January 6th, 2009 Posted in Business, Computer, Project Management, Web Design

Peopleperhour.com – good or bad for business?

I have recently signed up for peopleperhour.com after a colleague recommended those kind of sites to me. Having had a look around, I am not sure this kind of site is good for the client or the freelancers on there.

Most of the web projects have almost no definite scope to them – for example “I want a website. Budget: Rather not say.” Websites are massively variable – from a one page amateur clip-art nightmare to something like Facebook. Adverts like this just scream “I don’t know what I want or how much I need to spend”. That is asking for trouble.

Some advice for people advertising for web designers and developers:

  1. Understand that you usually get what you pay for. State your budget and stop wasting everyone’s time.
  2. A talented graphic designer is unlikely to also be a talented programmer.  If you want top notch graphics get a designer. If you want hardcore programming, get a developer. Two separate projects there.
  3. State exactly what you need from your website in terms of functionality so people can quote accurately.
  4. Do a mockup of how you want it to look and add that to your advert.
  5. Tell people what type of hosting you have – PHP, ASP etc
  6. Tell people what existing content management system you have, or if the site pages are to be coded individually.  The difference in time required is huge.

The main point is that by posting a vague, budgetless project you are very likely to be disappointed with the people that reply and the end product.  Doing so breaks all the fundamental rules of project management.  If you haven’t got a clear specification for your project, get a consultant in to write it for you.  If you want to cut costs to the bone, you need to know exactly what you want. If you need advising and looking after, that is obviously going to cost more due to the time investment required from the freelancer.  A good site will probably cost more than you think, but will fulfil your needs. A poor site is just a waste of time and money – a false economy.

I will keep an eye on these sites for any suitable jobs, but I haven’t seen anything yet that I would dare bid on and would be profitable.