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Upwork Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates a work marketplace that connects businesses with various independent professionals and agencies in the United States, India, the Philippines, and internationally. The company's work marketplace provides access to talent with various skills across a range of categories, including sales and marketing, customer service, data science and analytics, design and creative, web, mobile, and software development. Its work marketplace also enables clients to streamline workflows, such as talent sourcing, outreach, and contracting. The company's work marketplace offers access to various functionalities for remote engagements with talent, including communication and collaboration, ability to receive talent invoices through their work marketplace, and payment protection. Its marketplace offerings include Upwork Basic, Upwork Plus, Upwork Enterprise, and Upwork Payroll, as well as managed and internet escrow agency services. The company was formerly known as Elance-oDesk, Inc. and changed its name to Upwork Inc. in May 2015. Upwork Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Upwork

elance

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Upwork Inc (NASDAQ: UPWK)’s stock price has soared by 1.36 in relation to previous closing price of 10.30. Nevertheless, the company has seen a loss of -6.28% in its stock price over the last five trading days.

Upwork Inc (UPWK) Shares Rise Despite Market Challenges

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Solwey And Devron.ai Partner To Advance Decentralized Data Processing

Discover the latest Upwork statistics for 2023, including revenue, user insights, and more in this comprehensive article.

80+ Upwork Statistics in 2023: Revenue, Users & More

Upwork Inc’s recently made public that its Chief Accounting Officer Marie Olivier unloaded Company’s shares for reported $2424.0 on Oct 18. In the deal valued at $11.22 per share,216 shares were sold. As a result of this transaction, Marie Olivier now holds 5,361 shares worth roughly $55271.91.

Insider Marie Olivier sells 216 of Upwork Inc [UPWK] Stock

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Upwork Inc shares valued at $2,424 were sold by Marie Olivier on Oct 18. At $11.22 per share, Marie Olivier sold 216 shares. The insider’s holdings dropped to 5,361 shares worth approximately $54521.37 following the completion of this transaction.

UPWK shares expected to outperform in the next 12 months

Moreover, the 36-month beta value for UPWK is 1.52. The public float for UPWK is 118.59M and currently, short sellers hold a 6.29% of that float. On October 25, 2023, UPWK’s average trading volume was 2.

Upwork Inc (UPWK) Stock: A Value Analysis

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25 Highest Paying Jobs for Stay-at-Home Moms

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My Top Ten Upwork Conspiracy Theories: True or False

Les meves deu millors teories de la conspiració: vertader o fals

Mis diez principales teorías de conspiración sobre Upwork: ¿verdaderas o falsas?

Kymmenen parasta salaliittoteoriaani: totta vai tarua

עשרת תיאוריות הקונספירציה המובילות שלי: נכון או לא נכון

私のトップ10のUpwork陰謀説：真実か嘘か

Менин мыкты он Upwork Conspiracy Theories: Чын же жалган

Миний шилдэг арван хуйвалдааны онол: үнэн эсвэл худал

Chunka Aswan allin Upwork Conspiración Teoríasniy: Chiqap utaq llulla

Cele mai bune zece teorii ale conspirației mele: adevărat sau fals

My Top Ten Upwork Conspiracy Theories: ሓቂ ድዩ ሓሶት።

En İyi On Upwork Komplo Teorim: Doğru mu Yanlış mı

Iithiyori zam eziPhezulu zokuSebenza kweNyelelo: Yinyani okanye bubuxoki

After more than ten years on Elance / oDesk / Upwork, I dare to say that I’ve seen and experienced it first-hand: all the good, the bad, and the ugly. I wrote about my fellow freelancers who have suffered blow by blow; the most notorious ones, the introduction of and . I could live with the fact that my words had fallen on deaf remote-work-community ears. I also didn’t use the opportunity to cherish my see-I-told-you-so moments when , got caught red-handed for to make freelancers spend their connects, and was exposed for the legal catch-22 called “ .” connects required for submitting proposals Draconian sections of Upwork’s Terms Upwork almost bled to death on the stock market posting fake jobs Conversion Fee I’ve always been objective and ready to be challenged and proved wrong for every single claim I made and every single word I wrote, but helplessly emotional when more than . Why? Because nobody cared. Because we’re fully aware of the bitter remote work reality that… 100K freelance accounts on Upwork got purged in just one week Little did I know that the suspension train goes both ways. Look, the clients get suspended, as well. But, there’s a huge difference. Upwork What I’d witnessed was in every freelancer’s best interest. I’m talking about fraudsters and “predators” which are a common problem not only on Upwork but on every freelance platform. What’s right is right in this case, and Upwork is fighting the right fight to make sure its platform is as safe and secure as possible by suspending these kinds of clients. However, what a fellow freelancer brought to my attention was something completely different and unheard of. Upwork “Whales” Are Supposed To Be A Protected Species, Are They Not? The so-called Upwork “whales” are every freelancer’s dream. I’m talking about six-figure spenders on Upwork. There are even seven-and-eight-figure whales, but they’re reserved for crème de la crème of the Upwork freelance elite. So, back to my freelance friend who has been swimming with the six-figure whales on Upwork successfully for quite some time. One day, he shared a screenshot with me that got him upset. He couldn’t submit a proposal and, thus, wasn’t able to work, because this client got suspended. At first, I didn’t understand what was all the fuss about. My friend told me that was unthinkable for more than one reason. First, nobody kills the goose that lays the golden eggs in their right business mind. Second, after spending so much money on Upwork and hundreds of projects under your client’s belt you know all the ins and outs of Upwork Terms, especially the no-no things that can get you in suspension trouble (temporary or permanent). Finally, not just Upwork, but every platform would think twice about suspending a long-term client with deep pockets. You can suspend a hundred freelancers without blinking an eye because there are thousands of newbies eager to take their place. But, killing a whale on Upwork can have serious business consequences. I did my best to sympathize with my brother in freelance arms, but my one swallow doesn't make a summer comforting line was hard to swallow for him. So, a few days later, he hit me with another screenshot: Then, that very week came the third in a row: I was about to unchain the situation DiCaprio-style, “you had my curiosity, now you have my attention,” but I think that Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger is a better choice: Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action'. The “enemy’s action” had more “casualties” to report the next week of our “investigation.” We even tried to find a pattern. My friend had a theory related to the latest price increase of Upwork Plus membership for freelancers. He thought that was the last straw that pushed some Upwork freelancers and clients to continue work outside the platform. They violated Upwork Terms, got caught, and suspensions followed. Yet, this didn’t make sense to me. Why would a freelance membership fee increase be a client’s problem and reason-for-treason? After two more pieces of evidence, I finally accepted that this wasn’t a coincidence. Eight “whales” times six-figure amounts they have spent, well, that’s a lot of money to “write off” just like that, even for Upwork. OK. I mean, it’s not OK. What’s going on, and why? New Clients on the Upwork Block Even if you aren’t as successful and diligent as my friend who cares deeply about “whales,” but you happen to be an enthusiastic freelancer on Upwork then you probably haven’t missed their CEO’s LinkedIn post about the impressive financial report for the previous year: This post goes on and on, but there’s one part that caught my eye: What’s 8 suspended against 31 new clients? Nothing. Right? I guess that “enterprise clients” stand for potential “whales.” Yet, it’s going to take some time to hit six or seven-figure spending targets for these new Upwork clients. Just like all freelancers are equal, but some freelancers are more equal than others ( ), all Upwork clients are equal, but some clients are more equal than others (“Client Spend” category filter ). JSS - Job Success Score for those who have an Upwork profile I forgot to mention one tiny detail. My friend and I were able to find eight six-figure suspended clients on Upwork in three weeks. So, the legit question remains: how many more clients have been suspended in the meantime (by the time you’re reading this story)? Honestly, Upwork's financial reports and suspended clients, no matter how much they spend, don’t affect my average resting heart rate, but the number of freelancers who are used to and supposed to work for these gone-with-the-wind clients certainly do. Based on my first-hand experience each of these whales has dozens of open active jobs at any given moment for a good price on average. So, eight suspended whales means hundreds of Upwork freelancers with no work. Where Have All The Good Upwork Clients Gone? All those clients haven’t left the remote work world just because Upwork suspended them. Some of them may even return because we can’t know for sure if these were temporary or permanent suspensions. Yet, some are gone for good. Where they’re going to hire and work next? That’s the million-dollar question, literally. I can’t believe that in October it’s going to be five years since I asked the question that’s still waiting to age well: Is Freelance Anarchy The Future of Freelancing? Let that story sink in, read it because it’s not what you think. Contrary to the unpopular belief and prejudice of Upwork Community moderators, I don’t want or cheer for Upwork to collapse on the stock market. I just want , to the good old days with no connects and (questionable) suspensions. Upwork to get back to its basics If there’s someone who can make freelancing great again it’s not this guy… …but Upwork itself. The day when I won’t have the “material” to write about Upwork, it’s going to be a good day for both clients and freelancers. Until that day, you still have to pay to play on Upwork, this way or another. FREE-lancing; that’s how the whole remote work thing started. Remember?

Why Is Upwork Suspending Six-Figure Clients?

কেন আপওয়ার্ক ছয়-চিত্রের ক্লায়েন্টকে সাসপেন্ড করছে?

Warum sperrt Upwork Kunden mit sechsstelligen Umsätzen?

