Friday, March 15, 2019

So during the course of trying to get this website up I discovered that there’s a trade off of time and things accomplished. The purpose of this site is to of course make money on the side so that one can be more secure and retire earlier, have more flexibility on spending, and vacation and free time. Most people are relegated to what someone else dictates in their life and are just following what everyone else says they should do. A great thing about this site is the flexibility to dictate content and time devoted to this site and also have a platform to voice thoughts that you want others to gain knowledge about.

Now, because time is money and money is just a vehicle to get a better life, then it does no one any good if you’re sick and worried to death over a website. That’s not what I designed the site to be and apologies to anyone that’s ever worked hard for this site to get it going. We are deeply grateful for all your hard work and time you’ve spent, videos worked on, photos uploaded, and articles written, and time spending trying to get the perfect shots and also having to put up with incessant talk about the site. Really. This site wouldn’t get off the ground without everyone onboard on the team.

Now recently, we looked around to update some of the site widgets and had to outsource some work to find good help. After all, a business has to find time to balance things accomplished versus money saved by working each thing manually or buy hand individually so we felt it was a good business decision on our end to hire a few pro-programmers to update some of the things on the site for us. It helped us clean up the site.

We tried out some of the sites that you can hire programmers and tried fiverr.com and also Upwork and Codeable. Here’s the experiences:

Fiverr we messaged some people and got people that messaged us back. Some were more professional than others and some messaged back in broken English and also some we super smart and clear on what was needed. And some never got back to us. Fiverr is the cheapest option and often can get back to you with low cost work or deals initially but they may charge for a more complex code or work. We’ve read that often they emphasize speed of coding and trying to get things hashed out so possibly it may not be as readable or user-friendly for code maintenance. Although we didn’t take any of the gigs on there because they seemed to take a while to get back to us and didn’t seem particularly eager to take on the tasks. One programmer told us that it wasn’t possible to contact them over the phone or exchange phone numbers. And at first we wondered about that and looked online for why this was but it’s mainly for protection of both parties to get things in writing if there are any disputes.

Codeable had no offers. We set a fixed price offering for a coding gig and it came back that our offer or project costs were too low and so never had anyone get back to us.

Upwork was really user-friendly and about 3 to 4 offers came back by the middle of an afternoon with offers ranging into a few hundred dollars and some wanting pay by hour and some with lower offers. It may be hard to stay on a set fixed price if your offer is too low but most will work close to your price range and you have to be firm. One person withdrew their offer after contacting them. One person was interested and looked at project files and other details and found the project feasible but wanted to charge a few hundred dollars less than another guy but it was still a lot of money. We found a relatively new guy who said they could do the task for minimum to get some experience and then we were able to add on a few other things but the price got higher and we had to set a firm amount. We were able to upload and transfer back and forth files and details and the platform gives you a chance to lock in an escrow amount for pay, add bonuses for additional completed work or milestones as they call it. They also have a feedback review system that you can leave each other after the work is done which is visible to others so they can see if you’re a good candidate for work or doing business with. I did find however it a bit confusing where to easily find uploaded files and had to click around a few times after agreeing to hire a contractor since it showed up in files that were in the chat but didn’t let me easily download files after you’ve officially hired them. But before hiring you often can easily exchange files back and forth.
You also have up to 14 days to confirm work is done correctly and often a contractor will work with you to ensure quality work.

I found one annoying contractor think that the platform was a place to make friends and ask for work after I told him that there were other offers that I already considered and hired. He said if it was possible to reject his proposal and I didn’t see it. So be careful about some people on this platform if they are desperate for work. After you are done with this platform you could probably close out your account until you need another gig to be performed. It allows you to link up credit card and PayPal.

When doing any work online it is an extremely smart idea also to offer a list of contractual agreement terms. Even if it is a small gig or piece of work if someone is not on the same page as you they may complain or exploit or take advantage of you so it’s important to get the kind of work needed and what is expected typed out and also a letter or screenshot of what you need done and how to do it within reason if you’re hiring someone. Often there are independent contractor rules that govern this and they have free ability to do the work how they need to do it but you can give them additional parameters. Also it’s important to know what information you need to safeguard or remain confidential for your business.