Freelancer.com: Crowdsourcing Platform Connecting 3 Million Professionals Globally

We’re all familiar with multi-tasking and in this age of online collaboration, people having multiple skills are not a rarity. Earning that extra buck through freelancing is a welcome financial inflow for people. Developing countries have been relying heavily on outsourced work and with crowdsourcing becoming the new buzz word - this vista is only opening wider. Freelancers flock to online communities providing and freelancer.com is one such platform frequented by people looking for small projects. We at Yourstory.in caught up with the CEO of Freelancer.com, Matt Barrie to know more.Matt Barrie was recognized as 2011's Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst&Young and Matt has been involved in several very successful entrepreneurial endeavors over the past years. Excerpts from the interview:

What is the importance of freelancing today?

Freelancing is the future of work! The trend is shifting away from the traditional office set-up—according to Sara Horowitz in her article, “The Freelance Surge Is the Industrial Revolution of Our Time” published in the Atlantic: “Now, employees are leaving the traditional workplace and opting to piece together a professional life on their own … while the economy has unwillingly pushed some people into independent work, many have chosen it because of greater flexibility that lets them skip the dreary office environment and focus on more personally fulfilling projects.”

That being said, Freelancer.com provides the workers of tomorrow the perfect platform to look for gainful employment. We connect around 3 million professionals from almost 300 countries and regions. Our website is targeted towards small businesses and startups looking for skilled individuals in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting & legal services.

How would you briefly describe your venture? How are your offices and work-force spread out?

We are the high-volume, low-cost provider in the space. We are the largest marketplace in terms of users and web traffic, and focus on fixed price projects under $200 at the small business and consumer end of the market.

We are headquartered in Sydney, Australia and have a support office in Manila, Philippines—but we cater to 3 million professionals all over the world. We consider ourselves as the perfect partner of employers and freelancers.

What is your business model?

We have a highly scalable business. We also have a global business, with users in around 300 countries, regions and territories globally. We have users in Antarctica and the Vatican on the website. For now, our focus is mostly on organic growth. We have a fire hose of traffic already hitting the site, being one of the top 300 or so websites in the world. We have about 200 items in the product pipeline around business model improvement, features or bug fixes that we work around the clock on.

What was the idea that led you to establish this venture? 

Freelancer.com was born out of a need to provide a time and cost-efficient platform for small businesses and startups to connect with the skilled global workforce. Our developments are built to continuously create a seamless, integrated set-up where these parties can assist and empower each other towards growth and success. We’ve launched various features to guarantee this - like our hourly projects feature, the Milestone Payments system, and our 24/7 customer support team. All of these work hand in hand to fulfill our vision for the future of employment.

Given that you attract global interest, which are the main regions that drive your business?

The top three countries in terms of freelancers are 1. India (23%), United States (13%), and Pakistan(9%). The top countries where work comes from are United States (32%), UK (11%), India (9%) and Australia (9%).

Do you have plans to spread out more? How does the Indian subcontinent figure in your plans?

We plan to roll out a local website for India in 2012. We’ll keep you posted on that!

What are the typical margins you make with your offerings?

We charge a maximum of 3% commission from the employer, and 10% commission from freelancers. We have lower rates for gold members. Gold membership costs $24.95 a month.

What are the measures you have put in place to ensure customer satisfaction?

Our 24/7 support system caters to Freelancer.com users round the clock. Likewise, our milestone payment system makes it easier for employers to facilitate payment to their freelancers. We’re constantly touching base with our users to learn how we can improve the platform for them.

How much revenue do you generate now? How much are you aiming for in the near future?

We just turned over US$34 million in revenues for this calendar year. And we’re expecting to double that for the coming year as we intensify our marketing efforts towards small businesses.

Looking for a project to earn that extra buck? http://www.freelancer.com/ might be the place where your search ends.

-Rohit Rohan