People per Hour is a London-based site that helps connect freelancers in various sectors with job opportunities. It’s much like Elance and Guru, though unlike those sites, it focuses less on tech, and more on administrative and other jobs.
Moreover, Elance and Guru serve full-time professional freelancers. People Per Hour serves people who may only have a couple of hours here and there. Unlike Elance and Guru, which serve the U.S. market, People Per Hour focuses mainly on the European market.
The quality of work by first-time freelancers may be lower than what professionals offer, CEO Xenios Thrasyvoulou admits, but he says service buyers can make informed decisions with the help of the site’s ratings and analysis tools and that these tools can help employers to lower their service costs. There are approximately 2100 freelancers and 900 projects posted so far. Projects average about five bids per post and 55 percent of the projects are from repeat posters. The company makes money from taking a commission.
The company put up a bare-bones webpage in May and built the site with freelancers gotten through its own service (”eating your own dogfood,” in Silicon Valley parlance). People per Hour just got £350k from undisclosed investors.
13 Comments
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X said:
“Europe launches?”
This is like writing, “United States Launches YouTube.”
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Evangelist said:
The text link is broken… should be without ’s’ in hours…
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Sumeet said:
This is the correct website
http://www.peopleperhour.com/ -
xenios said:
just a clarification on one of the citations in the article (as I’m the one being cited !) : there’s a bit of paraphrasing in the quote saying “quality of work is lower by first-time freelancers”…that’s not exactly what i said. What it actually should be saying is this: our site on average is used for less specialist jobs to some of the more niche marketplaces in the USA, as the demand in Europe dictates that. That means that the depth of skills required may on average be less. Businesses need more ‘generalist’ stuff done over here. Now quality is a completely different thing to that. However specialized or generalist a task is the quality of execution is equally important, and we measure with equal or more precision than anyone else out there, as you will see from the rating system on our site.
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Matt Marshall said:
Fixed link, sorry.
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Robert Wools said:
This is a copy of DoMyStuff.com
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James DeNicola said:
I’ve had a look at domystuff.com in the past Robert - at least last time i looked, it was mainly for chores (quite unspecialized tasks that can be done by anyone local).
peopleperhour.com is mostly for more specialized services that can be done remotely and that are needed by businesses, startups etc. well, good to see some startups featured on this side of the Atlantic anyhow, I believe Europe presents a great opportunity for startups that manage to penetrate it..
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Zvi Band said:
I’ve actually been working on a similar site for a while, that is launching within the coming weeks.
Localnik, http://localnik.com
Targeted towards local expert help (not chores).
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Helen James said:
We’ve also recently launched a directory and network but for for UK creative and media freelancers.
It is purely for professional freelancers, but it offers something a bit different in that creatives can team up to land the bigger projects. So a photographer can partner with a copywriter and graphic designer to form a ready made team for clients looking to get their brochure revamped for instance.
With the increased flexibility and lower overheads freelancers can provide, teams will be able offer a great service minus the agency-sized costs.
Ideal for clients who want the best possible deal as the purse strings tighten.
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Helen James said:
OK so it doesn’t publish the email link you give!
Here it is: http://www.freelancealliance.co.uk, part of Freelance UK
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Hannah said:
Helen
You’d want to hope it is a LOT more professional than Contractoruk.
I’ve been there once and was shocked at the rubbish, fighting and nonsense in the forum, doesn’t do anything for the reputation of IT contractors anywhere.
Hannah -
Jon said:
Does anyone know how to contact Helen James?
Cheers -
Alan T. said:
Yes, I have to agree, Contractoruk is a disgrace, I’m certain if some of their sponsors knew contractors who moan about charging £500 per day spend their time posting hateful, purile nonsense they might think twice.
If Helen James is responsible for that site she should be ashamed, it’s a disgrace!
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european job site said:
[...] a London-based site that helps connect freelancers in various sectors with job opportunities, with ahttp://venturebeat.com/2007/12/18/europe-launches-site-to-link-contractors-employers/Europe/European Job and Career ResourcesIf you are looking for employment anywhere in Europe, these [...]