tollie93

Hi Hackers,

I’ve started to build opendurincov.id as I’ve found that for me and those around me:

1. It’s difficult to keep track of the changes in how food and retail shops near us operate (updated opening times, takeaway only, etc.) 2. Our opinions on the place we like to go to are changing depending on a variety of factors. Is there a long queue? Is hygiene respected? etc.

So I basically get user location, then fetch data from the google Places API. I pull from my own db containing contributions and comments from locals, and voila!

I hope it can be useful to you and those around you and if it is, please contribute and comment on the web app! :)

Hi Hackers,

Freelancers on platforms can trust they'll be paid for projects and that paperwork like invoices gets generated in the backend.

However, those with their own clients and that operate outside platforms have to do all these things manually, and usually get paid late (or not at all, 7.5% of the time!)

That's why a couple of freelancer friends and I built Freelancer Protocol, to ensure freelancers outside platforms get paid on time, every time and have the paperwork they need generated.

Please do give feedback, thanks for checking it out! :)

I've seen it work best when it's at least a couple of days!

Hey Hackers! It’s 2020 and yet getting paid (especially on time) is still a major issue for freelancers.

In the UK where I'm based, freelancers spend 7.5% of their time chasing payments, and roughly another 7.5% doing work they won’t end up getting paid for. That’s 1.5 hours a day wasted if you work 10-hour days!

I've come up with a process for freelancers to get paid on time, every time. Freelancer Protocol (https://www.freelancerprotocol.com/) is the web app I've built around it, enabling any freelancers and their clients to use that process.

Here's how it works:

1. Projects are broken down into intermediary steps - we call them milestones. A milestone has a deliverable and a price, as well as a start and end date.

2. We (a third party) charge the client when each milestone starts and pay the freelancer when it ends, given the deliverable is marked as delivered by the deadline.

It’s brand new so I’d love to hear your feedback on both the landing page and the actual product.

Thanks for checking it out!

Elliot

Hi HN!

I wanted to introduce a project a couple of friends and I have been working on for the past few months.

It exists because of a simple fact: freelancers spend roughly 7.5% of their time chasing payments, and another 7.5% doing work that they won’t be paid for.

I used to manually ‘broker’ deals between freelancers and clients, meaning I would introduce parties and make sure the project got done as planned. After some trial and error I found a process that seemed to work for me, and Freelancer Protocol is just a web app enabling anyone to use this process:

1. Projects are broken down into intermediary steps - we call them milestones. A milestone has a deliverable and a price, as well as a start and end date. 2. We charge the client when each milestone starts and pay the freelancer when it ends, given the deliverable is uploaded by the deadline.

I’ve found that it keeps most of what usually goes wrong with a freelancing project from happening - namely the freelancer getting paid late or not at all, or client having to commit too much too early on.

We charge 2% for this service (by default billed to the client but the freelancer has the option to cover costs).

We do ask for a quick on-boarding call with freelancer before letting them use the web app, as it enables us to get to know our users and understand their needs better.

We'll be happy to hear any feedback you may have about the landing page or the actual product, thanks for checking it out!

well it's free for freelancers and clients who already know each other, and i take a fee to match together those who don't!

It's true the format is best for software right now. I actually hadn't thought of writing! Maybe the equivalent would be 20% of the piece or smth?

here's the picture: https://www.freelancerprotocol.com/howitworks.png

many thanks!!! just lost the animation for readability

for each milestone, there's a thorough description of what's the end of the deliverable, the 'specs'. It can be changed during the project's lifetime by any party if the other agrees to the change.

A client that rejects the demo has to justify in what regards it doesn't respect these terms, if not, it's a breach (of freelancer protocol rules and of the contract).

Maybe I should make this more explicit on the landing page?

Yeah totally, but that's the least worst system I can think of though.

We could exclude any freelancer that abuses this structure to just get the 'easy third' and any clients that repeatedly reject whatever freelancers do even when it corresponds to their requirements.

I'm always looking for a more fair and less hackable model though.

Absolutely. I'm thinking of maybe charging for (optional) paid features: like arbitrage services (a 'judge' if things go wrong) or engaging in more complex contracts (like income share agreements, or company shares against deliverable)

thanks a ton for the much appreciated feedback... will make changes accordingly!

I’d like to start by saying I find it completely normal freelancing platforms charge you as they do for the service of finding clients for freelancers.

Freelancer Protocol is for people who haven’t met on a platform and need a framework to engage in a standard deal. Deal finalisation (deliverable against money) is conditioned to the client accepting a demo (link or video) of the working code. The framework has basic features, like paperwork generation (invoice & contract) and communication (chat and file share).

I just integrate with Stripe for payment & invoice. After checking out a couple of APIs, decided to go with https://esignatures.io/ for online contracts/signatures. They charge per contract and have the features I need (Templates mgmt + Zapier integration).

Please let me know if you know a better way for me to integrate chat (right now I use the firebase db and messages load with a little lag, it’s not a meant for this use case). Feel free to reach out to [email protected] or in the comments.