Case Study - Phonesheet.com

Jan Zands comes from the entertainment industry and was working as an assistant on a studio lot to a feature film producer in 1996. "A film producer will make about 40 calls per day and receive another 40 per day -- and in Hollywood, a lot of people don't return calls," Zands explains. "It's necessary to have a good system for tracking calls and what they are about, but at the time no such software existed." Jan recalls that all the studios had notepads with one side for incoming calls and the other for outgoing. "I saw an opportunity that a lot of other companies could benefit from as well."

As an early solution, Zands used FileMaker to build a database to keep track of phone calls. This idea was immediately popular and Zands left his assistant job in 1998 to begin his own business building databases in FileMaker. "The problem with the FileMaker database was that it could only be used on the local computer and every computer needed to install a version of FileMaker, which included a licensing fee," says Zands. "It just wasn't a great system for the user. I needed to make it into a web-based application."

Zands began this task in 2001 by putting advertisements for programmers in the newspaper and on Craigslist. He found and hired a programmer who was expensive and worked for three months before leaving the job incomplete. Next, he hired expensive programmers from large consulting companies who worked on business projects during the day and Zands' project at night. They, too, were expensive and were also not able to dedicate enough time to make the dream a reality. "I needed a better solution; I needed someone who would make this their full-time job at an affordable rate."

Next, Zands turned to offshore providers. An Internet search led him to a provider portal where he engaged an Argentinean provider company. While their rates were more affordable, they too left the job unfinished. "My biggest challenge was finding programmers that were affordable, but also skilled enough to finish the entire job." As Zands describes this frustrating experience, "I was wading around in the ocean of providers for over five years until I found oDesk."

How oDesk Helped

"I went on oDesk and it was awesome! I posted my job and got about 20 responses within a day. I was able to find people at the rate I needed and was also able to look at testimonials so I was certain that these people would finish the job. It was so important to see on a provider's profile that there were jobs with start dates, end dates, and positive feedback."

Zands also made use of oDesk's management tools. "I do enjoy looking at the screen shots of the work" says Zands, "-- especially with designers. You want to give them freedom so they can create their own vision, but you also want to stop them if you see that they are definitely on the wrong track. With oDesk's proprietary Work Diary, you can 'peek' and get a sense of whether the design is going in the right direction without making them feel like you're giving them notes before they're ready. I definitely did not have anything like that with the Argentinean designers."

In addition to finding affordable hourly rates on oDesk, Zands appreciated the simplified payment process. "When I was working with other companies, I had to wire money, which resulted in wiring fees every month. Now I just put it on my credit card -- and I'm actually getting miles! It's much easier for me to track all my expenses since everything is on my corporate credit card."

Zands worked with two different oDesk provider companies, both based in India. "They had different skill sets, which complemented each other nicely, and both had great customer service," says Zands. "I got what I needed: people who made the job their primary focus, rates that were affordable; and certainty that the programmers would finish the job because they had already worked hundreds of hours on oDesk and received great feedback."

"oDesk provided the solution. I've been working with provider companies on oDesk for about a year and a half now. I finished my project and launched last month (April 2008). The end result is a great product!"