Do you have your own website for selling your services?

Just a recommendation to check out one of our Partners for the purpose of selling services and promoting your own expertise.

OStatic profiles (create one free at http://ostatic.com) give some additional opportunities for users to talk about open-source software and projects.  Some great potential buyers will see the comments and discussions and are often looking for experts.

Josh Breinlinger

oDesk 

I'd rather not about how to get more customers, but how to evolve oDesk system to serve complex (and more expensive) web-projects development.

These two stages - the development of database driven web application and the deployment of it require complitely different skillsets. Normally a customer will use two persons - one for the development a one for the deployment and maintanence.

The discussion between the two persons kind of "Your app is doing wrong" - "No, your deployment is not good" could take a lot of time (mostly non-billable). This really could make a developer reject such complex job offers (rather attractive offers for oDesk since in this case a buyer looks for particular skillset not necessarily to make it cheapest).

Why not think about providing some intermediary system to help the marketplace users separate jobs into smaller independent tasks, formalize the chunk's bounds and not waste time on non-necessary discussions?

You are providing team system, but, frankly, guys, I have no time to socialize inside the team and waste my time on discussions when in some standard cases a job could be devided by buyer into independent tasks and the relation between tasks could be formalized.

You provide the source control system. What if it could be not source control system, but some standard web host where I could place my code to satisfy a buyer's requirements. The buyer and deployment person would have "read-only" rights on the host regarding the code. When the requirements are met then that's it - the deployment phase is not my business. That's their business to transfer the code to whatever place they need.

The idea of team is good. Why not help users to construct teams.

As a freelancer, i cannot afford paid webhosting services for my site. So i got myself a free blog and converted it ( contents, profiles) in to my "official site.

However, I also have personal blog with the same blog-service.(free again) 

I Want a job.

Plz mail to me.

Please see this help section on getting started and getting your first job through oDesk.

Regards,
Olga

Question for the oDesk crew...  is there a mechanism for providers to buy services from other providers?  For example, I've got a small hosting company...  is there a way for SRashed to pay me from his earnings to buy a hosted space from me?  Moving money laterally thorugh the "oConomy"? 

--Michel R Vaillancourt
Providing Linux/LAMP, Postfix and Asterisk VOIP
server administration and trouble-shooting services
to the oDesk Buyer Community since February 2008

Great idea Michel! Certainly not the usual way of going about things. But an interesting idea. Technically, you'd be providing a service, and they would be buying it.

The only work around I see is for the provider to create a (buyer) company. This can be done with the provider's same UserID - just press the create new team button in My oDesk -> Get Hired (it's all the way to the right under Profile & Settings). Then post a (private fixed price) job, invite you to interview, verify a payment method, hire you, and pay you for the service. You could negotiate the price as necessary during the interview phase.

It's a little clunky, but it would only take a couple of minutes. And they would be all set up if they wanted to hire a web designer to help out with the site, or a graphic artist to make them a logo, etc.

The only problem is that this must be initiated by the other party - the buyer - not by you Michel.

---

Jacqui Pittenger :: Forum Moderator
Are you oDesk Ready? Take the ORT today!
Need help? Visit the Help Center - http://www.odesk.com/help

Love this image...

Any independent contractor or company manager can hire - just create a new company if you don't already have one, and click "Hire".

For hosting, we obviously don't support the sale of SKUs, but he can hire you for a Fixed Price assignment and pay you however much he wants.

A couple of caveats:

(1) He still has to have a credit card on file to make a hire (we are looking at ways to lift this requirement)

(2) He will pay the 10% oDesk service fee. With our "Teams" initiative we will be thinking about the fee structure for people who are both buyers and providers, but for now all money transferred  incurs the same 10% fee

Michel, feel free to ping me offline to discuss further.

Michael
Director of Products
oDesk

Thanks very much for being open to discussing this. 

--Michel R Vaillancourt
Providing Linux/LAMP, Postfix and Asterisk VOIP
server administration and trouble-shooting services
to the oDesk Buyer Community since February 2008