Hello Mark,
Thanks for sharing your experience. I can understand how difficult it is to work as a freelancer or run your own startup. I have started my freelance career in 2006. At that time, online freelance business was new and only 2–3 freelancing sites were active. Employers were also very keen to hire talented offshore freelancers. Initially I had also got an opportunity to convert one major freelancing site from Perl to PHP with escrow payment and multi-payment gateway support. It was an era when the job posts were also not spam and only serious employers used to submit their proposal. I knew some who have purchased this freelancing script with hope to run their own freelancing site. Now time had became very tough, may be due to tough competition in markets or due to insecurity.
Freelancing business requires trust between both parties. To run this type of business we need to understand the importance and requirements of Employers. Definitely it requires lots of marketing and seminars to attract the employers and make them understand the importance and benefits of hiring freelancers. Btw, instead of limiting the employers access to local freelancers, may be an offshore freelancer can also help you to boost up the revenue and definitely it will require an escrow system also. But if you consider it then it will be an extra beneficial for you.
Regards,
Zishan J.
