demonstrate their abilities and work style by doing some work is a great idea. If you are going to do that, though, you should put that person in a real work environment, not an unpaid design competition. Treat them like a freelancer, bring them on for a test, and give them a task. Pay them something out of respect for their time. It doesn't have to be a corporate market rate, but it should be enough to show that you're serious. Work just like you would with any team member, even though it's a quick task. Large agencies do it all the time by bringing in freelancers and hiring the ones that do the best job. It's a test drive.

If you approach hiring this way as a startup, you'll have the best opportunity to see who will actually make great employees, and you'll get a great reputation to boot.

trevelyan• 14 years ago

One thing you might want to try in the future is only agreeing to this sort of thing if you will be working one-on-one with the person requesting it. This forces a cost on the employer for asking for spec work, and not an unreasonable one. Since it's far too easy to ask people to mail stuff in and then not give it the attention it deserves, it also ensures they'll give your work a level of consideration commensurate to the amount of time you put in as well.

rhizome• 14 years ago

It's also disingenuous to treat UX as a one-shot deal. In the real world, there is indeed back-and-forth and committment to the positives contained in the earlier deliverable. That they just took your work and denied your efforts should reflect very badly on both their processes and practice.

I think that while you think they're good people/company/etc., jobwise you probably dodged a bullet here. It simply displays poor ethics on their part.

Lastly, paying a prospect for their time in this context is indeed something 37Signals has talked about working well for them. Pity it wasn't these guys.

cnunciato• 14 years ago

There's no excuse for wasting your time like this; one can only assume they didn't or don't know how to properly evaluate a design candidate, so they compensated for their inexperience by taking advantage of you. Unprofessional to say the least.

You're right -- the appropriate and respectful thing to do would've been to bring you aboard as a contract-to-hire, and if things didn't work out, let you go -- after properly paying you for your time and product. If you can afford to hire someone, you can certainly afford the fractional (and risk-free) cost of trying them out.

PaulHoule• 14 years ago

If people want to ask for spec work that's fine. They just can't expect that the best talent is going to show up.

andrewljohnson• 14 years ago

I agree - I always pay contractors for every bit of labor. It works better all around.

On an iOS project I am on now, I was exploring using illustrations for a bunch of different animals, as well as 3D models in Unity. Paid for samples of both, decided not to use the illustrations.

I did end up with a one-of-a-kind shark illustration for my wall though.

shpiel• 14 years ago

While I agree with the overall message of the article, one facet that is not mentioned is that spec work offers an opportunity for less-experienced people to showcase their talent and compensate for a less extensive portfolio.

rglover• 14 years ago

OP here. Irrespective of a lacking portfolio, spec work should not be encouraged. If you need work to build your portfolio, you can still find some less than favorable jobs (that at the very least pay). If that's not enticing, work on a personal project that interests you (doesn't have to be a startup or unique, just something you'd like to build).

It's important to note: building a portfolio takes time. Building a reputation takes even more time. Taking on spec work only lowers the value of your work/reputation. Once upon a time I felt the same way, but by saying "no" now, you're saying "yes" to a lot later.

wpietri• 14 years ago

As a startup person, I agree 100% with this. I would never ask for spec work. If I want to know how somebody will do, I'll look at their portfolio.

If they don't have one or if it doesn't give me enough info, then I would either A) ask them to do a small paid project, or B) have them do some small bit of work that isn't something my company can use, and therefore would be a good portfolio piece in the future. I'd prefer A, but could see doing B as an interview-ish thing.

jenntoda• 14 years ago

Spec work will not go away. It sells itself on hope. It gives hope to a designer without other means of making an income that he/she can have a chance of winning the work. There is a place for spec work that cannot be completely annihilated.

What startups need to understand is that by asking "how cheap can I be", they are short changing themselves the true value that a designer can bring to their team: true creativity.

Building the right design for your product requires a process of communication, of revision, of going back-and-forth, of synergetic teamwork. Because the job of a designer is to think of the things, use cases, scenarios, etc., that you haven't and wouldn't have thought of without his/her help, and then design up your product to be better than what you had imagined. That's the true value of creativity will differentiate your product. This creativity cannot be bought through an one-way-communication - spec work.

There are 6561 photography iPhone apps and only 1 Instagram. Design is not a commodity. Startups should ask themselves if they want to be like Instagram or the 6560 other photography apps in deciding whether to invest in design.

jboggan• 14 years ago

Are there really 3^8 photo apps or did you just pull that number out of the air? Also, why do you know my ATM PIN?

true_religion• 14 years ago

You know, right up until this moment I always thought that spec work meant working to specifications not speculative work.

I thought spec work which was so wildly reviled was 99designs, or giving a designer a colour palette and theme they must work from.

Startups: Quit Asking for Spec Work

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