oDesk launches Fixed Price (Beta)

I suggest to allow buyers post Fixed Price job for short-term projects ONLY.

Less than a week for example.

Regards, Victor.

Guys, I am driving SW development company for over 4+ years and its very sad to see whats going on on oDesk. It started as i brilliant system i was exited with and now becaming just another elance, guru, rentacore, getafreelancer etc etc etc kind of system

Maybe you guys in odesk cant see this but its absolutely evident for all who worked with this system for a long time

Fix price gives you nothing - when you are saying about small projects - that really projects like $100-200 budget what kind of profit you can do on it with your 10% fee? As i a provider i can go to one of sites listed above and find TONS of such, i am sorry, shit. I am not kidding - i can give you a listing with hundreds of such projects in each area - why do i need odesk for this???

Ok, you will have your $10 for fix price $100 project - how much you will spend on solving disputes(which will be every second project), sending money, and most important cheaters who are not going to pay??  You can not make any business with such people.

In the same time you can earn same $10 for less then one work day of developer who is working based on hourly rate! You can just add option - limit max number of hours and  HERE IS YOU FIX PRICE OPTION. Providers who work here for a long time know that for small projects time limit is negotiated anyway! But they do guarantee payment!

Let me reply to all providers in advance -NO, you will not get paid for these projects. As i provement i can register as buyer and order my website design for free do you want me to prove this?? As odesk has no verification this will lead to tons of spam, not-relevant project and other ... That was exactly whats happend wiht getafreelancer. Then you guys will make membership paid to avoid spamming -thats all very well known way - which HAS NO FUTURE

Guys, my advice - please STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR BUSINESS. You invented brilliant business model which PROVED effectiveness! Why are you going to be all in one - adding features that have tons of sites around? If you need new ideas for investments and growing here they are -invest in provider interviewing,tests, improvement skills of prividers involving more buyers, advertising your service, adding collaboration tool with milestones, adding flexibility to payment policy. Odesk Community offered a huge number of new very usefull features in this forum!!  This would lead to increasing number of projects and your avg profit on each project - this will increase you profit). Instead of this you added this bad and useless feature! If you just want to be ALL IN ONE - here are some other ideas - you may start delivering pizza, repair cars, invent new search engine better than google....

this is a option not favouring providers for money guarantee. Odesk was the only place where providers feels their money secure. this will became a loss to all providers. Please do not allow this option like elance.com and getafreelancer.com otherwise new joining of providers became less and moreover old providers will leave Odesk. DO NOW ALLOW THIS OPTION PLEASE!!

This really is a bad implementation and really I am already thinking of looking otherwise. this was one of reason we started working at odesk for it's guarantee for payments and also for it's hourly price.

Please see my long comment above! While its only in BETA stage please STOP this project! This is extermely bad and dangerous enhasement, which may kill your company idea!

Remember that your service have become source of primary salary for thousands people. Adding this you may stay them without a job! You should hase some social responsibility!

Please all providers who has experiece in fix paid systems - comment this feature, and share your opinion!

With such feature oDesk loose originality. This feature make oDesk not better that all other marketplaces. oDesk need to be unique to be on top in this business.

Please, stop working on this.

Besides, looking for a new job is now becaming nightmare- i have to scroll this huge job post - with only few posts per screen with all that "I need web page to be done for $25" stuff!!!

Please return old informative job listings as well!  Roll-back these changes plz!

Same here! I am affiliate too - seems new feature with interviewing was not properly tested - now i am as affiliate in situation when i couldnt confirm any interview i have!!!

I cant work with the system as it looks now and already reported to support!

Any kind of design work perfectly works on old oDesk style using pre-agreed numer of hours and agreeded bonuses for good work. Maybe the only small enhasement needed - to have option on limiting budget when post job -THAT'S ONLY CHANGE NEEDED Because otherwise you need negotiate this in email and ask suppot to remove in case of overwork.

Just ask designers who DID many work in system. Not newbies spending time in community imagining "what whould be nice to have". All big "improvements" like this " should be voted with providers who work in the system for a long time, not with newbies who still dont understand how to use existing odesk tools but already offering to change something!

And visa versa this fix bid system will not work for designer as they will have to do work for free without any guarantees as Muhammad said.

