TheSuperlancers Freelance Marketplace: An Underdog or Another Disappearing Freelance Site?

This weekend, the Rai Enterprises at Work group (REW) announces the launch of the Internet's newest competitive freelance site, TheSuperlancers. But is it a stable competitor amongst the "Big Dogs", or just another quick to disappear freelance site?

January 4, 2009 (FPRC) -- Most of us IT or Web Design industry professionals know exactly what a "freelance site" is, but for those who don't, it's a talent auction marketplace where freelancer web designers, graphic designers, and programmers, regardless of their particular worldwide locale, bid on projects from buyers looking for (usually cheap) web work. The freelancers compete against each other for price, deadlines, and overall proposal and customer ethic. Many of the freelance sites today are booming with fresh talent and project prospects every day, and for the web design or programming freelancer, it's a one-stop shop for buyers, projects, and even long terms customers. In many ways, due to the rather direct nature of the interaction, for most of us it beats out generating leads from portfolio websites, forum posts, and even free classfied ads.

While the majority of well-known "Freelance Sites" have been around for years, a few have crept up over the last twelve months that seem promising. But can a new underdog handle the competition?

We talked to site owners J. Rai, Porter Stevens and Lance Hunter (you did read that correctly...he really is Lance Hunter from New Jersey) about their new venture TheSuperlancers and why they felt it was a good idea to launch a new Freelance Marketplace enterprise.

"It had a lot to do with competition," Rai said during the interview. Rai is the owner of the Rai Enterprises at Work group and a musician in secret, or the other way around. "There are a few big freelance sites out there, and I've worked at pretty much all of them. They're all very different and they cater to different markets. But really when you want instant work, there are even fewer places to go. I'd say three, to be honest. The rest are great for big projects, but they take a long time to pull something in, and [as a freelancer], you know...sometimes you need work yesterday. We opened in that arena. To be as large as the standing giants, but as accessible and no-frills as a site like Scriptlance."

"Scriptlance is a good example." Lance Hunter is a long term website designer and contractor from outside the City. "I've worked there for almost six or seven years. There are times when you can't find projects. Times when you have trouble with support. Times when things just happen. And the problem is, there's often or usually nowhere else to go, and that leaves you at the mercy of that one site. I don't know if that's really good for anyone, including the site. Competition makes business move, and from a freelancer's standpoint, it helps to have some options and other places you can go that are just as popular, just as dependable for projects, and just as easy to get into. As it stood up until we launched, once you had trouble getting projects on the one site, you were pretty much lost."

The competition is too many to list. At the time of this article, there are easily two dozen established freelance sites on the market, including the majors (such as Elance, Rentacoder), the minors (as in Getafreelancer and EUFreelance), and the middle league, as with the aforementioned Scriptlance. Most of these sites (all but those in the minor-league category) have existed for five or more years. Can TheSuperlancers carve a niche in what already seems to be a crowded market?

Porter Stevens is a freelance writer and graphic artist. "As far as that goes, there are two or so other sites out there that fit that market. That is, the easy-to-get-into and bid for projects today market, which is our only real competition. There are many sites that are a copy of these other sites. We really only walked into a market of three or so websites, and I think we'll do fine. As we said before, freelancers don't have to be tied to one freelancer site...you really need to have more out there. Even more than just us. For a freelancer it's all about getting jobs and making contacts, it's not about loyalty to one site. In fact, as long as we don't share projects, I don't think we should consider other freelance sites as "competition" in the first place."

But finding project resources and providing more varity to for the marketplace wasn't the only reason these three webpreneurs pooled their funds in early 2008 and start establishing a new marketplace for buyers. Some of the reasons were personal.


"I had a series of support run-ins with one of these sites myself." Rai remembers, "It was nothing serious, but it was a long string of issues, from projects that needed cancelled to needing to verify my account to be able to withdraw the money I made from a client project. Once I was pegged for allowing a client to contact me through my site. My biggest problem was that, after six or so years working with this site, for all of us, I still felt like I was being pushed around. If I got a response at all. Meanwhile, I need to resolve the issue so I can keep working. And I think they knew that. Having nowhere else to turn to while things worked themselves out elsewhere was, for me, probably a big reason to start up TheSuperlancers. I've run many companies in the past that relied on good customer support, but I wanted to establish a site like this with that same kind of service and respect. I think we just felt that we were lacking a resource...at least one major, stable, simple freelance site; one that we could work back-and-forth from with the other sites. And since we couldn't find that resource, we thought we'd better get started making one for everyone else, as well."

TheSuperlancers, launched just before the new year, offers just that. The three say they plan to bring the customer support theory that major web hosting companies are judged by into the Freelance Marketplace venue. Currently, TheSuperlancers offers 24/7 support, as well as a support and general forum and live help.

As for how TheSuperlancers stacks up to other freelance marketplaces commissions-wise, company owner Rai states: "Some things are a better deal, some things are slightly higher, most things are exactly the same. It all depends on what the service is. Our commission is slightly higher, but we also have higher minimum bids for the programmer and bigger commission cuts for certified users."

Both project managers and service providers (Superlancers, as they call them) pay a 10% commission on projects. As with most of the sites in this market, managers and "Superlancers" sign up, post, and bid for free. Their accounts are charged this commission at project close, when they choose a provider or choose to start work on a project. Managers and providers are required to refill their accounts to cover this negative balance only after the fact, or within 15 days of having a negative balance. After that, the cycle goes around, with more projects, more providers, and more bidding. The party takes a rest only when someone withdraws their earnings from their Superlancer balance.

The three feel that a fair commission structure, a strong integrity, a fun attitude, and a healthy lean on customer service will keep them treading above the waves of the larger creatures already in this ocean. Is it possible that a smart upstart like this one can pave the way to a new attitude for sites like these?
Only time can be the real judge of that query.

You can be the judge at http://www.thesuperlancers.com

For more information contact Ian Tipton of Rai Enterprises at Work (http://www.thesuperlancers.com)
+48787202980

Keywords: freelancers, web design, programmers

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