¿Por qué Upwork suspende a los clientes de seis cifras?

Pourquoi Upwork suspend-il les clients à six chiffres ?

अपवर्क छह-आंकड़ा ग्राहकों को निलंबित क्यों कर रहा है?

Upwork が 6 桁のクライアントを停止しているのはなぜですか?

Upwork가 6자릿수 클라이언트를 일시 중지하는 이유는 무엇입니까?

Por que o Upwork está suspendendo clientes de seis dígitos?

Почему Upwork приостанавливает работу шестизначных клиентов?

Upwork Neden Altı Rakamlı Müşterileri Askıya Alıyor?

Tại sao Upwork đình chỉ các khách hàng sáu con số?

Upwork 为何暂停六位数客户？

This Slogging thread by Arthur Tkachenko occurred in slogging's official #random channel, and has been edited for readability. Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:27 AM Exploring Substack for building your newsletter Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:29 AM Few days ago i made a post on IndieHackers about my recent accomplishment. I counted my articles on Hackernoon related to #food-tech category and realize that during these years i published 24 articles. It's a huge accomplishment for me and i was happy to share it with others. But comments went to another direction. I get asked if i want to create a newsletter, related to food tech. And yeah, i'm thinking about it, but there a lot of things to take in consideration Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:30 AM I get asked if Substack is a great option to build your newsletter. So I want to share my takeaways here Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:31 AM Let's start with basics. Substack is a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform that allows writers to monetize their newsletters via a subscription model for various prices starting at $5 per month Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:33 AM its focused on writers and editor is easy to learn. Plus you can pick if it's a free piece or you want to send it to your paid users only. While it's easy to write a post, there still a limitations to layout, i.e. you can't put everything there. which is probably fine Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:36 AM it's can be a great idea to starting from scratch, especially when you just want to start publishing your content and dont worry about everything else. It put readers first, which I also like. Not sure if i like an idea about "premium content" that hidden under paywalls. People that know me well, knows that I have motto "Fuck Paywalls". For years i'm skipping magazines with paywalls and publishing my content on Hackernoon Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:36 AM But there some Pros and Cons, for sure Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:41 AM You own your content and it's great. You can also easily export your email list, posts and other data from your settings page. From that page you can download everything that allowed by Substack right now. . I remember times when you can download all your business contacts from Linkedin into simple CSV list. But it's not allowed right now i think... Private companies can easily change their directions, ie pivot and update their terms. I also remember that I was able to download contacts to my 60k of students on Udemy and use it. But now I have a limited option to reach my students via 2 fields form on Udemy and I also should watch my words and didnt try to steal any traffic from Udemy(they better focus on applying some tools to DRM protection of video courses instead, so nobody can download them) sarcasm Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:42 AM Making money from newsletters is also fine. And the ability to set up paid subsciptions is a great way for monetization. Here is a guide from Substack to take a deeper look: https://substack.com/going-paid-guide Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:44 AM I think they allowing to connect your Stripe account via Settings But what if your country dont support Stripe(yeah, there so many countries worldwide, you know)... or what if i'm a crypto fan and I want to put some QR code or include unstoppableDomains links? not sure if it's possible. Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:47 AM as a company that want to be profitable, there is some fee for sure. While i'm fine with that(my Udemy profile has " "), someone might want to share their profit Substack allows you to use Stripe to accept payments. Stripe is available in select countries if you are not located in one of those countries then you cannot receive payments. Both Substack and Stripe take their cut from each transaction. Substack charges 10% and Stripe charges 2.9% + 30 cents on each transaction. This means if you charge $10 per subscriber then the Substack + Stripe fee will be 1.59. This may not sound a lot but let's suppose you have 100 paid subscribers each paying $10 per month. You'll be paying $159 each month and $1908 each year. your IRS withholding tax rate is 24% Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:48 AM SEO is a huge topic to talk about too. Basically, when you try to grow and promote your newsletter - you'll send traffic to substack website and work for growing their SEO index. And if you decide to part ways - you'll need to start from scratch with all those links, etc. Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:49 AM Limited integrations also limit your potential to access other tools that may help you convert more visitors into paying subscribers. Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:50 AM Huge plus is a simplicity. You dont need to be a pro in order to start. But again, you will be limited by a platform for sure Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 4:58 AM There is a limit to earn from single model of monetization. Only paywall is available, so... Imagine this situation: you work hard and be able to grow your readers list. let's assume it's related to tech. Your archive page(list of previously published pieces) gets a lot of traffic and you want to add to sidebar CarbonAds( ) you wouldnt be allowed to do that. https://www.carbonads.net/ Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:01 AM another SEO limitations. All images hosted on their CDN. Probably they woudnt be indexed as part of your newsletter here is a link: they dont put alts, so ... https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_704,h_396,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F590aa007-1c00-4f98-abcb-f717db528128_4032x3024.jpeg <img class="post-preview-inner-image" src="{URL}" alt=""> Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:05 AM Censorship. I dont know about situations where substack limited free speach or anything, but as a public company, i'm sure they have some rules or moderations inside. While i'm sure that HN readers are following some rules, there always another side Few years ago there was a situation when Parteon decided to ban some accounts because of a violation of rules. Jordan Peterson was affected I think https://www.businessinsider.com/jordan-peterson-says-hell-launch-patreon-alternative-before-christmas-2018-12 Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:05 AM Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:06 AM Quick mention(I didnt explore this tool) ConvertKit can be an alternative, btw: https://convertkit.com/ Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:15 AM again, substack is a great choice if you want to focus on content and dont distract your users with ads or something else boring. But if you will need some additional features that aren't in their roadmap - sorry. You can also benefit from their usebase. substack has more than 500k paying subscribers. And if you get featured, you can get some additional users from that. But as starter, it will be hard to get featured. And i'm not sure if you ready to do it. Plus, it's a competitive field. Like if you have your own website, your marketing, your newsletter and people go to it to read your content - it's your users. with substack case, your visitors can endup on someother profiles and as it's a platform that unite - they have right to switch. is it good or not - it's upon you. When i was running my previous company, we dont have a website and get clients from Elance website for freelancers. We have quite good profile, reviews, etc. We get into 14th LVL which is quite good accomplishment in my opinion. But when they decided to merge with oDesk and become an Upwork, shit things start to happen. But for details I'll advice to read articles from Nebojsa Todorovic after that situation I'll probably advice to build your own website and invest money into promoting it, instead of promoting your profiles https://hackernoon.com/u/nebojsa.todorovic Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:19 AM Let's imagine another situation. You have an upcoming product that you want to promote to your readers. In my situation it's a tools for newsletters, or modules for food tech startups. Will you be able to use your current userbase? I dont know. Let's imagine that you created Landing Page with lead magnet. Will you be able to add people that subscribed to that product into your Substack list? I dont think so. As substack controling subscription flow, you wouldnt be able to change something there. Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:21 AM Or what if you want to grow your newsletter and sell it later? I dont think someone will buy accesses to your Substack account 🙂 And if you decide to migrate away, you'll probably lost some users. Recenly i find this marketplace for selling newsletters: https://duuce.com/ Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:28 AM I recall a similar situation with Youtube creators. While recently Youtube added some features for monetization, there still a lot of cases when people lost their monetization of get some claims from copyright owners. if you reacting on some videos - you can get demonetized, if someone report your video - it can be deleted, etc. this is why some creators are leaving YT or exploring other alternatives. there a lot of great people that doing cool education videos. And as they want to grow and expand their businesses - they moving part of their content into or From Nebula website: https://curiositystream.com/ https://nebula.app/ Exclusive content. Original productions and bonus material. Support creators. Nebula is creator-owned and operated. No pre-roll ads. No need to skip what isn't there. Download videos. Watch offline in our mobile apps. Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:29 AM https://www.tubefilter.com/2021/09/21/youtube-creator-owned-nebula-curiosity-stream-investment/ https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-55349255 https://www.businessinsider.com/creator-streamer-nebula-legal-eagle-wendover-productions-online-classes-2022-5 Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:30 AM will continue this thread later Arthur Tkachenko May 4, 2022, 5:38 AM Main Page layout on some popular newsletter for foodies