Give my Vote against new feature. Please stop it while it is  Beta. Look at this job offer https://my.odesk.com/console/j/opening.php?key=f3180d1bf94b1b23&tot=1302...

They have fixed bid as an option, but first impression that this is job for several month. They are open to negotiate price, but who will pay for estimates developer to and who garantiee that after you made your estimates they not say "Thank you, we need to think more?". Also there any specification, so this mean log-long time of discussion before real code work will begin...
 

The fixed price is best for buyers because most providers are not qualified to do programming, or website design, html, etc.

The buyers have to be very careful of hourly rate, providers run up a huge bill and the buyer has nothing to show for it.

In addition I have found very few providers who keep their word.  Projects go on and on and on and on.

This feature gives buyers ability to do any work for FREE as an option! This will lead to more and more new buyers coming on this site and some of old customers will use this and we will got +1 elance instead of beloved oDesk!

I am with oDesk from 2005. This is the first time when new feature raises so many negative comments. It seem like a little local revolution is happening on oDesk. And I suppose this is good time for oDesk executives to step in this discussion.

Kostya

Hi everyone,

Wow.  We did not expect such a negative reaction.  We usually try to keep you, the oDesk Community, involved in our planning and discussions, so you know exactly what we're working on.  For Fixed Price, we made a conscious decision to talk to a smaller group rather than the larger community for competitive reasons.

We're Sorry
We now see that we made a mistake in surprising you with this feature.  We're sorry about that.  Let us take a minute to explain our thought process, and tell you what problems we wanted to solve.  Most importantly, we want to hear what you have to say; to understand your concerns, and to get your ideas on how to solve some of the problems described below.

Why We Launched Fixed Price
We believe that the hourly model is the way that most of the world works, and we continue to view it as our core business.  Having said that, we've heard time and time again from users that wanted a Fixed Price option.  Here are some examples:

• Different Job Types - some buyers currently use oDesk for projects that don't cleanly fit into the hourly model.  Sometimes they make side agreements outside of oDesk to deliver for a fixed number of hours.  Sometimes it is a smaller design project where they would have preferred a fixed price.  These jobs are trying to "fit a square peg into a round hole," which can create friction for both the buyer and the provider.
• Wrong Expectations - inexperienced buyers occasionally come to oDesk, hire a worker by the hour, and then end up unhappy when they realize they have to pay regardless of the outcome.  Their unhappiness leads to several problems - low feedback for the provider, unmet expectations for the buyer, and a support headache for us.  Some buyers are just plain uncomfortable about hourly work, because they lack the management experience and technical skills to take the risk that the project runs long.  They are, however, able to define requirements.  We felt that these buyers would have been better served with a fixed price option.  Having a fixed price option gives these buyers a way to work on oDesk with the right expectations, which creates more opportunities for Providers.
• New Providers - every month, many new providers get their first job on oDesk.  But for every provider that gets hired, there are another 9 that join oDesk but don't get a job.  We want to give them the opportunity to prove themselves, so that they can, over time, develop a reputation and a profile.

In short, we felt that fixed price might be a good option for buyers and providers that were new to oDesk and less experienced in remote work.  We hoped that, after they got a bit of experience and found a good provider, they might switch from short-term fixed price jobs to longer-term hourly jobs.

Here's What You Told Us
We've spent the morning reading your Community posts and chatting with many of you.  Here are the concerns we've heard regarding Fixed Price:

   1. Jobs are often small (eg: under $100)
   2. Fraudulent buyers can abuse the system, getting work but not paying
   3. Requirements may change, creating frustations for both parties

For #1, our hope is that Fixed Price will result in a massive increase in the number of jobs posted on oDesk, and that some of the fixed price relationships would over time evolve into hourly relationships.  If oDesk offered many fixed price jobs, in addition to our larger hourly jobs, then this would create more opportunities for providers to get jobs, make money, and build a reputation.

For #2 and #3, our plan is to expand our buyer reputation system (which we are working on), so that providers can make informed choices about who to work for.

Help us Understand
We want to get this right, and we know we can't do it without your input.  Please help us better understand how you would solve some of the problems we described above.  Here are our questions:

• How would you handle different job types, for example where buyers are making side agreements?
• How would you handle small jobs?
• What would you do about buyers who take on an hourly job with the expectations of Fixed Price (ie: they initiate a dispute if they don't get what they want)?
• How would you help new providers (with no history or feedback) get their first job?

