oDesk Hits MileStones, Lowers Fees

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1. Startups.in/India
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 12:02 am

   I always wondered how better or rather how different are they from elance or other popular freelance sites except that OD provides a way to monitor the freelancers using video cam!

2. Denver Wang
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 1:05 am

   Well, I thought this is a good business model which based on trust.

3. rm
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 1:07 am

   only sick people monitor other people working….what a lame idea to monitor your consultant….worse than slavery!!!!

4. Matthew Leitz
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 2:02 am

   One small correction to the article: oDesk does allow you the option to post your jobs privately and only interview the programmers which you select. We have been using oDesk for the past 3 months, and I can say that after 1 and a half years of failed projects with development companies, hiring freelance programmers here in the States and using other online solutions such as elance, that we have finally found a solution that works for us. We hired one programmer to complete a search mashup we released a few weeks ago called searchadelic.com. We now employ four programmers in Russia to develop a social network which we are launching today (RealEstateBaller.com, you can be one of the first people to check it out).

   The major difference between oDesk and the other sites such as GetaCoder, eLance, RentaCoder, etc. is that those sites are all project based and paid the same as hiring an American development company (usually payment broken into 3 parts). The potential disadvantage of oDesk is that paying hourly does not guarantee that you will be delivered a final project. The best advantage is that I can simply instant message an idea for improving the site at 5:00 in the morning and they make the change without having to worry about altering a contract.

   As to the screenshot comment, it is truly a great feature in my book. I rarely look in the archives to view their activity, but that feature alone creates more trust than if I had a programmer working in the very next room. If a techie does not want to monitored when they are clocked in to work then there are plenty of other sources to use besides oDesk.

5. Michael Arrington
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 2:07 am

   Yes but Molly disclosing all past advertising relationships just doesn’t scale. There are advertisers that self-purchase ads through FM, there are sponsors, and even party/event sponsors. There are also advertisers on other TechCrunch network sites, and their money goes into the same bank account. There are literally too many advertisers to disclose every one when we write about them, and since big media like the NYT feels comfortable writing about companies that have advertised with them without disclosure, we are too.

   We rely on two things - an ethical line between sales and editorial (our writers, including me, do not sell advertising), and the fact that our credibility is more valuable to us than keeping advertisers happy. We’ve slammed advertisers in the past (and sometimes lost their business), but we think that’s just fine as long as we keep writing our honest opinions.

   In this case, oDesk is a service we’ve used (and paid their normal fees) and highly recommend. And yes, they have purchased advertising on TechCrunch. As usual, readers should form their own opinions on these startups after reading the comments from other users, as well as other blogs and media writing about them.

6. Allen
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 4:59 am

   Mid-last week I posted my thoughts on oDesk - I call it eSlavery 2.0.
   http://www.centernetworks.com/odesk-eslavery

   When I heard you speak about this product at the FoWa I decided to take a more detailed look. While it does have some things going for it, it certainly has some other things that are bad, very bad. People in the USA are ok with putting shackles on other people in other countries, but would never do it here.

   And why do people use it? Because it is cheaper to get (and watch) a Russian coder. And so everything has a price.

   Comes down to trust, doesn’t it?

7. wil
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 6:02 am

   —
   only sick people monitor other people working….what a lame idea to monitor your consultant….worse than slavery!!!!
   —

   I agree!

8. Denis Krukovsky
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 7:05 am

   Last time I checked it they required the programmer not to use any “pre-existing intellectual property” in deliverables, and stated something like if the property is used than programmer gives oDesk all rights onto it. Nolan elaborates on it a bit: http://nolan.eakins.net/node/302

   Also, how about their marketing slogan = “find $15/hour developers”?

9. dave
   

   November 20th, 2006 at 7:27 am

   i more than agree on michael’s disclosure point; there is just no need to add a little “this company has advertised here” comment…disclosure is only relevant if somebody from techcrunch has invested, advised or otherwise influenced or held a hand with the firm beyond dinner and drinks…

10. Dave Coleman
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 8:28 am

    Not a huge fan of Odesk or elance for that fact. The people that they list as service providers are never high quality and I always have to push to get the right results. These sites really dont help solve the problem of increased adoption for outsourcing.

11. Dave Coleman
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 8:39 am

    I also want to say that you really need to find ways to trust your service providers other than spying one them. The service should be providing value in the quality of its service providers, not band-aids that help you keep them in check.