Exploring Substack for Building Your Newsletter

Nebojsa Todorovic is GoLancer's Marketing and Business Analyst and "Noonies2020" Award Winner for the Most Controversial Writer of the Year. "Nesha" writes a lot about freelancing, entrepreneurship, business analysis, and today's job market. In this Slogging Interview, we got to meet the creator behind various amazing titles and took a look at his inspirations. This thread by Mónica Freitas, Nesha, Amy Shah and Limarc Ambalina occurred in slogging's official #amas channel, and has been edited for readability. Slogging Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 6:00 PM Hey @channel, please welcome our next AMA guest Nesha, GoLancer Marketing & Business Analyst, "Noonies2020" Award Winner, and Hacker Noon writer. Please feel free to ask Nebojsa anything about: 1. Freelancing 2. The Start-ups industry 3. His experience as a writer 4. His experience in marketing and business 5. Entrepreneurship 6. His origin story Thank you for joining us, Nesha! Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:01 PM It's an honor to be here in my beloved Hacker Noon Community!! 💚 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 6:01 PM We're thrilled to have you here! Can you start by telling us a bit about yourself, for example, your profession and personal interests? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:02 PM I've been a professional freelance content writer for more than ten years now. You can say that I used to work or I'm still working on all major freelance platforms. Currently, I'm a writer at goLance. My best stories have been written and published on Hacker Noon, which makes me extremely proud and happy. You may say that I've become a true writer when I joined Hacker Noon. Amy Shah Oct 20, 2021, 6:07 PM Nesha Can you tell us more about your origin story?  Curious about anything you might want to share! 💚 1 Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:08 PM Thank you for your question, Amy. Let me start by saying something about my corporate history. You see, I haven't been born a freelancer, lol. I lost my job. I was in dire straits. My first writing gig was worth two bucks! True story. My first freelance platform was vWorker that was acquired by Freelancer dot com in 2012 if I'm not mistaken. A few years later, as we all know, the "Great Merge" took place, and oDesk and Elance became Upwork. I used to be among the top 100 freelancers on Freelancer dot com when there were "only" 20M freelancers working there. I was also the top freelancer on Upwork. In 2018, I discovered goLance, and I've been working exclusively there ever since. I'm also very active on Quora, where I write about remote work, freelancing, startups, and entrepreneurship. I have more than 1.5M all-time views since 2019, and I'm the top contributor in a dozen Spaces with millions of followers. Amy Shah Oct 20, 2021, 6:15 PM What's your go-to advice for people that want to be like you? 💚 1 Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:16 PM It sounds like a cliché and a cheesy line, but find something that you really like doing. The pandemic has made us all question anything and everything about our lives and priorities. Make sure that you're doing something that you really enjoy and you're really proud of. I can say that the Noonies2020 Award presented by Hacker Noon was the best thing that happened to me during the troubling pandemic times. 💚 2 Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 6:17 PM That's still great advice! What's your background in the entrepreneurship and freelancing area? How did you become so familiarized with these areas? Only through personal experience? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:19 PM I used to be a successful part of the corporate world. I started as a sales rep. Then, I worked as a product manager. Finally, I was a sales director and country/regional manager. I worked for some of the biggest international corporations from Germany, Austria, South Africa, etc. In my writing, I combine my personal business experiences with some very interesting startup founders and entrepreneurs I was fortunate to meet personally. The readers react to personal stories from real business life. I have great respect and admiration for bold startup founders and entrepreneurs. Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 6:24 PM You've experienced both ends! What draws you to write about those topics? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:24 PM I have to admit that it was a spontaneous process. I wrote a simple story about my first-hand business experience that got more than 300K views in a matter of weeks on Quora. I got thousands of upvotes/likes and hundreds of comments. I am one of the 76 contributors who can publish directly in the biggest Quora Space for entrepreneurs, business owners, and startups with more than 2M followers. I'm always among the top 10 writers and contributors on these topics. My style is unapologetic, uncompromising, and brutally honest. Just like in one of my favorite movies "Ready Player One:" Reality is the only thing that is real. Also, there's something I have to say about Hacker Noon, which makes it be a unique publishing platform. Hacker Noon is fearless, plain and simple. They aren't hesitating to publish some of the most controversial stories. At the same time, Hacker Noon is absolutely credible because it's impossible to publish stories that haven't been thoroughly checked and verified. Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 6:30 PM Wow, you've achieved a lot already. That's amazing. What made you want to write in the first place? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:31 PM I wrote my first poem when I was ten years old. Writing can be both a blessing and a curse. Somewhere deep inside you, there's something that's impossible to describe. It has to get out and become a story. Just like in Alien the movie, bursting through your chest, but in a creative and unharmful way, LOL. I often like to say that I don't write my stories, they write themselves through me. 💯 1 Amy Shah Oct 20, 2021, 6:37 PM That's a beautiful thought! Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 6:37 PM It was always a calling. That's awesome. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:38 PM If you want to write for real, it can get very emotional. You have to give a lot to get a lot. The ideas for stories usually come in the most unusual time and places. You have to catch them quickly because the next thing you know they're gone. Sometimes, I get up in the middle of the night to write something down. Because in the morning it would be too late. I also have to be honest about passionate writing and the toll it takes on your health. My price is high blood pressure. I'm not a vain author. I'm telling the truth. I leave it up to readers to judge my stories as they are. The challenge is not to get published, praised, paid, or popular. The challenge in writing is to stay true to yourself. Now, that can be a challenge for Hacker Noon editors, lol. Just to finish this thought. There's an urban legend that editors aren't thrilled when they get my latest story. Oh no, Nesha wrote a new story. Oh my, what's it going to be about now, LOL. 💚 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 6:44 PM It's a demanding task. I praise you for the passion you commit to your craft. Your readers appreciate the truth you put out 💚 So, you're enthusiastic about writing, freelance, and entrepreneurship. What are some of your other personal interests? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:46 PM When it comes to my other personal interests, I'm a movie addict. In many of my stories, you can find cultural references to popular and classic movies. I'm not a movie critic, I just enjoy watching good movies. I like to explore hidden meanings and Easter eggs. I appreciate an intellectual challenge of a good story. When I was younger I used to read a lot. Now, when I'm older, it's such a joy to see your favorite books made into movies. I'm not a Millennial. That's why I don't take all the great tech things and new devices for granted. I have a funny story to share if you allow me to illustrate my point. Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 6:52 PM Please do 😊 Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 6:53 PM Back in the day, my daughter found my old Nokia phone. She was extremely frustrated because she couldn't figure out how it works. She didn't know that there's no touch screen. My wife and I couldn't stop laughing. Nowadays, babies are born with the knowledge of how to use remote devices, lol. The younger generations don't know how it used to be to work with the dial-up Internet. Now, I'm using optics, and I feel as if I'm a time traveler. I used to write on paper, and now I'm published on a digital publication in the cyber-space. You can't beat that feeling of true wonder and happiness. And, of course, let's not forget - GAMING!! Again, what's my daughter playing on Xbox is science fiction for me. Back in the 1990s, Blizzard's StarCraft was the revolutionary thing. I'm glad that there are so many people who feel nostalgia about the good old things from some other time. For example, to this very day, I play Frozen Throne. I forgot how old is that game. More than 20 years, I guess?! Ah, all the fun we used to have to play Counter-Strike. You can't compare the graphics and animation of the old games, but that was the dawn of the new time that pawed the way for the new generations. I forgot to say that as a professional writer, I'm a blind typer, lol. Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:02 PM I was born in the 90s. Even though for me, the change wasn't as big, I can completely relate to what you're saying. It requires a lot of adjustment to keep up with technological advances. Counter-Strike was a phenomenon back then. 🙏 1 Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:03 PM My writing speed sometimes hits more than one word per second. So, my apologies, lol. My readers aren't age-limited. Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:04 PM I'll try to catch up 😁 As an avid reader, I completely get your love for adaptations. What would you say it's your favorite movie and book? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:05 PM Uh, that's a tough one. You got me, Monica, LOL. It's hard because I don't want to be unfair. For example, the Matrix was a movie that defined my entire generation. On the other hand, you have the latest adaptation of Dune, the cult SF classic. Guy Ritchie is one of my favorite directors. I think I have seen all of his movies. Books. Oh boy, that would be an endless list. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. On Apple streaming service, for instance, you can enjoy in Asimov's Foundation. There are so many books and movies that I've read and seen hundreds of times. You just can't get enough of them. When it comes to music, I have to say that I'm stuck in the past of the house music of the 1990s. You were born at the right time, Monica, lol. Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:12 PM Uh, I really want to read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's a harsh question, I know. What kind of music do you use to write? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:13 PM Our conversation took some unplanned turns, but I'm sure there weren't the wrong ones, like that horror movie series, the Wrong Turn, LOL. Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:13 PM Ah, that's a great question!! Music is very important for my writing. When I write for Hacker Noon, I listen to house, disco hits, so loud that my ears hurt, lol. I like the rhythm that doesn't allow you to relax. My writing is tense. When I'm done, I often feel as if I've been running for hours. Unfortunately, I burn very few calories, which doesn't help my losing extra weight plans, lol. There are some honorable mentions and exceptions that include rock and classic music. Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:20 PM What would be the honorable mentions? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:20 PM Metallica - The Black Album, Whitesnake, AD/DC, Adagio in G Minor, Bad Santa soundtrack, Atomic Blonde soundtrack, Daft Punk...The Weeknd is amazing. 2001: A Space Odyssey Theme song Rollerball (1975) - Intro (Bach - Toccata) Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:26 PM Never heard the Bad Santa Soundtrack. I'll make a note of it for later! Now, HackerNoon adds small descriptions to each writer's profile. What would your self-description be like? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:27 PM I have a few, give me a second. I changed quite a lot. Talent Can't Be Taught. And this one in particular. I smoke like Mark Twain. I drink like Ernest Hemingway. I kiss like Charles Bukowski. I freelance like Michael Brooks. I write like myself and get published on Hacker Noon. 🤘 Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:30 PM AMAZING 👏 Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:31 PM Nowadays, all you have to say is... Hey, I'm a Hacker Noon contributor, period!! There's no better recommendation and reference for any writer. 💚 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:31 PM Something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:32 PM Hm...The rituals... Every Christmas I have to watch Bad Santa, LOL. AC/DC Highway to Hell. Patton the movie. I forgot to mention that I joined the army at the age of 14 as a military cadet. I spent 6 years in the army. One of the top in my class. A very problematic one, though. Fun fact: I spent my 18th birthday in a military prison because of a girl. I had to see her. The guards sang "happy birthday to me." Those were the days, LOL. 😂 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:38 PM A tragic love story...it could be the beginning of a novel! Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:38 PM What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:38 PM Ha ha ha, indeed. Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:39 PM I'm excited about this year's Noonies awards. I plan to outmatch myself with new stories. Last year I was the most controversial writer. This year, my focus would be on startups and entrepreneurship. Also, I want to write about work from home as our new reality. I published more than 50 stories. A handful of them were top stories. Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:42 PM Congratulations! It means that you're touching the tricky subjects! I'll be sure to keep an eye out for them! What was your latest Hacker Noon Top story about? Nesha Oct 20, 2021, 7:43 PM I'm so proud. I should've shared some pictures. I wrote a true story about my neighbor, a tech pioneer. He's in his 60s. Really an incredible story about the first computers. About the enthusiasm of the first tech pioneers. Amazing stories are all around us. I'm not sure, but I think that Tolstoy said something that you don't need to imagine anything. Life is stranger and more beautiful than fiction. Hacker Noon is a great story itself. One day I will write about it too. 💚 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 20, 2021, 7:49 PM Oh, that's amazing! Please do! And do write a memoir someday because I bet you have more fun stories to tell! 🙏 1 Limarc Ambalina Oct 21, 2021, 2:12 AM Sorry to join late, Nesha, and thanks for joining us here. As someone who was freelance writing for years, I have a question for the freelance writers out there who are struggling. What's your advice on getting gigs as a freelancer? Should you reach out to companies on your own, answer job ads, or do you think it is necessary for freelance writers to be active on the Fiverr and Upworks of the world? I find that Fiverr takes way too high fees to make it worth it. Nesha Oct 22, 2021, 12:26 AM Limarc Ambalina I started writing a reply to your thread here, and then, I realized. I'm going to end up writing an article for all struggling fellow freelance writers out there. So, I'm on it. :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing: 1 👍 1 Mónica Freitas Oct 25, 2021, 8:26 AM That's a wrap for this AMA. Thank you for joining us, Nesha. It's been a pleasure to have you!

