I understand the curation value proposition the site has, but if the clients in question get 100s of qualified responses, I might as well not bother.
Here's an interesting idea: Is there some way for this service to prevent unprofessional and scammy developers from spamming my leads? That kind of behavior is very common in the freelance market, and it effectively poisons potential clients for the good freelancers.
To some extent, the paywall will cut down on the number of low-quality freelancers. But in my experience, they're a plague even on some paid sites.
That's a really fair question. It's a little interesting that someone posted this today as in the very near future, some of these concerns are going to be addressed...
The goal is to create a system whereby those developers who are willing to pay and become quality members of the community are greatly benefited. I realize this can only happen though if the community isn't too large. The community will have two caps, one for basic members (200) and another for pro members (150). When the community is full, anyone who wants to signup will be put on a waiting list.
Community members have the advantage of having a continual fresh stream of leads gathered from throughout the internet. For these leads, the competition is completely open. They also, however, have exclusive first access to leads posted straight to the community, as well as well as other benefits which will be revealed soon.
This isn't a very thorough answer, but if you check back in on Thursday, you'll find more details. Or if you can't wait, shoot me an email kesler@freelanceinbox.com and I can give you greater detail.