timjahn

Thanks for including matchist in that list!

Wow. I had no idea until now that "Threads" just showed my comments. I was doing the same as you, going to my profile and clicking from there!

Seconded. Love using Grooveshark to choose specific music I'm in the mood for (versus Pandora, for when I just want music to play non stop without having to think about choosing something), but Grooveshark only works for a few songs before it falls asleep and you have to tend to it.

Exactly. I use W3Schools for reminding myself of certain CSS properties and tasks like that all the time. And I'm not ashamed.

Hoping they expand to my neighborhood soon so I can give them a try. I think there's a big future in grocery delivery because there is so much energy expended per household buying groceries.

  - Drive to grocery store
  - Roam around store picking out groceries and putting in shopping cart
  - Remove all items from shopping cart, put them on belt to checkout
  - Take all bags of purchased groceries and put in shopping cart
  - Take all bags out of shopping cart, put in car
  - When you get home, take all bags out of shopping cart and bring into house

Crain's created this handy dandy Google Map outlining the delivery area borders: http://goo.gl/maps/6iwQK

Agreed. I know many people who don't have a car living in the denser parts of the city, and grocery shopping (even for a single person living alone) can become a harder task simply because you can't carry a ton at once.

It's more than just $3.99 extra. The food is marked up as well. The site live chat rep just told me to except groceries to be 10% more expensive via Instacart than if you shopped yourself.

I imagine it will be easy with things packaged goods, but when it comes to meat or fruit, you're hoping the personal shopper doesn't pick out some rotten fruit.

If you don't have the problem of getting paid on time, every time (or at all) by clients, then this product probably isn't for you.

There is no need for reminders to pay, because the client has already paid. They fund the milestone, you work on the milestone, and once the client signs off on it, we pay you the full payment for the milestone.

The whole point of the service is for you to start work only when the client has shown that they have the full amount of money available to pay you.

We currently use this system as part of our main matchist product and our network of developers loves it. We're testing the idea of spinning this off for any freelance developer to use with their clients sourced anywhere, besides just matchist.

This is a new product offering we're testing. Our original business model of helping freelance developers and dev shops find great clients is still here going full steam.

Which is exactly why we posted this to this community. Appreciate it.

Thanks for the feedback!

So the hardest part of freelancing for you is keeping the pipeline full? What do you currently do to keep it full?

Where/who do you send the work to that you decline?

Justin,

To reiterate, I encourage you to shoot me an email (tim at matchist) to address you getting irrelevant or uninteresting work from us.

We have the type of work you're looking for (the Pivotal Labs work in your analogy) and we have the integration type work that you seem to not want a part of (which is fine). If you don't want a ton of Zapier work and you're getting a ton of Zapier work, that's not how our service is designed to work.

This sounds like a case of your preferences not being represented properly in our system.

- Tim

Justin,

As co-founder of matchist, and more importantly, a past freelance web developer of many years, your comment makes me pretty sad. The fact that we're not helping you the way you need to be helped is a problem.

First, I encourage you to please email me (tim at matchist) and share any/all feedback you have regarding us sourcing you clients. Specifically, I'd love to learn more about how/why you feel the projects we're sending your way have nothing to do with your advertised skills.

Second, I know we're not perfect in the "finding the absolute perfect clients" department yet. Every day, we work on ways to get better in that area. Feedback from developers like yourself helps immensely.

- Tim (CTO/Co-Founder matchist)

"Money is this magical barrier to all sorts of annoying daily minutiae--even a little bit is enough to let you shrug off the effects of suboptimal decisions. Being able to simply buy a lunch when you forgot to bring one can change your whole afternoon of productivity."

Exactly.

I was under the impression you could only use their prefunding services for clients you sourced on Elance or the marketplace, not with any clients you sourced elsewhere.

Yeah, very familiar with that story (and a big fan).

We very well might. :) Thanks!

That's great to hear. I think every freelancer wants to end up there.

So you never have problems with clients no paying (either on time or at all)?

Wait, that's from Seinfeld, no?

Amazing book! Hope they finally make it into a movie sometime soon.

Does Elance let you bring on your own clients (not sourced through Elance) to use the prefunding?

It sounds like the OP was burned at least once by a freelancer in the past. We come across folks like this every so often at matchist (http://matchist.com).

The biggest problem we often see (and I've seen in my previous experience as a freelance developer) is a lack of trust between the two parties. The client doesn't trust the developer to do their job and/or the developer doesn't trust the client to do their job.

The OP has some good ideas about how to establish trust between the two parties (communicating regularly and effectively, but most of his ideas appear to stem from the fact that he simply doesn't trust freelancers from the get go.

I hear where you're coming from. Definitely a totally different game when you start throwing in families and financial obligations.

I agree, but I find the Internet in general (and companies surrounded around it) often seems like a magical land to people.

I suppose it depends on what your business does and/or where you live. I co-founded matchist, a site that helps people find web and mobile developers.

Not everybody who I explain what I do to knows what a developer is.

Really? I'm on the Blue Line down the Kennedy most mornings/evenings, often looking out at the gridlocked traffic, and have yet to see a single one.

"Real developers" are too busy developing to complain about why X language sucks for Y reasons. There are many tools available to us developers. Use the ones you see fit and forget wasting time blasting other developers for using tools you don't like.