Meet HackerNoon's Reigning 'Most Controversial' Writer of the Year

Worshiping mainstream idols just ain’t my thing. That's why I’m going to start by cutting through everybody’s top five choices like a knife through butter. Not because that would make me look smarter; but simply unapologetically honest. You have the right to admire, and I have the right to play with fire. I know even without asking who are everybody's favorite "usual suspects.” That’s so disappointingly predictable. I know that I’m going to step on many people's toes with my article, but I don’t care. It’s just me speaking my mind about the “untouchables.” Top 5 Entrepreneurs & CEOs That I DON'T Admire because I think his ego is too big for just one planet. Some planets are blue, some planets are red, I don’t care if you think of him as your best imaginary friend. 1) I don’t admire ELON MUSK That's an interesting choice of words - "filters." But Musk is once again in the news for admitting, though not for the first time, the truth about his dream: "A bunch of people probably will die" in the process. The "filtering process," I guess. because plastic bottles aren’t toilets. 2) I don’t admire JEFF BEZOS Actually, I do believe it. While studying I used to work night shifts (only) at a newsstand with no toilet. I had to be “creative.” Use your imagination. Hey, I even consider myself to be one of the first pioneers in this field. When you're working at a newsstand, you have plenty of reading material at your disposal. That's how I stumbled upon an article about "space toilets." The rest is history that's luckily behind me. because he cared more about the products and deadlines than the people who worked for him. Tears for fears. I know, great songs, but a terrible analogy. 3) I don’t admire STEVE JOBS As early as 1987, : "by the early 80's, Mr. Jobs was widely hated at Apple. Senior management had to endure his temper tantrums. He created resentment among employees by turning some into stars and insulting others, often reducing them to tears. Mr. Jobs himself would frequently cry after fights with fellow executives". You know what; I don't fall for crocodile tears even under an Apple tree. the New York Times wrote because he allowed Larry T Bird to become a biased bird of prey. 4) I don’t admire JACK DORSEY If your Twitter account hasn't been suspended at least once, then you don't know what you missed. because he created a monster. Something about good intentions and the road to digital hell. 5) I don’t admire MARK ZUCKERBERG Belgian politician Guy Verhofstadt referenced the techno-dystopian novel The Circle before asking whether Facebook would open its books to regulators so that they could examine whether the company was engaging in monopolistic practices. He also asked the Facebook CEO about his legacy. “How do you want to be remembered?” Verhofstadt said. “As one of the three internet giants together with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? Or as a failed genius who created a digital monster destroying our democracies?” I haven't read "The Circle" ( ), but I saw "The Circle" ( ). Tom Hanks as a villain. Yup, that was one extremely vicious tech circle. book movie I know what you’re going to ask me next. Is there someone you actually admire, you bitter bald/bold man? OK. Time to change my tune. Top 5 Entrepreneurs & CEOs That I DO Admire (still) because Edge works like a charm on Linux Ubuntu. So, I have to let him slip through my fingers, for now. 1) I do admire BILL GATES Is Edge for Linux the Trojan Horse special delivery by Microsoft? Am I going to regret my admiration one day? I found this lovely and troubling picture in one of . TechRepublic's articles Then there are these two headlines from a : Wired article Enemies No More: Microsoft Brings the Linux Kernel to Windows Microsoft is bringing the heart of Linux to Windows, the latest sign of the software giant's increasing receptiveness to open source software. Let's see if Bill is going to break my Linux Ubuntu heart. because I consider him to be the "father of modern freelancing." Yup, all of you freelance babies that take many things for granted, was the first to introduce, test, and use. 2) I do admire Ian Ippolito Ian Ippolito I earned my very first money as a freelancer on vWorker, formerly known as Rent a Coder. because she refused to allow Hacker Noon to become just another brick in Medium's paywall. 3) I do admire Linh Dao Smooke Wait! Where's David? The last time I checked, he was still in his green-hair phase. Let's face it, we all know who's Mama-in-chief. I'm perfectly confident that this article won't influence my contributor's status on Hacker Noon and the next "Noonies" Award nomination. Just sayin'. My favorite video. Aren't they adorable (as long as David stays away from hair color conditioners and stuff): because he launched the same year the "Great Merge" took place in 2015. I'm talking about the "marriage" of Elance and oDesk that gave birth to Upwork. 4) I do admire Michael Brooks goLance The urban freelance legend has it that one self-proclaimed writer and the winner of the "Noonies2020" Award said this during their very first conversation: "Sir, with all due respect, but launching a new platform while freelance dinosaurs rule the market is business madness." One year later after that conversation, here on Hacker Noon, I published a story that begins with a question: Is Michael Brooks The Freelance King Leonidas? Is he? Judge for yourself. , the world doesn’t and will never know they ever existed and fought every single day for their families and communities. 5) I do admire all unknown entrepreneur heroes Finally, I do admire that you don’t admire my stories.

