Marc Hemeon of Design Inc. talks about his pay for proposal model - Interview on Master of One (mof1podcast.com)
over 6 years ago from Jonathan Cutrell, Director of Technology, Whiteboard, host of Developer Tea
over 6 years ago from Jonathan Cutrell, Director of Technology, Whiteboard, host of Developer Tea
This might be labeled as "talking smack," but it's not. I'm just a bit skeptical. Maybe old-fashioned, but I don't think we need another site that turns our professions into simple commodities. If someone wants a cheap designer, there's plenty of sites for that already. I just bypass these things and contact the people I want to work with myself. When you are good, it's really that easy.
I used to work with Visually, a similar service. It was good for a while, but it went downhill. There was no lasting relationship because the clients I did get didn't know anything about me, all that was held a like secret because I was the service making the product. I wonder if Design Inc does a similar thing, hide the talent from the client. At Visually, their projects kept getting larger, all while their budgets got lower. After two years of that, they were purchased by another company, and that's when things really took a turn for the worst.
Just like with Fiverr and Uber, there are some very questionable practices behind all these new gig economy services popping up. I guess you just have to weigh the pros and cons and see if it's something right for you. We'll see after five years what it does to our industry.
From what I've seen Design Inc isn't comparable to a gig economy model at all. It's like curated freelance job listings + curated freelance designers. Not terribly unlike Crew. Once a client and designer are in contact, that's that. The relationship is 1-1 from then on. There isn't really anything about it that devalues or cheapens what we do. I think it's useful for people who don't have a network, or who want to branch their existing one out.
I didn't know that. That's great to hear then. It should be an excellent service in that case.
I listened to this episode. Then not long after hung out with Marc at the Creative South conference and had a great discussion about the industry. I have heard he is getting some flack for his business model. I honestly think it is fine. The barrier to entry is fairly low for calibre of job you could be getting.
Why is the business model being criticized?
Does anyone have a link to the book "Influence" that Marc mentioned. Sounds interesting!
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