Buyers - please weigh in.  We'd love to hear from you as well.

Regards,
The oDesk Team

How would you help new providers (with no history or feedback) get their first job?

I have got my first job without FIXED price. I was really  want to get first assignment and  I have do it. So, if new providers really want to get assignment they need to learn how write effective cover letter etc. There are many topic on how to get first assignment.

This can be solved by limiting the number of hours or by issuing the bonus. If a buyer is unhappy at the end – he/she can leave a negative feedback which is a big punishment for the provider.

Inexperienced buyer should hire a project manager, who can professionally estimate and handle the project. We have plenty of people here who can do this. One of the reasons oDesk attracted good developers is a guarantied hourly pay, which also forces the buyer to take the project more seriously. Fixed Price is NOT the solution to this problem. It would create even more aggravation and more support headache for you. Instead of attracting more inexperienced buyers, who believe that the website should cost $50, you should focus more on educating these buyers to do the things RIGHT.

I know it is not easy to get the first job, but it is not impossible. You do a great job educating new providers to write cover letters, do interviews and etc. It is not a wasted time for them; it is a learning process that at the end helps the buyer to get a quality service. . The oDesk’s true value is in Quality, not in Quantity…

Do you really think that bringing inexperienced buyers somehow will help inexperienced providers? But I am sure it will turn away a lot of good developers, who would otherwise consider oDesk.

Why would buyers want to post hourly jobs if they can do the fixed price instead? Fixed price means bidding wars and it doesn’t require them to pay at the end. I see MANY ways how this model can be abused. As the result more jobs will be converted to the fixed price.

We're Sorry
We now see that we made a mistake in surprising you with this feature.  We're sorry about that.  Let us take a minute to explain our thought process, and tell you what problems we wanted to solve.  Most importantly, we want to hear what you have to say; to understand your concerns, and to get your ideas on how to solve some of the problems described below.

Jason, I am sorry to say, but I rather see it as trying to build a system which has all in it or to pull buyers who are posting their projects across other systems. While this is not bad when we speak about business levels, but give a thought that why all providers like odesk and not elance, freelancer or RAC?

Why We Launched Fixed Price
We believe that the hourly model is the way that most of the world works, and we continue to view it as our core business.  Having said that, we've heard time and time again from users that wanted a Fixed Price option.  Here are some examples:

• Different Job Types - some buyers currently use oDesk for projects that don't cleanly fit into the hourly model.  Sometimes they make side agreements outside of oDesk to deliver for a fixed number of hours.  Sometimes it is a smaller design project where they would have preferred a fixed price.  These jobs are trying to "fit a square peg into a round hole," which can create friction for both the buyer and the provider.

Providers are here to get the hourly model, as always, odesk was a system that cared about providers and buyers at same time, if they want job done in fixed timeframe, buyers can always allocate certain number of hours to the project equivalent to the fixed priced job they want.

• Wrong Expectations - inexperienced buyers occasionally come to oDesk, hire a worker by the hour, and then end up unhappy when they realize they have to pay regardless of the outcome.  Their unhappiness leads to several problems - low feedback for the provider, unmet expectations for the buyer, and a support headache for us.  Some buyers are just plain uncomfortable about hourly work, because they lack the management experience and technical skills to take the risk that the project runs long.  They are, however, able to define requirements.  We felt that these buyers would have been better served with a fixed price option.  Having a fixed price option gives these buyers a way to work on oDesk with the right expectations, which creates more opportunities for Providers.

Jason, this is million dollar question for you, how are unexperienced buyers be satisfied with the project in the end? if they don know what they want, it is fair to penalize providers for that? They should know what they are expecting out of the system and having said that and if they want to know as system is built, hourly model is best suited for these unexperienced guys.

• New Providers - every month, many new providers get their first job on oDesk.  But for every provider that gets hired, there are another 9 that join oDesk but don't get a job.  We want to give them the opportunity to prove themselves, so that they can, over time, develop a reputation and a profile.

good providers who know how to market their services will always get job,we also started here new and can find job easily if we work well and keep promoting ourselves, getting project is through constency. i can bet they can get job, if work is not good they will never get paid by buyer. i believe you guys are trying to make another rentacoder feature here which allows arbitrations etc.