Top 5 Entrepreneurs & CEOs That I Don't Admire and Top 5 That I Do

Freelancing is all about - . And, trust is all about - . the trust the reviews Now, are all the reviews out there worthy of your trust? How many times have you hired a freelancer or decided to work for a client or chosen a freelance platform, based on reviews? I don't know about you, but I don't even bother reading five-star reviews. Why? Well, because they're all the same, more or less. Instead, I dive straight into the negative reviews. For a change, one-star reviews in particular, are emotional, lengthy, and above all, rich in useful details. Have you ever doubted reviews, even for a moment? I didn't. Until now. Upwork Review Farms I had to borrow this brilliant term from Twitter. I said to myself, kudos to a guy who came up with this line first. Can it be true? It took only a few clicks and then I stumbled upon this , where you can . link buy Upwork reviews C'mon guys, you can't be serious about it. No freelancer in his right mind would've invested money in buying Upwork reviews. Right? I thought that this was a ridiculous thing to consider even for a minute. Then, the "Description" and "Additional Information" caught my attention. As a writer, I can tell you, this is one hell of a good copy. Nicely written and structured. Straight to the point. These guys have worked out all possible scenarios. They have covered all reasonable questions. You really have to give them credit for all the effort. They didn't try to avoid the most unpleasant and logical questions about their "business." As I said, all angles are covered and all doubts confronted with the reasonable explanations. Obviously, there's honor among thieves and fair-play among the sellers of Upwork reviews. You can even . Now, why in the world a freelancer would want to buy negative reviews? Well, when you think about it for a moment, it makes the perfect sense. A negative review here and there certainly makes your Upwork account look more "authentic." You can't have all five-star reviews. It's just too good to be true. buy negative Upwork reviews OK. So, this is a clearly indecent proposal all freelancers with integrity should avoid. Upwork is a serious organization. They wouldn't allow their reviews to be compromised under any circumstances. Or, would they? Hide and Seek Your Upwork Reviews, You Freelance Geek! Again, Twitter turned out to be a great source for investigative Upwork journalism. An Invisible Girl on Twitter made one problem with Upwork reviews very visible. What is she talking about? You can't hide your freelance reviews. That's impossible. Something like this conflicts the basic principles of the entire freelance industry. This just can't be true. So, I decided to prove her all wrong. What do you know, this "option" has been hiding in plain sight on the official Upwork's website. So, if you are a Top Rated freelancer on Upwork, you can get away with a "murder" of your negative reviews. Seriously? Oh boy, it gets even worse. Feedback Removal is something that's openly discussed in Upwork Community. Pay attention guys! This Upwork user is a veteran. He has been working on Upwork since 2011. Meaning, he probably started at the same time as I did, back on oDesk or Elance, or even both. He was just expressing his reasonable concern and asking for clarification. But hey, oh no, as if they were given a single command, descended upon this truth-seeker. the Upwork Community Gurus These "Gurus" defended the "constitutional right" of Upwork freelancers to remove reviews they don't like. My personal favorite is a Guru, who is making a point that this is limited. Hey, certain "criteria" had to be fulfilled, so you can remove negative reviews from your profile. Feedback Removal option on Upwork Our truth-seeking hero was helpless against the barrage fire of Upwork Community "Kerberos." It's understandable that he eventually had to give up(work). Seek-and-you-shall-find the answers to your questions on Upwork doesn't apply to reviews. Again, my personal favorite - the razor-blade-Upwork-community-guru - Petra. When I was still a happy Upworker, her answers and comments always stood out. She made sure her reputation of merciless defenders of Upwork universe is well justified. OK. Let's draw a line here. Enough is enough. You can buy five-star and/or kill your one-star Upwork reviews, but this doesn't mean that the whole system is corrupted. At least, Upwork reviews are still trustworthy. Are they? If You Can't Trust Trustpilot, Then Who Can You Trust? It's not a secret or surprise that Upwork is rated as "poor" and "bad" on Trustpilot. This low rating score makes sense to me. It reflects the Upwork reality, which is far away from a projected idealistic one. I thought that Upwork's reputation was damaged beyond repair. I also wondered how was it possible for Upwork to "tolerate" this unfavorable review situation?! Yup, you should be careful about what you wish for. Before I knew it, the Upwork "review machinery" demonstrated its full strength. In a matter of weeks, Upwork's Trustpilot score "improved" from 1.4/5.0 to the more "acceptable" 3.7/5.0. How is that even possible? As I'm writing this article, Upwork's trust score is getting better and better. The new five-star reviews have been posted on an hourly basis. So, what's my problem with it? Well, we clearly had a period when Upwork wasn't interested about its poor rating. Then, all of a sudden the review-sleeping-beauties on Upwork have awoken and eager to get down to "business." I paid the close attention. There was a wave after wave of five-star reviewers. You can check out the dates yourself. You can also see for yourself that these "happy" and "spontaneous" Upwork reviewers just wanted to do their "patriotic reviewing duty" as quickly as possible with not too many words left behind. Here and there, you can still find one-star Upwork reviews on Trustpilot. They stand out sharply not because of their color and number of stars, but because of their content. Again, judge yourself. From the "technical" point of view, Upwork isn't doing anything wrong with its reviews on Trustpilot. Upwork reviewers are just being more active than usual. It's a happy "coincidence" that almost all of them were five-star oriented in the last couple of weeks. Upwork Reviews and Plastic Screws Can you build a bridge of trust with the plastic screws? Yeah, it's a cheesy question, but it doesn't mean I'm missing my point. I was looking for a word to rhyme with reviews. Is this the best I could do? Actually, I asked Google, can you make a plastic bridge? Yes, you can, but I still prefer the good old wood, metal, or concrete in this case. There's a phenomenal movie quote from "Kingdom of Heaven:" It (Jerusalem) is a , or nothing. kingdom of conscience If you don't mind, I would like to adapt this quote: Freelancing is a kingdom of trust, or nothing. So, nothing, Upwork.

Buying Upwork Reviews: Is Your Freelancer Really a 5-Star Freelancer?

This Slogging thread by , , , , , and occurred in slogging's official channel, and has been edited for readability. Arthur Tkachenko Limarc Ambalina richard-kubina Amy Tom Rianke Krugel Utsav Jaiswal Natasha Nel #amas Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 6:04 PM ✅ 2 Feel free to Ask Me Anything about How To Fail Your Startup (Feb 18th, 12PM MT) Limarc Ambalina Feb 18, 2021, 7:01 PM What was your first startup? And why did it fail? Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 7:08 PM @Limarc Ambalina  "Startups": very wide term, right? when I was 22 - I quit my coding job and decide to start my own company. We were providing outsourcing services - mostly getting clients from Elance(Upwork). company name: NetWeight. < We fail because we want to fail. I didn't have any prior experience in management or sales or finances at that time. I even was not able to talk to my clients in English. So we run our company mostly by intuition. We made bad decisions. And a major reason why we fail - we just run out of money. You know - when you have a team that you should care about: you need to plan all expenses and be ready for anything. why did it fail? richard-kubina Feb 18, 2021, 7:10 PM Was there a big risk trying a start up?  Did you have any sort of security net to catch you if you fall? Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 7:16 PM richard-kubina For the first few years: not a lot. I mean 0 personal risks. But this is a beauty for being young and stupid, right? I actually think that my biggest risk was not to starting that company. Where I'll be right now, without it? Probably not here, replying to AMAs questions :) Do you mean something called a "financial pillow"? if yes - nope, we wasted all dimes that we have. And most of our energy as well 🙂 And I don't think having a lot of security is good for your mindset. Because you need to be fit in order to perform. Like, imagine any Olimpic winner - all of them pushing their limits. On the other side - when you have a plan and some money in your bank account - it's less stressful. you know, like insurance. You know that when a bad day will come - you'll be fine. < Was there a big risk trying a start up? < Did you have any sort of security net to catch you if you fall? richard-kubina Feb 18, 2021, 7:19 PM Ah yeah, I think I know what you mean.. it's good to have that pressure to bust your ass and make it happen.  and having constraints is great for creativity in problem-solving or even artistically :thumbsup: So will there be (or is there) another startup in the works? Amy Tom Feb 18, 2021, 7:20 PM Do you think that you are more or less likely to fail with a business partner vs a solo startup? Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 7:21 PM For sure! when we finally killed this horse - I have a lot of free time. And I want to build few projects, related to food-tech field. I have cool cocktail of knowledge there. So probably I'll continue to pursue my ideas at some point in the future. < So will there be (or is there) another startup in the works? Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 7:22 PM But I dont want to build one company and sold it at some point Rianke Krugel Feb 18, 2021, 7:24 PM What is the biggest one lesson that you would impart to when it comes to embracing failure? first time founders Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 7:25 PM I wish to build something similar to holding: like: 1 company has developers that doing backend for food startups. another company working as a consulting firm design firm with deep knowledge in food a separate firm can focus on diets, etc It will keep teams very simple and focused on one task/product. They also can collaborate and have discounts. So if I get an offer to sold one company - I still can be in the game with other companies. Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 7:35 PM @Amy Tom I think building a small business is like raising a baby. So it requires a lot of attention. And 2 parents. And grannies and granddads. But again, it's only connected to a small company. For a big company - I'll probably give up a huge amount of equity/money to a person that actually knows how to be a CEO. While it's cool to change jobs and positions - imagine this situation: you hire a CEO - that was CEO for the last 15 years in 5 different companies? This is a vast experience. My experience was tied with my business partner. Actually - it was his idea - I just thought it would be funny to build a company 🙂 And we separated our responsibilities - I was running operational cycles. He was focusing on strategy, grows and sales. But when you start something new - you need to understand that partners have equal roles, and you should have unbreakable trust. So if you have any doubts - it's a no sign. < Do you think that you are more or less likely to fail with a business partner vs a solo startup? It's scary to do something when you alone. I think companies with few founders have more chances to succeed. Because you need someone who will be on your side, right? I'm solo now - and I'm doing everything slowly. Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 7:41 PM < What is the biggest one lesson that you would impart to when it comes to embracing failure? Don't listen to anyone. There no playbook. Just focus, hustle and have fun - we have only 1 life, right? Failing is an experience. Instead of reading books - you can feel it by your skin. If you want to move upstairs - you need to start and don't give up. Like even if your family wants you the best - if they don't have entrepreneurship experience - you should filter all advices. i.e. if you want to build a company like Hackernoon - you should listen to David Smooke, not to your granny 😉 cc @Rianke Krugel first time founders Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 7:47 PM 😆 1 Let me throw some positive stories here. I think this thread can be much funnier. Our first office has 1 small window. And the view was another wall.... The second office was huge for our team. We put all tables to the corners and in the middle, we were playing badminton. Bad for productivity, very fun way to have 1-to-1 meetings. One of our clients was a glam-rock star at 80s. I upset him and he told me - "F@ck you, Arthur!". I think I'm invincible after that. Limarc Ambalina Feb 18, 2021, 7:51 PM Oh course haha. Now that you know what you know about Hacker Noon. How would you use Hacker Noon to grow a startup? Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 8:02 PM Limarc Ambalina quick answer: I'll tell a story and get some views 😉 < How would you use Hacker Noon to grow a startup? Well, I get hired. I wouldn't accept any offer just because I just need money. I was part of the community a long time ago. But now I have responsibilities here. What I realize after doing code for few years: nobody cares about my code or about my experience. In order to do something - you should be visible. Like we wouldn't meet with you just because I pushed some code on GitHub. But you can open my account on Hackernoon - and my stories can tell you a lot about me. Monkeys evolved because we tell stories and share experiences. I'll put content marketing first. Cool code is a long way to get clients or attention. Going back to your question: I'll try to submit 1 article each day and share something cool or funny. I'll do it for 60 days. Then I'll measure results. If I'm not satisfied with the results - I'll apply some changes and run it again. I published 80 articles => Now I'm part of HN crew. What will be accomplished after 150 articles? Let's see. Limarc Ambalina Feb 18, 2021, 8:12 PM Wow you published 80 articles on Hacker Noon? Ok I will catch up to you this year Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 8:16 PM Limarc Ambalina I still need to migrate some of my articles. Probably I need some help - not a lot of results from April 2020 Arthur Tkachenko Feb 18, 2021, 8:52 PM 💯 2 👽 2 We all watching Landing on Mars, right? 🚀🚀🚀🚀 I'm still accepting questions for the next few days, so feel free to post them, even if you late to our party Utsav Jaiswal Feb 19, 2021, 5:06 AM What are the major changes that have come up in the startups space between when you first started (2002) and now (2021)? Natasha Nel Feb 19, 2021, 10:08 AM How do you know when you have failed, vs. when you should stick it out and keep going? Arthur Tkachenko Feb 28, 2021, 6:52 PM I'll answer Natasha Nel question first. I think everyone can find this answer in their heads. But we also need to know that we are humans and everybody has bad days. Sometimes you need to wait few days or have sleep, or just eat. So if an "entrepreneur" has a bad day - it doesn't mean that you need to close your business tomorrow. The battle is finished when you consider it finished. I can speak only about my own experience. It takes me more than a year to settle everything in my head and finally realize that it's time to move on. Before that, I made few attempts to restart everything. This time was very important for me. I did some moves, that probably shaped me. < How do you know when you have failed, vs. when you should stick it out and keep going? Arthur Tkachenko May 25, 2021, 2:34 PM @Utsav Jaiswal I think I started in 2012 mostly, so my knowledge is limited. Plus, being outside the USA startup bubble means that you can't just make a quick visit and talk about some deals. While right now everybody is fine with calls, emails, and online payments - it was a bit harder back then. At least for me. I think it's much easier to promote your startup. I also adore that everybody gets more funding options. It's much easier than before. At least in my brain. From my perspective -> I grow up, and I lower my imagination about product quality and everything. I get that I can be lazy but also productive. I can do my own thing and don't follow any basic guidelines. Like before, I was thinking about investments. I even spend time talking to people. Right now don't think it's necessary to "waste any air". If your product is online and it has real value -> people will buy it. < What are the major changes that have come up in the startups space between when you first started (2002) and now (2021) And you don't need to convince everybody about quality. For sure, marketing is essential. But I'm still more leaning toward product rather than sales, personally. I was also bothered about how to receive payments or how to incorporate my company. What laws should I read, and which company should I hire. Now, I can add a QR code and get money via crypto. So much pressure is actually gone. Or use unstoppableDomain and receive payments via email. I think coinpayments also have a product that helps you to have a simple payment tool too. Why I'm talking about crypto payments and not fiat? well, even it's 2021 - Ukraine citizens can have a real PayPal account. Our government just doesn't want to make it work... Plus, we have a war, so Stripe and a lot of other companies, that rely on big USA banks also paused money exchange between our countries. Plus, this way is much easy and cheaper. And you can sit and focus on things that are really moving your company forward. Arthur Tkachenko May 25, 2021, 2:35 PM Thanks, everyone for your participation. It was a pleasure and I hope anyone learned something new

