Anyone use PeoplePerHour, any success?

I've found someone to outsource work to once and it went bad, costing me a lot of money.

A few years ago I spent a few days submitting quotes for work and was consistently undercut. And that's where my issue with PPH lays. If you've got a good/great reputation on PPH you can charge the going rate and win projects. If you've got no reputation or are new to PPH, you have to compete with thousands of other people with an average reputation who can afford to do the job for peanuts. It may make you a few quid but certainly not a decent return on the time that has to be invested.
 
Same as Bigdave. Tried it once and quoted on a few jobs, winning nothing. I wasn't prepared to work for peanuts, but it might be ok for someone just starting out or working
part-time or as a student maybe. I'm sure most of the work goes to people from places like India and Eastern Europe where maybe they can make a living from it.
 
Avoid like the plague. I've heard of some people having success with it, but I find my time and efforts are better spent marketing in other ways. Sites like this reduce design to a product, where the cheapest is often seen as being the best.

I personally steer clear of 'marketplace' models (even the forums here to some extent) as the competition online is so great, it's often not even worthwhile taking the time to write a pitch because you're just one of many offering the same thing.

The best technique for finding work online is to set up a specific Adsense campaign to drive traffic to your site and let that convert a client.
 
Just thought I'd give the employer perspective. I've used something similar: odesk. These are my experiences:

- Quality can vary wildly
- Don't believe the reviews
- You have little control over a freelancer and when they actually carry out the work
- you need to interview someone thoroughly (as opposed to accepting reviews at face value)
- If someone is in a different timezone sometimes it doubles project length
- Never go for the cheapest
 
Here is my experience so far ...

Someone wanted a site similar to this, including all features, basically the website and the web software booking system behind it with user management and recurring payment system ...

Online Booking for Local Businesses - Launch 27

I quoted £10,000 which I consider very reasonable and actually at the lower end of the scale in terms of what I was thinking.

Response ...

"Just a one question , before I accept your "proposal" - when the last time you visited a psychiatrist?"

Here is another one ...

Someone wanted to selection and implement of a CRM for the financial industry covering specific requirements. Fair enough the person did not ask for the CRM to be built from the ground up but I offered it and my quote was for ...

£10,000, which would actually cover the bare minimum. To produce something with more polish would cost more.

Response ...

"10K what for?"

Me ...

"The £10,000 will cover the cost of sitting down with you to discuss your requirements for a CRM system.

Then design mock-ups will be created of how the final system should look and function. This will be done in Balsamiq Mockups - https://balsamiq.com/

Then the system will be developed using the mock ups and requirements using the Yii 2 Framework with MySQL backend database.

The system will then be delivered and training will be provided on how to use the system to your staff."

Response ...

"Why not 20k?"

Me ...

"With a 20K budget the work could be taken even further in terms of each of the individual processes and the overall end quality of the product."

Reponse ...

"What about 50k?"

Needless to say it is utterly pathetic!
 
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I think you have the wrong idea about PPH or any other sites like it if you are proposing a £10K fee for anything, whether it is the bare minimum to cover their requirements and your time or not. They wouldn't pay you anywhere near £10K if you could genetically create a magic bean to grow them a money tree.

You are lucky you even got a response at all. PPH is not for professionals. PPH may be good for other industry sectors but it certainly is not for us.

People who use PPH are looking for more than a bargain i.e. what they want done for the extreme minimum cost. Cheap is too expensive.

It is a waste of time looking for work on there. PPH is only good if you want to hire someone for certain jobs, not if you want to get hired.
 
CLHB said:
I think you have the wrong idea about PPH or any other sites like it if you are proposing a £10K fee for anything, whether it is the bare minimum to cover their requirements and your time or not. They wouldn't pay you anywhere near £10K if you could genetically create a magic bean to grow them a money tree.

You are lucky you even got a response at all. PPH is not for professionals. PPH may be good for other industry sectors but it certainly is not for us.

People who use PPH are looking for more than a bargain i.e. what they want done for the extreme minimum cost. Cheap is too expensive.

It is a waste of time looking for work on there. PPH is only good if you want to hire someone for certain jobs, not if you want to get hired.
Click to expand...

Yes you are right.
 
Just thinking about it though it ridicolous.

The guy wants a clone of Online Booking for Local Businesses - Launch 27 presumable so he can setup his own software as a service business.

What is the point in making this software for him even for a cheap price if he does not want to pay for anything.

All that will happen is you make him the software cheap, he sticks it on his server, gets no customers, due to lack of marketing funds and takes it off his server within 6 months.

Even I sweated doing it for cheap, the person it would go to would not value it anyway and he would get no value from it.
 
JamesBarnsley said:
Even I sweated doing it for cheap, the person it would go to would not value it anyway and he would get no value from it.
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This is something I discovered early on and always advise others to be weary of. Without a vested interest in an outcome the client will simply not value it, no matter how good it is. They won't think twice about casting it aside, regardless of the time you spent on it because they had no involvement in it and therefore no connection with it.
 
My guess is PPH is probably a highly effective way of grouping together all the worst type of customers you have ever experienced all in one place. You know the types:
  • I've seen something else and I want it too
  • I have this idea, no business experience and even less money
  • I'm amazingly able to get things done for the lowest amount of money possible
  • This is the first time I've actually had anything to do with websites so I have no idea about budget
  • I'll give you some of the equity to pay you
  • I have a full time job but somehow I'm going to be able to put heart and soul into this project to make it succeed ... 6 months later ....what would like us to do with your website?....no reply
 
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