Ask HN: Using Odesk/Elance etc. to scale workforce

1 pointKillah9112 comments

Just wondering if anyone else has hired from Odesk/Elance/freelancer to shore up your startup's workforce temporarily. We're way too overwhelmed with work (a lot of it is housekeeping type work), but we don't have enough business to hire more perm devs/administrators. Please share experience/advice if you've done this before or avoided going this route.

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I've used Odesk in the past for basic Internet research / housekeeping stuff. I emailed 5 people with one person responding who has been fantastic. Very easy to use on e you get used to the website. The one thing to pay attention to is to provide at least 2 examples of the finished work you want as well as all intermediate steps. This helps you get to know what you want and it helps them follow instructions. I started out with a one hour task and eventually moved up to about 10/15 hours per week. Extremely helpful.

Thanks for sharing your experience. This is very helpful info.

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