Ask Me How To Lose Your Company Without Losing Your Faith

Is It Hard to Develop a MMORPG?

Earlier this year, I launched a side project of mine called which is a platform that allows companies to find freelancers in their city. Lancerlist This launch marks an important milestone in my journey as a creative. It’s the first time I’ve taken an idea to launch over a weekend, 16 hours of working time to be exact. In comparison, my first side project, a marketplace for influencers to sell Instagram shoutouts, took about 6 months to build and kinda flopped. Since then I’ve realised the value in getting an idea out there quickly to see if it’s worth pursuing deeper. Below I’ve broken down those 16 hours into different stages and explained a little of what I did in that time. Background A while ago I was listening to a podcast about building vertical networking platforms, this particular industry was oil and gas, but what interested me was this network facilitated the majority of connections between rig owners and contractors. In the creative freelancing industry, we have networks such as Freelancer.com and Elance that connect and facilitate transactions between companies and freelancers. There are a few issues with these platforms such as the up to 20% commission these platforms take on each transaction or the global competition that drives down prices and causes a race to the bottom effect. In the future I see both freelancers and companies wanting to take control more of the process. With the increase in global competition, the benefits of working locally will become more important; communication, reputation and quality control are all factors. Idea and Scope (1 hour) With this background information in mind, the main problem currently is discovery for companies and exposure for freelancers. At the moment, discovery options include the freelancing platforms already mentioned or general networking networks such as LinkedIn. The problem with both is the results are too general. The freelancing platforms, while targeted, provide a global set of results. LinkedIn on the other hand can be filtered down, yet the results are not targeted towards freelancers actively looking for work. Established freelancers have their network, reputation and existing clients to keep the cash flowing, entry-level freelancers have a harder time establishing these in the early days and current options require creating a personal brand (Twitter) or cold outreach (Email). My solution to this is a simple platform that allows freelancers to sign up, display their contact information and selected pieces of work, and set their location. Companies can then search through locations, ideally their own, to find and contact freelancers based on the merits of their work. Once this idea was bouncing around in my head I brainstormed a huge list of potential features and interactions that I thought would benefit the platform. I then sorted these features by size (design and development time) and potential impact. I plotted them on a graph and created a roadmap with the high impact, low size items prioritised for the minimum viable product. UX Design (1 hour) For large projects, I would usually do in-depth user research, create personas and make journey maps. For a small project like this where the aim was launching an MVP quickly, these didn’t really matter because as an occasional freelancer I knew the target user. I, therefore, decided the UX stage would be used to define the information architecture and create a low fidelity mockup the key flows of the product. Information architecture is simply laying out what information/data is needed for the product to function and then organising it to show the relationship between the information. Honestly, you could create the information architecture with crayon on a wall, I wouldn’t recommend it though if you want your security deposit back. What I mean to say is you don’t need anything special, I personally use a tool called draw.io, it’s a free, cloud-based, flowchart maker and helps me visualise ideas from my brain in a more permanent way. Low fidelity mockups are a simple visual representation of the product, think sketching out screen designs on paper. In this stage I would take the information architecture and create basic layouts from it, thinking about how the user would navigate from screen to screen. One of my favourite tools, apart from pencil and paper, for creating simple mockups, is Balsamiq. Balsamiq, with its sketch-like style, allows me to create simple layouts without having to worry about the finer details that come with UI design. I can then add links between the screens to create a clickable prototype, it’s basic but gets the job done. UI Design (2 hours) I now had a rough design of what I wanted to build, it was time to turn that into what the final product would look like. These designs are what I would base the frontend development on. My weapon of choice is Figma, it allows me to switch between Mac and Windows with all the files stored in the cloud, meaning I can easily pick up designs where I left them, without worrying about if I have the latest version. The first thing I sorted was branding, for the colour scheme I was loosely inspired by newspapers such as the Financial Times with their off white background and largely monochromatic colour palette. The most simple logo I came up with was ‘Lancerlist’ in a serif that I liked with no icon, this could come later and wasn’t necessary for the MVP. On to the actual UI, with large scale projects, I would usually create a design system, make all the components interchangeable and create an interactive prototype. This wasn’t necessary for a project of this size, over the two hours I spent on the user interface I trial and errored many component designs, using Dribbble for inspiration when needed, and stopped when it was ‘good enough’, not when it was perfect. Very wabi-sabi. I end up designing five full screens from the UX which covered 95% of the interface, I was happy to proceed to development. Backend (2 hours) To kick off development, I always tend to build the backend of the project first. This allows me to build the functionality of the product first and is usually the stage when I catch most of my mistakes from the design stage. The first thing I did was set up two databases, a staging database and a production database. This allows me to test the product locally without the threat of accidentally deleting actual user data. The whole of the backend of the product is built in Laravel, which is a Model-View-Controller (MVC) PHP framework. I’ve been using Laravel for years and love it, this meant I was saving time by applying my past knowledge. Generally, the backend structure was the same as the default Laravel setup. I utilised Laravel Auth to create the authentication system, this literally took 30 seconds to set up and works like a treat, especially for the MVP. Frontend (8 hours) The most significant time expense in this project was the frontend development, turning the UI design into a functional, interactive and responsive interface. For most of my side projects, I use VueJs as my main frontend framework and structure the frontend to work with Vue components. This does, however, add complexity and development time to the project and I’m trying to complete over a weekend, so I decided to keep the frontend simple. For the HTML I decided to use Laravel’s Blade templating system, for those familiar with Twig it’s very similar but with the added benefit of being able to access Laravel functions. The HTML structure was simple, one layout that individual pages extend and pass properties, such as the page title, back to. For styling, I again enlisted the help of another Laravel feature, Mix. Mix acts as a compiler for SCSS and JavaScript and is built into the Framework meaning there was no complex WebPack setup. All the styling was done in SCSS, structured with components, variables and mixins that keep the project organised, allowing for rapid development. For interactivity, I used pure ES6 JavaScript functions that detect interactive components on page load and assign all their functionality on the spot. Generally, the interactivity at the MVP stage was minimal, as designed, so didn’t take very long to add. Once done, I hooked it up to the backend to pull through live data and tested it thoroughly, checking for any flaws in my logic or bugs in my code and fixed them accordingly. Deployment (1 hour) The project was now ready for launch, but at this stage, it only lived on my local computer, it was time to move it online. The first thing I did was create a git repository and push my code up there. This allows me to control different versions of my code so I can work on and release multiple features at a time. I then set up a basic DigitalOcean droplet (server) with the help of Laravel Forge, a tool that provides a user interface for managing Ubuntu-based servers. I then bought the domain, set up the appropriate DNS records that point to my server and created a new project for the domain in Forge. From Forge I then setup deployment which takes the code stored in the git repository and copies it across to my server. I proceeded to set up a new database in Forge and copy across the database from my local computer. The DNS records propagated about 30 minutes later and we were in business. The project was now up and working from the live domain. Job done. Launch (1 hour) Launch time! In the past, I’ve held back on launching projects, either due to trying to make the project perfect or anxiety about putting my work out there, not this time. I decided that the launch operation would be fought on two fronts, Twitter and ProductHunt, so I concentrated my preparation around these. For Twitter, I set up the account, branded it with a profile picture, primary colour (when they were a thing) and call to action in the bio for those curious. I created social media cards for the website and made a pinned tweet with the call to action and link. For ProductHunt I prepared for launch by creating thumbnails, taking screenshots and pre-writing the first comment which targeted user engagement. I then scheduled the launch through the ProductHunt dashboard for the next day. I built a very basic, password-protected dashboard (as a new Laravel project) that measured page views and sign-ups, and deployed it to a subdomain so I could measure the launch when I was on the move. The next day it launched. You can find the 280 character summary of the launch aftermath over . At some point, I’ll write another article going into the stats of the launch. here But to give you a flavour of what happened, I launched it at midnight while on a redeye coach to Cornwall for a spot of surfing, 18 hours later I was sat in a Wetherspoons doing customer support! Check out the project live at . lancerlist.co You can find me and follow my progress on Twitter at . @madebycrevans