12. dave mcclure
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 9:13 am

    denis: the reason the contracts are written to require original IP / exclude pre-existing IP (and/or license it) is so that any buyers are assured that they own their IP. odesk doesn’t have a dog in that hunt… they just want to make sure buyers feel comfortable when they pay for the work that they own it. in fact, oDesk has made very specific efforts to review legal language in all of the 50 countries in which it operates to ensure this benefit. oDesk has no interest in owning IP, they’re simply clarifying the situation for the buyer.

    allen: as noted on your own blog post, several folks in addition to me have observed your comment of ‘white slavery’ is a bit over the top. check out matt romaine’s commentary for an alternate view, in addition to my own responses to your questions. in short: slaves don’t have any choice, and generally don’t get paid for their time. not the case here whatsoever.

    rm/wil: if you don’t believe in the monitoring services, totally ok for you to not use it. same for any programmers who choose to use oDesk. it’s a free market, and there are plenty of alternatives that *don’t* have those features. as noted by others however, the monitoring & time logs provide benefits to both sides — buyers know people are doing work, providers have verifiable info that helps ensure payment. it seems that plenty of people with other choices have decided that those benefits offset other perceived issues of privacy. ultimately, people who do great work aren’t really that afraid of proving it… as long as they get paid well.

    (full disclosure: i’ve been helping oDesk P/T with some marketing consulting since earlier this summer. i’m also a former programmer, and have worked with plenty of developers from numerous countries all over the world. whether or not the world is flat, talented geeks come in all colors and from all corners of the earth. oDesk provides a great way for those folks to get economic access and empowerment… the folks here who think they are somehow being used or abused from monitoring haven’t spoken to the people really doing the work who have doubled or tripled or increased their income tenfold using oDesk. slavery? hardly. in fact, just the opposite.)

13. Denis Krukovsky
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 9:36 am

    Dave, thanks for your answer. If you’re a former programmer than I don’t know how it can be you find oDesk agreement acceptable.

    If the programmer will strictly follow the agreement he will not use neither existing open source tools or her own pre-existing background technology.

    Now weight productivity of developer who use open source libraries and one who don’t (is it possible?) . Also, weight productivity of developer who has developed some skeleton framework for projects to start from, and one who starts from scratch every time.

14. Allen
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 10:33 am

    For Dave #15
    allen: as noted on your own blog post, several folks in addition to me have observed your comment of ‘white slavery’ is a bit over the top. check out matt romaine’s commentary for an alternate view, in addition to my own responses to your questions. in short: slaves don’t have any choice, and generally don’t get paid for their time. not the case here whatsoever.

    I don’t know where you get “white slavery” from - when have said anything about white or any race. I don’t appreciate those type of comments.

    Slaves have no choice, correct. But if all of the “buyers/masters” are on oDesk than does the Russian programmer have a choice? And Dave, naturally you have given these workers more income, but at what price? You are clearly stating to your workers, “we do not trust you”.

    And in addition, in a court of law, my logs of work and your logs of work would be counted with the same weight. So I am not sure your argument to rm/wil really hold much water.

    For someone who has posted each time about your disclosure and how you only do some work once in a while, you certainly seem to be the only one from oDesk talking about these concerns. I am still waiting for someone at oDesk to talk to me.

15. Dave McClure
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 12:10 pm

    [apologies about ‘white’… my error]

    re: ‘at what price’, i just don’t agree that recording of desktop snapshots + verified time logs = “we don’t trust you”. as i’ve noted several times, this is also what ensures payment for people doing work. plenty of people walk around the workplace and see what people are doing at their desks — oDesk provides the same capability, just online. i don’t see anyone calling managers who drop by your desk to see how you’re doing with a project ‘plantation owners’. that’s not a lack of trust, that’s just practicing good management oversight & tracking progress.

    while you’re certainly entitled to your perspective, calling it “slavery” when providers obviously have other choices just doesn’t strike me as responsible blogging. and if you’ve heard the feedback from people who actually have used the service (both buyers & providers), i don’t think you’ll hear it described that way at all.

    if you’d like to hear from other folks at oDesk and/or customers / users, you may want to visit the oDesk community to hear their reactions first-hand.

    - dave mcclure

16. Jason Chicola
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 12:21 pm

    Allen,

    Regarding your question: “Is oDesk slavery?”

    Our users certainly don’t think so. Here is what they had to say:
    https://community.odesk.com/node/581

    We find the question odd, since our goal is to give workers and employers more freedom and opportunity than they have anywhere else.

    At oDesk, a worker has the freedom to:

    Decide how much he wants to earn per hour - we’ve seen hourly rates ranging from $0 to $66 per hour. (The $0 per hour worker was earning equity from his buyer!)

    Decide where he wants to work - many work from home, coffee shops, vacation spots, wherever they want. We’ve seen providers emigrate from one country to another without having to find a new job

    Decide what he wants to work on - tired of Java? Learn Ajax and make more money. oDesk helps them figure out which skills are in demand

    Decide who he wants to work for - sick of your boss? Get a new one. Hiring decisions are a two-way street. Nobody wants to work for a jerk.

    Why do we offer the WorkDiary (screenshots of the worker’s activity)?

    First, many buyers wouldn’t be comfortable hiring a remote worker without some assurance that work is being done.