In short, we felt that fixed price might be a good option for buyers and providers that were new to oDesk and less experienced in remote work.  We hoped that, after they got a bit of experience and found a good provider, they might switch from short-term fixed price jobs to longer-term hourly jobs.

Jason, more then this, it looks like trying to build a system which has all in it. Okey, i will give you an example, a new provider at rentacoder.com has it 50% times harder to land a job in the same scenerio then at odesk. rentacoder.com works exactly same way as your fixed priced model. almost all providers there have multiple arbitrations because of buyers not releasing payments etc etc.

Here's What You Told Us
We've spent the morning reading your Community posts and chatting with many of you.  Here are the concerns we've heard regarding Fixed Price:

   1. Jobs are often small (eg: under $100)
   2. Fraudulent buyers can abuse the system, getting work but not paying
   3. Requirements may change, creating frustations for both parties

For #1, our hope is that Fixed Price will result in a massive increase in the number of jobs posted on oDesk, and that some of the fixed price relationships would over time evolve into hourly relationships.  If oDesk offered many fixed price jobs, in addition to our larger hourly jobs, then this would create more opportunities for providers to get jobs, make money, and build a reputation.

this is not right Jason, it will obviously increase number of jobs your system will have for one simple reason, all buyers who want to get more outof what they pay will come to this system from other systems like elance, rentacoder, getafreelancer.  Odesk's core system was managing your own team,in this scenerio again you will be in middle of strong arbitrations and then verifying what has been done. You also specified that final payment in this regard will be at buyer'sdescretion, which also means you want to stay away from mediating in the arbitration case.

For #2 and #3, our plan is to expand our buyer reputation system (which we are working on), so that providers can make informed choices about who to work for.

your system was excellent which cared for buyers and providers equally. if a buyer is not happy with his provider, he can end assignment any time. Now you havebuilt this system heavily in favor of buyers.

Ok, you know most providers came to odesk because of this model, why would a company which is working at elance for 5 years join you? your top affiliate provider is an example of that, they can get what they want out of elance when it comes to fixed priced jobs, why would they ever come to odesk?

Help us Understand
We want to get this right, and we know we can't do it without your input.  Please help us better understand how you would solve some of the problems we described above.  Here are our questions:

• How would you handle different job types, for example where buyers are making side agreements?

buyers should be allocating certain number of hours for job with in between milestones and if things do not work well, cancel assignment and leave bad feedback.

• How would you handle small jobs?

Buyers at elance.com and other such system think that a web design is as simple job as 100$ and that is where their mindset is. Now, some providers in order to do anything to get job , accept the job. Now that buyer would certainly reject an excellent provider who want to go for that job at $1000 which is fair and just. for small jobs, buyers need to know how much is that going to be and provider should log those many hours.

• What would you do about buyers who take on an hourly job with the expectations of Fixed Price (ie: they initiate a dispute if they don't get what they want)?

I guess this is in the contract itself that it is hourly based job. I can bet with fixed priced jobs, providers will post 5-10 times more disputes.

• How would you help new providers (with no history or feedback) get their first job?

someone having good profile and good rate is always going to land job, no matter if he is new or not

Buyers - please weigh in.  We'd love to hear from you as well.

Answering your questions - all kind of jobs were possible in old odesk system! There is no need to reinventsomething new for this. Moreover this feature will push prices donw here and move odesk to sites like RAC! Cant you see that fixed prices dont fit odesk style at all? Why dont you create another site like oFixPrice.com for them??

In case of small projects its possible just to add simple time limit. Small projects can be negotiated with buyers and dealed via bonuses and small number of hours.

Make all buyers sign odesk agreement -if they evidently got something wrong - remove provider's hours otherwise - let they just better look at agreement and put requirement more exactly and communicate with providers daily!

They will get it finaly if they are good! Let they just put competitive prices. The question are you interested in this? This will lead to moving prices down, so you, guys from odesk should be responsible for keeping ballance between number of buyers and providers! To keep well prices.

I have been working at oDesk for a couple of month now, not as long as some providers but long enough to say that the hourly rate works best for me.