How I Designed, Built and Launched a product over the Weekend - A Breakdown of Events

If history has taught us something that has to be this - all great empires have fallen from within. Is our freelance empire doomed to fail? Wait, how and when our bellowed freelance industry became the great but fragile empire? The Freelance Triumvirate That First Went Public And Then Rogue The biggest takeover in freelance history, , marked the birth of . However, it was the so-called Great Merge, when oDesk and Elance became Upwork, that finalized this process. when Freelancer acquired vWorker the new freelance world order This is how we ended up with the "Freelance Triumvirate." The freelance world has never seen such mega-sized platforms with tens of millions of freelancers working on one place. Really, is there a freelancer in the world who doesn't have an account on Upwork or Fiverr or Freelancer or all of these gigantic platforms? Then, one by one, these freelance websites went public. First, Freelancer in 2013. Then, Upwork followed. Finally, Fiverr went public. So, how our freelance musketeers are performing on stock markets? Well, Upwork and Fiverr had the worst quarter in their relatively short, but extremely turbulent history as public companies. On the other hand, we have Freelancer's stock prices that haven't recovered since 2016. What's going to happen when the stock prices of these platforms hit rock bottom? Well, their financial river will run dry. Nobody will want to buy the worthless penny stocks. These platforms are already charging their users every step of the way: service fees, payment processing fees, membership fees, skill test fees, and bidding fees. There's nothing you can do for free as either a client or freelancer on Upwork, Fiverr or Freelancer. Imagine the freelance world without Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer. Would that be the world of freelance anarchy or new opportunities? Our Bellowed Freelance Platforms That Are Still Privately-Owned Who says that every freelance platform has to go public, sooner or later? There's an exception to this rule. Actually, there are three of them. Why do companies go public, in the first place? Well, you don't have to be a Wall Street guru to know the answer to this question. Because they need the money, as simple as that. It seems that not all freelance platforms need money the same. For example, Toptal " ." When you're doing just fine, there's no need to sacrifice your business freedom by going public. Right? is said not to have raised additional funds since its seed round because it has been profitable Here's another example. . This fact makes Guru be one of the oldest freelance platforms that's still alive and kicking. Truth to be told, Guru has had quite a turbulent history when it comes to the ownership over this online marketplace. However, the fact remains that Guru isn't a public company. Guru has been around since 1999 And, what about ? This platform defies all logic and any known business rule in the freelance industry. How? They are decreasing rather than increasing their , which is the "default mode" for online marketplaces. What's even more interesting goLance has a strict no-cost-to-clients business policy. Not only that goLance doesn't take money through payment processing fees, but they actually give back money to their clients through option. This youngest platform to join the freelance industry race gives an impression that's one of the richest. They just couldn't care less about the profit, could they? goLance freelance service fees CashBack Is The Great Freelance Depression Inevitable? If Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer collapse at the stock market, then the chaos will prevail. It will take some time before the freelance industry adapts, reorganizes, and eventually recovers from this blow. Make no mistake about it; freelancers will suffer the most. How far away are we from the point of no return? Perhaps, I'm just exaggerating. Let's take Upwork as an example. The numbers never lie. So, what the official financial reports for the first two quarters in 2019 have to say about Upwork's stock market future? If you compare Upwork’s revenues for the first three months in 2018 and 2019, then you can cheer up. There are positive changes of 16.4% for the total revenue and 20.7% for the gross profit. However, when you take into consideration the Operating Expenses for the same period, you get a completely different picture. The total operating expenses have increased by 13.3%. If you leave out the provision for transactions losses, you get the increase of almost 15%. The most troubling part is that the general and administrative costs have jumped to 28.7%. I became even more pessimistic when I analyzed the financial reports and activities in the second quarter. Almost right after Upwork's report for the first quarter was announced, their stock prices plunged dramatically. In May, . Upwork's stocks dropped for more than 25% I did my very best to pinpoint the exact moment on the attached illustration. Someone may say, the timing was perfect. This transaction took place "in the middle of fall" of Upwork's stocks before they hit the record low on June 5th. Stephane Kasriel sold the jaw-dropping number of 280,000 shares Then, two weeks later, as soon as Upwork's stocks slightly recovered, . This time the timing wasn't perfect, but from a broker's point of view, it was still good enough to get the most out of your stocks. Stephane Kasriel sold another quantity of shares (120,000) To make things even worse for Upwork, the situation with the operating expenses didn't improve. When you have a "tiny gap" between your Gross Profit and Total Operating Expenses, the following question is inevitable. Who's going to pay, so Upwork's show can go on? The first Upwork's financial report in 2019 killed the free bids/connects for freelancers. The second-quarter report hit the clients. Here's the official announcement, you can find in : Upwork Stockholder Letter Q2 2019 (Page 8) We are also migrating all Upwork Standard clients from a 2.75% to a 3% payment processing and administrative fee when they transition to an Upwork Basic or an Upwork Plus account. We are ahead of our internal target in transitioning existing clients to Upwork Basic and Plus, which started in June 2019, and all new clients are defaulted to the new rate upon signing up. Now, when Upwork stock prices hit the record low, I can't see where and how could Upwork ensure the much-needed cash flow. From Business Romance To Spending Decadence At the height of its power, the Roman Empire became unbearably decadent. We all know what the result of such decadent behavior was. And, then I stumbled at this piece of news that makes you wonder, how did we come to this? The new co-CEOs have also put up for sale a Gulfstream G650 jet which WeWork bought new for more than $60m last year. In the middle of their worst stock market crisis, Upwork was preoccupied with the sweet pain of decorating their . new extravagant office in Chicago When you see the pictures, you wish to live not only to work there. The funniest thing, though, is that a symbol of remote work and virtual offices became so occupied with the shiny new expensive physical office. It just doesn't add up or does it? Time To Build New And Better Freelance World If there's one thing, every freelancer knows best, that is how to survive. The new and better freelance world won't have to rise from the ashes. The trio of privately-owned platforms: Toptal, Guru, and goLance are stock market bulletproof. The new freelance world will be decentralized and hopefully, less greedy.