    Second, managing across time zones can be tough. oDesk makes it easier by giving buyers visibility into what the worker is doing. Buyers tell us they check the WorkDiary daily just to see what the guy was working on, and where he’s spending his time.

    In any company, managers walk around the office and get to see what people are working on. The oDesk WorkDiary simply aims to give distributed teams many of the collaboration benefits of being “in the same office.”

    By offering the WorkDiary, oDesk is introducing more companies to remote management, which ultimately creates more opportunity for workers looking for remote jobs.

    Best,
    Jason Chicola
    Director of Marketing
    http://www.odesk.com

17. Allen
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 12:51 pm

    For Dave #18 - again, the plantation owners comment is not needed.

    So you are comparing a manager or boss walking by to check in periodically with oDesk logging screenshots, keyboard/mouse clicks and possibly video images?

    For Jason #19 - your last comment about offering the work diary….
    You and I both know that the reason people use your (and other offshore services) is for cost first. If you could find a xyz developer in San Fran/NYC, etc. for $15/hr, you would go there first and/or more often. oDesk capitalizes on the fact that there are companies who want ultra cheap labor with people around the world looking for work at a rate higher than their local agencies can provide. In addition, if you think about it, while you believe your are helping those looking for remote jobs, the only ones you are helping are buyers here, oDesk, and offshore help. You are not helping developers here. That is a completely sep. topic which I won’t even go into here so as not to muddy the topic.

    And once again, let me make it perfectly clear - I think there are some positive parts of oDesk - I just think there are some negatives which hurt 2-3x more as the positives help.

18. Chris
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 2:48 pm

    Rentacoder is much more relevant for project based work. ODesk claims that you can “manage” your employees, but it’s really a bunch of BS. Don’t believe the hype, Odesk is painful to work with and the people found there even more so.

19. Thomas
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 3:36 pm

    I disagree with the oDesk philosophy. I don’t believe people in any job (even jobs that are normally considered “low end”) can be monitored this way.

    I say this as a manager. I would never consider monitoring any of my team members this way. And I can never conceive of why a self-respecting programmer would want to be monitored this way.

20. patricia miranda
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 6:12 pm

    incredible for me… fantastic solution!!!

21. Allen
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 6:12 pm

    Thomas, it is easy - they do it because they have no choice. Certainly they can go to guru or elance but the clients are not there.

22. patricia miranda
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 6:18 pm

    is just a begin, details that the peaple desagree will be change sure for better soon, but the concept behind is so great, because make the world more without frontier for a goog cause, a job for all, universal prices, i have also live sooooooo bad histories with agences that we paid for then just to show our CV… so i hope many company look for oDesk like an example… hard it will be to learn english ;))

23. patricia miranda
    

    November 20th, 2006 at 6:44 pm

    reading now all comments, my personnal statement is… i am a fashion and graphic designer working have 5 years in this area, i last 5 years i move back for my town, Rio de janeiro, for to stay more time with my soon and in house, but i need to work for to paid counts, my cost in rio is very similar for who live in NYC, so sure i don´t think what i ask for to work per hour will be much low price then USA or Europe, is just nice to have opportunity to sell to the client not for one Bank of images that are between, normaly, me and the client. Have so many good aspect for to looking for …

24. Harry
    

    November 21st, 2006 at 1:19 am

    Ever been in Minsk or Kiev? If yes you would know that a developer living there is least concerned about being monitored for the time he is getting paid $10 or $15/per hour. These are dream jobs for them and let them have decent lifes in their home countries.
    I have run a project though oDesk and agreed with my developer that he could log time while being offline. oDesk lets you do that. It all comes down to what is acceptable between buyers and providers.
    Services like oDesk globalise the job market and are good for all, except those in LA (or NY or London…) seeing their skills becoming a commodity.

25. David Mackey
    

    November 21st, 2006 at 8:37 pm

    Nice idea. I like the ability to watch the developers.

26. Dillon Thomas
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 3:21 pm

    oDesk is a truly great idea. I hope to use it in the future myself.

27. The Bone
    

    November 29th, 2006 at 10:40 am

    Is it just me, or are oDesk HARD-CORE spammers?

    I signed up for an account to see what it is like, and I’ve been getting so many “newsletters” I didn’t intentionally sign up for it’s not even funny.

    And to make things worse, they use the “you may have unsubscribed from THAT list… but you didn’t unsubscribe from THESE lists” trick.

    So, no matter how many times you unsubscribe, you’re just going to keep getting junk email from them because it’s a “different list”.

    Yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky yucky.

28. Marv
    

    December 30th, 2006 at 7:44 am

    Check http://www.freelr.com which is a new Social Networking site for webmasters and Programmers.

    While sites like elance, guru, rentacoder, odesk all charge for connecting webmasters with programmers Freelr is a free alternative which is easier to use and creates a more exciting user experience. With Freelr users can interact freely with each other in an open-market, which is impossible with the other sites mentioned…..