Founded on Freelance

A while back my consulting co. had a call with her last business about working with them to comply with a regulation we have expertise in. They basically tried to pump us for information so they could do it on their own, presumably with freelancers.

1 year later and they still don't have it working... I guess freelancers don't work out on every project :)

Sounds like a nightmare for everyone involved. A web design / SEO / social network promotion company, fully staffed with freelancers, working in a highly competitive and very low paying industry. It's going to be fun hustling shared-host resellers and the RentACoder crowd for $5 here and $8 there.

Individual/small-business "website design" is a ghetto.

I like the idea of this because there are benefits for both the employer and the freelancer. For employers, it's a labor model that's pay-as-you-go like cloud servers. For freelancers, you're motivated to complete tasks and not watching the clock for 8 hours waiting to run away. This doesn't fix the problem of stability for hired work or benefits like retirement or med insurance. Cool post!

I have experience with something similar.

Working with Freelancers is not a bad idea, yes you might get it at a better cost - but if your business is based on being technically better or if you are trying to solve a hard problem - then this is not the route to take.

This model is good for commodity development where the problem is well known and so are the solutions.

This is a service business. Paid contractors is to prevent cashflow issues when jobs stop.

Who else has done something similar? What have your experiences been like?