Regarding the promo $7 trial — this price is not because the work is worthless. We pay for you trying Awesomic :) After testing some boring targeting, we decided to pay our designers instead of paying Facebook Ads. It seems promising as designers' work "sells" itself and clients can test everything live — like turnaround, quality and communication.
Aaand... if a client and designer who you matched up decide they would like to pursue a working relationship outside of your app, without paying you your cut for future work, do you consider this a success, or a failure?
We pay middle and middle+ rates in locations where we hire designers. So, Awesomic designers get the same or even more than other designers in the same location. Also, we have paid days off, and we are working on free health care program for our designers. So, does Upwork has paid day-offs or free health care program?
> And what's your plan for when the funding runs out - are you gonna follow Uber's path and start shaving more and more out of what the designers get?
We've been profitable for two years before we joined YC. Even now, we are profitable and haven't used YC's $125k. Still, we are raising money to hire more developers to build a better product – platform. Create an excellent product with AI – is super hard and expensive.
> if a client and designer who you matched up decide they would like to pursue a working relationship outside of your app without paying you your cut for future work, do you consider this a success, or a failure?
In two years working on this concept – we haven't had any cases like that. Designers like to work with Awesomic because they can grow and develop new skills on different projects. I am always happy when we deliver a great project after long cooperation.
Here is an example of how Norvegian startup worked with our designers for 18+ months in a row – https://www.awesomic.io/case-study/entirebody
Oh okay that's just the first week trial period, it's a monthly rate of $500 for "graphic" work or $1000 for "product", that's not as shit but it's still like $16 or $32/day (not accounting for weekends, I don't feel like seeing if your rules cover that, and again that's before your fees and any payment processing fees), and that's still sure not anywhere near what I'd be charging for a month of 24h turnaround.