Show HN: I made a SaaS that helps keep freelancer's pipeline full - with no code

by robwilliams88 • 13 years ago

80 38 13 years ago

toki5• 13 years ago

I was interested in the "with no code" addendum but couldn't find more details on your page. Mind elaborating on that (and on why you felt it was an important bit to share)?

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

I used the most basic setup possible to get started... which turned out to be gumroad and campaign monitor, so I haven't done any custom code yet.

marban• 13 years ago

These are not personalised — so everyone gets the same list?

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

Currently not offering personalization but leads are outnumbering members 26 to 1.

Also personalization is in the works, however that WILL require some coding =)

jcc80• 13 years ago

Try https://www.creamhq.com/ for personalized. Upside is the matching. Down side is that if nothing fits what you're looking for, you of course receive nothing.

alabut• 13 years ago

Interesting idea for a service. Not sure if it would've solved my problems when I freelanced though, since the biggest time sink wasn't finding leads, it was all the communication before even starting a project to determine what they really needed in the first place, breaking it down by scope, priority, timing, etc.

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

Interesting, I am creating a toolbox for members to battle some of this stuff as well.

bdunn• 13 years ago

I know a tool that can help freelancers better plan the scope, priority, timing, etc. of their projects... :-)

thibaut_barrere• 13 years ago

I solved this problem by charging for everything I do, be it a discussion, requirement gatherings, analysis, estimates, quotes etc. There is a lot of value in the early communication. I wouldn't go back to doing this for free now since it really set a different tone, and people actually care of the time you spend on their projects in that case, much more.

ollieglass• 13 years ago

Could you say some more about this? I'm curious how early in the process you start charging, how you present that to clients or potential clients, and how you handle objections.

gautamnarula• 13 years ago

If this works as advertised, it's pretty cool! I have a few questions though:

How exactly do you find the leads? Did you write software to do it (and if so, how does it work?) or are you manually searching for leads?

Does everyone get the same leads? That is, if I were to sign up for the web developer leads, does that mean that every other person who signed up for the web developer leads gets the same 5-10 leads per day/week and I have to compete with all your other customers for them? Or do you have a big pool of equal quality leads and randomly select a small number to send to each person?

Also, friendly typo alert: "I'm an independent designer who's worked with startups, ad agency's" should be "I'm an independent designer who's worked with startups, ad agencies"

Overall, this looks pretty cool. Good luck!

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

The emails are all hand-curated, meaning I find them by hand and add them by hand. Currently leads outnumber members 26 to 1 Fixing that typo now thanks =)

fishtoaster• 13 years ago

That is some excellent marketing copy. If you'd said "it's just a freelance job posting aggregator with a newsletter as its interface"[0], I probably would have closed the window pretty quickly. Instead, you spent that space talking about the value proposition it provides (maybe a little too in-depth), an only brushing on the features. It's not too vague that I don't know what I'm getting, but it's not too specific that I think "$40 seems steep for a mailing list."

I don't even freelance, and I almost want to subscribe. :)

[0] That's what I got out of the pitch, anyway; I could have misunderstood.

ryandetzel• 13 years ago

I agree. I never read these things but I read this entire page. Well done sir.

bdcravens• 13 years ago

I signed up a few days ago. The leads are good, but there aren't that many (5-10 per day). Do you see the number of leads growing? Eventually the leads you send will get pestered to death the larger your list grows, unless you can scale your list as you scale your customer base. I can see that really biting you. Based on your pricing, I can't see it being viable unless you can at minimum 10x'ing your leads list.

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

Thanks for signing up! =) Price is going up soon (not for you of course). Particularly, once I start building this thing out ... and sending even more personalized emails and leads.

kareemm2• 13 years ago

I'd also start to think about how to capture the demand side of this market (clients looking for freelancers). Aggregation is nice but if you can scale up the demand side you'll have fewer problems getting supply.

soneca• 13 years ago

Fellow SaaS founder here. How did you decide to increase the price? Just because you expect to deliver a higher value or somehow you had a perception from your clients that the price is low?

Just curious.

markdown• 13 years ago

I'm curious about the developer package. Do you segregate your leads by language?

As a Python dev, I wouldn't have any interest in JS, C, Ruby, PHP, Obj-C, etc jobs. If you just pump all jobs into the same stream, I could see a scenario where a Python dev could wait days before seeing even a single relevant job appear.

lucaspiller• 13 years ago

Looks pretty nice, however the $40/month seems a bit pricey to me in my current situation (3 month contract coming to an end - may or may not be more work, so I want to keep my options open). Have you thought about taking a commission of jobs you fill a la recruiters?

Edit: Also great marketing copy!

kareemm2• 13 years ago

If you land one gig the $40 pays for itself. Assuming the leads are quality and you can close, this seems like a no-brainer.

jbail• 13 years ago

It's not SaaS if there's no code. The first "S" is software.

That nit aside, the site looks nice. Good luck!

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

there's software (gumroad and campaign monitor), just not custom code ;)

l0gicpath• 13 years ago

Congratulations on launching this. Looks neat.

A software as a service business is more concerned about the software you offer as a service not the software you use.

/2cents

brucehart• 13 years ago

It's a Service as a Service. :)

jsnk• 13 years ago

While this is a great concept, I am not so sure if this will help freelancers in the long run.

As this service becomes more popular, freelancing subscribers will be hurt from the success. More subscribing freelancers? More competition for leads, and once again the same problem of driving down the wage.

As the website states, the pool of freelancing opportunities are pretty limited. It'll more or less stay around the same. So I feel that this service will have same problem like craigslist, odesk etc, but even worse while paying $40/month or $480/year.

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

I'm going to make a bigger push in getting exclusive leads. Meaning only available to members of workshop.

hkbarton• 13 years ago

good idea, just quick question, will you add skill stack match feature? e.g i can setup my skill stack in your service and the mails send to me are match my skill.

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

Currently not offering personalization but it's is in the works

thoughtpalette• 13 years ago

Great idea! You're going to be making money hand-over-fist!

You already have great ideas for the product road map, (skill personalization, etc) and how to scale!

Excited to see a post about the status in 6 months!

brianbreslin• 13 years ago

excellent copywriting on this site. I need to learn how to write better copy. any tips?

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

Thanks!!

Here's what I've used: http://copyhackers.com http://unicornfree.com/

Also, I've dissected landing pages from people like Ramit Sethi, Amy Hoy, Brennan Dunn, and Joanne Weibe.

Hope that helps!

kevinlangleyjr• 13 years ago

It says $1.30 / day but I only see the ability to pay per month. Is it possible to do like a week instead of a full month? Trying to evaluate if the leads match what I'm looking for.

robwilliams8812• 13 years ago

you can get the sample email here for free - https://confirmsubscription.com/h/i/7030908AEF2E8C7E

trythrowcatch• 13 years ago

Pretty cool. Although my worry as a freelancer is not that I can't find leads or don't have time to find leads, but that I find it hard to close.

dkroy• 13 years ago

I signed up, hopefully the money I spent helping a fellow HNer out, comes back to me with interest. The sign up was pretty painless, though an email on what to do next would be very helpful for new signups.

Show HN: I made a SaaS that helps keep freelancer's pipeline full - with no code

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