This morning, I had an interview with a potential customer, and it turns out his budget is $15 for an estimated $400 project. Not only did I waste 30 min of my time applying for this job and then an hour of my time exposing my portfolio and answering the questions of that customer, but I also got discouraged to apply for any other job.

Fixed Rate are strongly biased towards providers and will, in my opinion, result in the following:
- Quality of providers will fall: I found it interesting to browse the forums and see what other people talk about because most of them are qualified enough to work as freelance developers, what I would call the elite developers. With the fixed rate, lots of inexperienced developers get in the system, reducing the quality provided, forming an unequal competition (in terms of skills and competences) to the elite developers.

- Buyers will abuse the system: with the hourly rate system, buyers wouldn't hire a provider before conducting an interview and being certain the guy could do the job. Buyers knew that if they hired that person, they would be liable for every minute of his work. With the fixed rate system, the buyer doesn't even have to look at the provider's profile, he can just hire the first provider that applies, ask him to do the job, and in case he doesn't like the end result, just repeat the whole process with another provider. Using the hourly rate system, the control was in the hand of providers, they would charge the buyer as much as they worked, and they could at the same time refund a part of the worked times if needed or receive a bonus from the buyer if he judged the worked to be good.

- Quality matters: several companies and independent buyers choose oDesk to hire developers on thousand dollars projects. Those companies could as well just hire a development company to achieve this task, they choose oDesk because of the quality of the work provided by developers (forming this elite closed circle).

 - Bad Business Strategy: if introducing fixed rate will help you raise an additional million dollar in the short term, it will definitely reduce your earnings in the long-term. I'm at oDesk for the money, all the providers are and I don't want to work 20 hours and get paid $50 for it, i don't even want to browse through job postings similar to this one. On other freelance web sites, you would often found jobs for ridiculous sums; is oDesk just another freelance web site from now on, I ask?

 - Providers are unhappy: Remember that oDesk is not worth much without it's quality providers. WE do the work, and WE deal with the buyers. oDesk provides us the tools and the contact with the buyers, but what use are tools and buyers without providers, nothing. If providers are unhappy, less work is performed. With less hours worked, oDesk will definitely loose on earnings and credibility.

 - Providers are worst but oDesk too: with hourly rate, we are guaranteed to get paid for our work, that's why we like it here in the first place. oDesk is also paid for each of worked hour. With the fixed rate, I have no guarantee of getting a penny for my work, and oDesk isn't guaranteed to get a penny either for it.

 You launched the Fixed Rate system as BETA, and you now heard what we providers have to say about it. The smart move would be to act accordingly.

Remember that what makes oDesk different from all other freelance sites is the exclusive hourly rate system. Introducing the fixed rate system literally destroys the hourly rate system (who wants to hire providers by the hour when they could be hired for free?) making oDesk just another 14-year old wanna-be programmer directory on the internet.

 Regards

Michel Barakat

You need to better test your providers.

Most are unqualified to do any programming work.

Most providers want to work by the hour, because they know they can't do what the project requires.

Most important part of oDesk is a number of "good" buyers here.

Adding fixed price option will lead to decreasing prices and number of fake projects like tons of you can see at elance, rac, etc...

For oDesk it will means decreasing provits, for providers - closing their successfull business with odesk, for buyers - low quality and moving to other systems.

One reason i stopped working at rentacoder was such type of postings, it is disheartening to see these type of job posts and Odesk doing nothing. Well, we all providers cannot stress this enough now, this is bad feature for odesk.

I agree with the provider who are questioning this new type. I am a TopCoder in rentacoder. I "am about to" start working here. Please just let the buyer put a limit of hours, or budget if they want. You have interviewing process here. Why do you doubt the existing process? If there was a Odesk all these years, I would never go to rentacoder. But now you are trying to be like them after having all these nice features supporting a really great core model???

If my voice counts, giving 'fixed budget' as a privilege to proven and reliable buyers will save this feature's life.

Again I just looked through the jobs and tried to step into buyer's shoes.

Some buyers (especially new ones) can be confused when they public fixed price job and then see that only 4-5 developers (and I think most of them are newbies who want to win their first job and do not care what the price is ) sent their cover letters to his opening. I suppose buyer may think that oDesk is not right place to find a good professional.