In reality, if a freelancer doesn’t want to manage everything themselves, their best option is to use a marketplace.
But there are plenty of marketplaces already!
Yes, there are already prominent marketplaces like Upwork. However, the challenge is that it’s difficult for new freelancers to secure their first customers on such big, established platforms. The competition is fierce, making it difficult for individuals to stand out.
This is where niche freelance marketplaces come in. As more of these appear, freelancers have more opportunities to find customers and establish a foothold in the industry. Some marketplaces are also regionally restricted, allowing for hyper-local promotion.
With many cities and countries still lacking certain services, there are plenty of untapped opportunities for freelancers to fill the gaps. This presents an ideal time to build and grow a business on these marketplaces.
Let’s build a marketplace for freelancers in a few steps
The first step in creating a new marketplace is to identify the target area. It’s recommended to start with a niche where you have expertise and knowledge. This will allow you to develop the platform more effectively and connect with more freelancers.
Next, it’s essential to select the right technology tools to create the marketplace. It’s crucial to choose a scalable solution that aligns with your business requirements in 2023. While some businesses may need to work with a developer or a team to leverage existing solutions or build a custom platform, it’s generally better to start from a ready-to-go solution. This approach can help you save time and money and speed up the market launch process.
Finally, marketing will be a crucial aspect of launching the marketplace. You will need to promote the marketplace effectively, leveraging a variety of marketing channels such as social media, advertising, or content marketing. It may also be useful to engage with potential customers and freelancers early on to build anticipation and generate initial traction.
And Launch and soar to success!
Our Own Freelance Marketplace Solution
We love to share happiness, so we pick this area: people who make other people happier. It could be anything, from a hug to a nanny for your kid. Anything that makes you smile and feel better.
We picked a niche, necessary to find a solid tech approach
Options we have on the table:
- Custom solution — super expensive, it’s 50k$+
- Ready-to-go solutions — super cheap, sometimes free to go, but poor customisation.
Is there a nice solution that is still possible to customise and at the same time not that expensive?
Freelance Marketplace build by Fleexy team
Here we come to the most interesting part of that story. We, Fleexy team is the early adopters of MarsX Platform. We compose products out of microapps we build on top of Mars. We build a huge number of them to build almost any product faster and cheaper than any other can and we give this away via subscription.
What is a microapp?
Microapp is a piece of functionality, it could be a UI component, or server logic that does something for the user. By building many of them we manage to combine them in a formula that helps to build a freelance marketplace just in a few days and at the same time you will be able to customise any piece of it in a way you want to.
A microapp is a small but useful piece of functionality, such as a UI component or server logic, that performs a specific task for the user. By building a portfolio of microapps, we can effectively create a formula for a freelance marketplace. This allows us to assemble a custom marketplace within a few days, and modify any component as per the business requirements. Combining these microapps with a few lines of code or even by drag-n-dropping them on a page allows greater speed in developing a functioning freelance platform without compromising on quality or scalability.
Modules we have ready to go
Providers
The provider portal is the backbone of any successful freelance marketplace, as it represents the core entry point for service providers to register themselves and their respective services. The provider portal should provide a user-friendly interface to define and manage their skills, set up a profile, and interact with potential customers. Features such as skill verification, portfolio management, and a rating system would greatly enhance the provider portal and encourage providers to participate in the marketplace. By optimizing the provider portal, you can create a seamless onboarding experience that sets the foundation for a successful freelance marketplace.
- Building their own personal brand on social media is a viable option, but it can be time-consuming and complex.
- They could form a small company with other freelancers and share marketing and management duties, but this still requires someone to manage various routines.
- Alternatively, they could join an established marketplace and outsource the responsibility for marketing. Such marketplaces offer a platform to communicate with customers, notification of new job opportunities, secure payment systems, and protection from fraudulent customers.
The AI trend is extremely strong, as it provides superior skills for individuals. As a result, one person could lead in design, marketing, development, and many other fields. There are plenty of resources available now, and this number will only grow in the future.
Requests
Usually, customers and providers need to talk before they can get to work. So the request is the second important puzzle here.
Payments & Payouts
Then after the negotiation you need to get the payment, and the most important part — you need to split the payment: keep the commission and payout the rest to the provider. Also, you need to be sure the provider doesn’t get the money until the customer approved the result and he/she has no complaint about it. So… It is ready to go. Just use it.
But what do these freelancers need the most? Of course, they need customers.
Reporting
Therefore, we can expect a rise in the number of freelancers and gig workers. According to PYMNTS, 76% of gig workers would not quit their gigs for full-time job. The gig economy is expected to grow significantly in the next few years due to the perfect work-life balance it offers and good enough income.
So, it’s clear that we will see more freelancers and gig workers soon.
Accurate and efficient reporting is a crucial element of running a successful freelance marketplace. Once the marketplace starts to pick up steam, you will need a reliable data management system to track the performance metrics. This includes measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) such as the number of requests posted, completed requests, customer satisfaction rate, and revenue generated.
Insightful reports generated through these metrics can help you identify issues and refine the platform’s functionalities to deliver a better user experience. With an effective reporting and data management system in place, you can optimize the platform’s performance and build a more successful freelance marketplace.
Analytics
We have built plenty of all the modern analytic tools integration, just add them in a second and get numbers right away in a 3rd party platform
And sure it’s more
- Communication
- Emails
- Sms
- Web-pushes
- Theme changing, starting from a color to complete UI revision if necessary
- Blog & page builder
- Muti-currency support
- …
You can check a full portfolio available here
Are we ready to launch?
After your freelance marketplace platform is up and running to maintain the relevance and success of your freelance marketplace platform, you need to:
- Continuously monitor user experience and gather feedback to improve the platform.
- Remain updated on industry trends to enhance platform functionality and user experience.
- Innovate by adding new functionalities and promotional campaigns.
- Optimize platform performance by testing different configurations and strategies.
However, achieving all this is only possible if the marketplace platform itself is highly customizable, giving you the flexibility to integrate emerging technologies and adapt quickly to changing market conditions.
Conclusion
In the world of startups, there are a vast number of ideas. Unfortunately, many promising startups do not achieve success because the technology they choose does not function in the way the founders anticipate.
Fortunately, there is an alternative solution: a reliable, inexpensive, yet extensive and highly customizable platform that can be tailored to meet the unique needs of your business.
By choosing “freelance marketplace” as a foundation, you can dramatically improve your chances of creating a successful freelance marketplace without having to worry about technology-related setbacks undermining your efforts.
Related Posts
Other posts
https://www.fleexy.dev/blog/how-to-start-your-next-generation-beauty-marketplace-in-2023/
https://www.fleexy.dev/blog/how-to-build-startup-fast-in-2023/
