If you are a freelance startup team worried about near-term success and hoping to be saved by investors, itâs time to consider Plan B. Thereâs a low likelihood that VCs will ride to the rescue. According to Crunchbase, global startup funding is at the lowest level in 5 years and startup M&A has dropped significantly.
But the global freelance economy is nothing if not a cornucopia of opportunity if you are informed, creative, and client minded. Earlier articles have expounded on ancillary ways for freelancers and their marketplaces to grow income through a more robust offering. Among the suggestions were interim and fractional roles, advertising-supported podcasts and newsletters, online education, and participation in expert networks.
For marketplaces and their leaders and investors, this is a transitional time in the freelance revolution and warrants creative thought and scrupulous self-inspection. If, as Socrates put it, âthe unexamined life is not worth livingâ, the unexamined marketplace is also problematic.
With this in mind, here are 10 ways that freelance leaders can leverage their relationships, expertise, and communities to achieve greater success for their freelancers and for their company.
1. Build stronger communities
Too many freelance communities offer only asymmetrical communication: information blasts from the center out. Even with a Slack channel itâs not easy for freelancers to regularly meet and interact with platform colleagues. Groove, a relatively new startup, is fixing that, and has taken community to the next level by creating a virtual meetup space that is open 24/7. Josh Greene, previously on the WeWork team, built a subscription community that makes it easy for freelancers to check in with one another, build working relationships, coach one another, or create a prototype for a new product or service. This ought to be of strong interest for any community manager.
2. Use challenges to test, certify, and develop platform talent
Mike Morris, the former CEO of Topcoder and now CEO of Torc, famously created tech âchallengesâ (think âcontestsâ) to sharpen the skills of Topcoder technical community members. Wipro has continued that tradition since acquiring Topcoder, offering challenges in solving coding problems, completing a piece of software, or âSkill Builderâ competitions that help engineers and developers build proficiency in a technology or product. But challenges ought to be a consideration in every community, and not just tech. It builds skills, helps the platform to attract talent and weed out disinterested freelancers, and provides a venue to test and certify their competence. Challenges also engage the talent community in focusing on the future. Its sticky, itâs fun, and it helps to build a reputation without much expense.
3. Be a player in private talent clouds
Bubty, Gigged.ai, and Talentpools are among the better-known companies collaborating with enterprises to create private talent clouds. Private talent clouds like PWCâs Talent Exchange, or EYâs Gig Now, enable large corporates to build a contingent talent community offering managers easy access to vetted talent. But this is valuable beyond enterprises. Large VC portfolios, Hedge Fund, and Private Equity firms ought to be just as interested. According to MBO Partners and research partner Emergent Research, private talent clouds are on the rise. Is your company working with talent pool builders to help companies fill and manage their talent pool? Are you offering education and advisory services to smaller companies to help them build contingent talent communities.
4. Help freelancers to become entrepreneurs
Humancloud, working with early-stage CEOs, found that CEOs were eager to meet with other leaders to share leads, test strategies, seek introductions, and explore joint venture opportunities. Whatâs different about platform talent? Smart marketplaces are figuring out how to provide more ways for freelancers to find partners interested in collaborating. For example, Adevaâs monthly fireside chats, bring together community members for learning and sharing. Fringâs platform directly connects innovative companies with creative and digital freelance talent. Fiverrâs âStudiosâ bring together experts to work together on larger projects. Honeybook sponsors regular local or virtual monthly meetups of its members to coach and ideate together, and Contraâs two-sided marketplace enables freelancers to showcase their past, offering, and services to one another as well as to clients outside the platform.
5. Explore adjacencies for growth
Codemonk is a UK based marketplace offering technical experts. Now together with Innovify, a design studio that shares ownership, the combination additionally offers freelancers to one and intact innovation teams and project management services to the other. Independent management consulting platforms like Catalant and Redegate are increasingly called upon for interim or fractional roles, and Expert Powerhouse has discovered the value and synergy of an expert network that connects clients with experts in a wide range of technologies. Codementor was created by Weiting Liu of Arc after discovering strong client interest in technical coaching of young developers and teams. Supportwave recognized that it was perfectly positioned to serve enterprise employees WFH. Growth Collective, a marketing services platform, finds important growth opportunities in collaboration with other member companies in the Legion Works network like Subscribers, Dealify and Hellobar.
6. Skate to where the puck will be
Itâs not hard to find growth, but you must look for it. For example, using the chart below (thank you McKinsey & Co) itâs relatively easy to see whatâs growing fast, or steady, or slowing down. It makes the point: how well are you aligned with areas of higher growth? How well is your client mix, marketing and client communications, and freelance talent recruiting efforts geared to the future, not the past? G2iâs Gabe Greenberg significantly multiplied their workstacks and its attracting new clients. To paraphrase the old Wayne Gretzky line, âAre you skating to where the puck has been, or where it will be?â Do the same analysis on an industry basis, with a geographic perspective, or within a local market or community. Meet the future where it is, or it will abandon you.
7. Convert talent âtouristsâ into engaged and active fans
A well-known freelance marketplace advertises 60,000 technical experts. The problem: they only have 6,000 active experts. Of those remaining, many signed up and never returned. This marketplace is not alone, itâs a problem reported almost universally by platform leaders. Call these freelancers âplatform touristsâ and look at it from their point of view. Having visited the marketplace, theyâve found little value in completing their profiles, interacting with the platform team, or contributing to platform blogs. Rather than blame them, letâs rethink this picture. What if we regarded âplatform touristsâ as a wasted opportunity and a lost asset? What might we change in the way we initially engage and support them? Donât blame them for experiencing your platform as not worth their engagement. Instead, make it more worthwhile. They want interesting work, fair pay, help with business tasks and ongoing development. Are you delivering?
8. Is there a future beyond talent resourcing?
We learned from The Information that Alphabet has cut back on âmoonshot projectsâ and encourage staffers âto seek outside capital and depart from the Alphabet corporate umbrellaâ; in other words, go for it. Could a marketplace operate as an incubator of new businesses by connecting and supporting experts able to discover a shared passion or vision? Properly organized to attract freelancer interest and decide what projects to support, perhaps in partnership with a pre-seed and seed emphasis like VC Big Sky Capital, it could be an attractive business. Honeybook is getting in the game with Honeybook Capital. CrediLinq, working with both gig and e-commerce platforms, offers embedded credit for solopreneurs, and their AI appears better able to assess creditworthiness than other players.
9. With a little help from our friends
Last year a number of Spanish freelance platforms, led by Outvise, came together to share insights and develop plans to grow the Spanish freelance market. UK freelancers came together to create the Association for the Future of Work led by Underpinnedâs Albert Azis-Clausen. Latam freelancers led by Karina Rehavia of Ollo brought together Latam freelance leaders in 2023 to identify how to benefit from US nearshoring. This year German freelance platform leaders from Code Control, Uplink, and Freelancermap are organizing German freelancers for a national conference in Berlin this Spring. Raising the visibility and value of freelancing is important and necessary work.
10. It takes a village
The 15 CEOs who formed the first Freelancer First Study Group show the power of collaboration on a regional and global scale. Maari Caseyâs Uncompany brought Ollo (Latam) and Indielist (EU) into a service partnership to meet the needs of one of her largest clients. It led to significant new work. Abeer Qumsieh and Caroline Ayoub, co-founders of Khibraty found a powerful niche as a connector and trusted partner in the Middle East between clients and freelance platforms like Catalant and Talmix. Bubty created a strong working relationship with Indielist on a joint project. The second Study Group, operating since October, is producing similar results.
Viva la revolution!