Is Freelance Anarchy The Future of Freelancing?

for good. I left Upwork after seven years... One of these days would have been my eighth anniversary. What happened? Why, oh why? Strike One — The Double Bubble Fee I began my freelance journey on Elance. Then, I joined oDesk. It worked for me just fine. Elance was my freelance plan A. oDesk was something you would call a “sidekick” platform to work on. Then, The Great Merge took place. Upwork was born. To tell you the truth, they did me a favor. They merged both of my accounts. All of my reviews were now in one place. Cool. They also rubbed me the wrong way during this process. The number of my available bids or connects stayed the same as if I were still working on Elance or oDesk only. That wasn’t cool. But hey, I had to live with that. Then, Upwork doubled its fees just like that. That was a bitter pill to swallow. Not much of a choice. It was Upwork’s new fees way or the freelance highway. Here comes the interesting part. I didn’t worry about the money, but the message. That was Upwork’s way of saying, we don’t need and want you here. Look, I’m a freelance writer. I’m not a developer. I can only dream of clients who spend more than $10K on my projects. I write you the content for your website and you’re gone. Unless, you want some regular blog posts. Truth to be told, I got some clients who made it possible for me to pay a 10% instead of a 20% fee. You can earn more than $500 per client to get into a 10% fee zone. But, the magical 5% fee was clearly reserved for the freelance rock stars. OK, I get it. As a freelancer who works on small one-time projects, I’m nothing more than a logistic burden to Upwork. And, this is a price I have to pay to play. Strike Two — My Suspension Fears and Upwork’s Deaf Ears So, I couldn’t do a thing about the new doubled fee. I tried to do something about the limited number of available bid (connects). I wrote a heartbreaking letter to Upwork support. I asked for a way to bid more, so I can earn more. They told me I should pay for a Plus Membership. So, I paid. That was a joke. All I got for $10 was 10 additional connects and some “perks.” If you wanted more then you had to pay one dollar for each new connect. Meaning, I need two dollars for every new proposal outside my free and Plus membership. That’s two proposals a day in the best case scenario. Good luck with that. The odds weren’t in my favor. Then, I got the first warning letter. Upwork made it perfectly clear that if I bid too many times without success, I could get suspended for good. You want me to shoot, but you aren’t giving me the ammo. They said something like, make every proposal you send count. That’s so encouraging and supportive. Bid only where you stand the best chances of winning a project. If I were an X-man that wouldn’t be so hard, but I’m not. Then, I got the second stop-or-you-are-done letter. The guys in Upwork community told me I should be grateful. Upwork obviously respected my freelance “veteran” status, so they didn’t suspend my account. I got away with my bidding crimes. Later, I found out that many guys with fewer Elance/oDesk/Upwork years under their belts weren’t so lucky. The first warning letter they got was their final one. So, my only option left was to hold my bidding horses and pay a 20% fee. Strike Three — The Rising Dying Star So, I came up with a brilliantly stupid idea. I would close my old Upwork account and open a new one. I proved to myself that I was a good freelancer. In a matter of weeks, I was already a Rising Talent. For some time, it really felt different. I got my shiny badge and some nice recommendations too. Then, I was back when I started. You can’t be a rising star forever. The next step is to become a Top Rated freelancer. For that you need the years I so easily trowed away. You brought it on yourself stupid! OK. I don’t take it personally. I have tried everything and anything Upwork wanted me to be. I failed. I closed my account. Where Do I GO From Here? I turned a new freelance leaf. Now, I’m the one to decide whether or not some freelance website is good enough for me and not the other way around. I made my list of demands. That’s my gimme five freelance rule. No memberships! A flat reasonable fee no matter how much I earn! No limits how many times I can bid! No “sheriff badges.” No rising or fallen, top rated or underrated freelancers. We are all equal! No downtime! If my clients have zero tolerance for my excuses, why should I treat my freelance website differently? Have I found what I’ve been looking for? What do you think?

Leaving Upwork Neverland

Building the Product Story About the author Pavel Pekanov is a seasoned Creative Director, Art Director and Designer Started his creative career in 2004, followed by the launch of his own Creative Agency in 2008. Ranked a top earning freelancer on Upwork (former Elance) in 2013. Launched a few startups of his own. Featured on CSS Design Awards. Former Creative Director at QUOINE. Pavel has been helping startups, founders and well run businesses with Branding, Product Design, UI/UX and Brand Experience for 14+ years. (and a Developer, but tss-s tell no one). Personal website: pekanov.com What Makes The Product? Let’s start with an eye-opening — you may not even have a Product at your hands. You may have a service, an app, a website. Having a Product is different from just having a website. Value + Team + UX + Community = Product. I’ve got a list based on a few quite expensive mistakes, my extensive design and startup practice (co-founder/founder). Products bring value. [✓] Value proposition. There has to be people besides just you alone believing in your Product. [✓] Team with a common goal. Interacting with a Product is meaningful. [✓] User experience. There has to be people besides your friends and family aligning with your Product. [✓] Community. Your Product must have all that in check. Picking The Right Time We improve Products gradually along their lifecycles. While we do, we come across two decisive milestones that change the perspective, direction and expectations. 1. Realizing the market fit Make or break for an MVP. You’re still testing concepts, but you’ve already discovered the selling feature. Your Product is en route to building a strong relationship with early adopters. Focus: Product. 2. Building a relationship A contrasting milestone as it takes months-years to get there. You’ve got a solid Product disconnected from the community. It lacks the Emotional Intelligence. technically Your company is set on course of molding the Product with company vision. Focus: Company. Some Products shape themselves with the big picture, the mission and the company vision right from the start. The result is exceptional just like the amount of time and effort required to ship them. Very few businesses can play the game that long. The difference between these two isn’t a subtle one. So is the focus and the expectations. Focus V Expectations I’ve seen to a lot of companies trying to channel their vision before even having a viable Product and realizing the market fit. Hell, I did it myself with my own projects! This may not be a mistake per se, but it’s a drain on creative, emotional and financial resources. We’re still at a point when no one cares, Here are we, here are they and here is a cold-hearted bottomless pit between us. literally. No market fit equals having no community. Without a Product community, you’re channeling your vision into the abyss. I’ve also seen to a lot of teams improving their tech passionately and tirelessly. They refactor the code, resolve bottlenecks, improve the platform performance, introduce the new database architecture, et cetera. There is little to no regard for their Product brand. That’s a big no-no. Your techies may score a miraculous win (case of Nginx). That may happen with luck and years of dedication. Are you willing to bet on luck and spend years on something that may not turn out that good? I’m telling you forget the tech and focus on your brand. I’ve been on both sides of the coin, and what I came to appreciate is the moment the Product starts getting momentum. That’s when it’s the right time to raise the bar and come to understand one hard simple truth — the tech isn’t the king. Yes, your tech got you there. But circumstances change, the landscape evolves and your engineers aren’t omnipotent. Your Product may be better off with less focus on the tech itself. I’m saying that having an engineer/developer background myself. I enjoyed improving APIs from 10ms to 1ms latency even though no one would ever notice that kind of improvement. I understand it’s cool and it’s kind of an internal competition and such. Let’s leave it at that — improving tech is a race against yourself. Take a step back, instead. Let me repeat myself — The tech isn’t the unstoppable force that drives the Product further, neither it should be. It’s not even a force. the tech isn’t the king. single The “driving force” are the personas behind the Product (the foundation team), company vision and where the CEO stands. It’s time to work with that once your Product is recognized. Unless. Unless you launch rockets to space. In this case, forget everything you read so far and please God focus on the tech. You’re building a Product for the people. What do people expect? Better experiences. Product Re-Evaluation Over the past few years I’ve done quite a number of re-designs. I’ve been at various Product stages and I’m a big fan of re-designs. I considered myself a seasoned pro able to deliver the best design to any kind of Product out there. The work I did all those years now feels sketchy at best. Where I’m heading with that? I believe company vision and values, mission statement, people behind the team, community voice — all that should come together to shape a better Product and then could be called a true re-design. Something to be proud of. that And the data is there too — funnels, bounce rates, user journeys click-throughs, LTVs — the data we don’t have at the beginning. It helps massively in developing a better UX, UI, building the next level Product Experience, and simply doing better design overall. It’s funny thinking analytics improves the design, until it does. Having reliable data helps you discover (or interpret reliably): The number one metrics to see whether something’s broken beyond repair. A bounce rate high enough can deliver a punch to the gut to any business. Bounces. A broken Task Flow means your users don’t get to the goal at all. For e.g. they can’t reach the final Sign Up step, therefore they can’t create an account. Terrible. Broken Task Flows. Users lose their way, never complete the flow, jump off the flow, you name it. In other words, there is a Broken User Flows. bump. Users are getting somewhere not the way it’s designed. In other words, a design — your Product is being used not the way it was intended. Can be a case of though rarely. Broken User Journey. bug “not a bug, it’s a feature”, Understanding The Reason Why re-design something that’s not broken? You see the room for improvement, you act upon it. If your Product can become better, you make it happen. It’s that simple. Your Product selling feature is something else. Pivot. Your Product isn’t converting people. Conversions. Your Product is boring. Impact. Your Product is sterile. Story. Building The Story You start the re-design with 1) defining the reason for it, 2) evaluating the Product metrics and 3) getting an understanding of where the Product is headed after. Those are the prerequisites for the re-design. The following are the four high-level pillars that are the foundation for a great re-design. 1. Having a great logotype Your Product must have a great logo. Great logos look good, they tell a story, they stand out. They make people curious about your Product. Your Product story starts with the logo and so does your company vision. A good logo channels the deepest message you have without you having to explain it. You should be after the logo with great marketing potential and the ability to deliver a powerful opening on its own. The most popular chart types visualized in the logo animation. The emphasis is put on the Product, features and services. Charts creation platform logotype tells a story of creating a chart. Simple, straight-forward, enjoyable to look at. The logotype is supported by various animations that can be used on the website (or in app) to further solidify the Product Experience. Here is a very different storytelling example: Flying kite, a couple of seagulls and running into the sunset to chase the dream. The emphasis is put on the Product vision, company mission and Product expectations. Game development and publishing studio delivers their company vision thru a mesmerizing logotype animation. It’s a storytelling within a storytelling, a dream inside a dream. The opening story is a story of a girl chasing her kite that transforms into seagulls. It serves as a metaphor for “chasing dreams”. The closing story is told at the final frames — seagulls leaving the box. The message is delivered with them flying out of the box outline while the girl keeps an eye contact on kite. “thinking outside the box” [a former] Logotypes are the perfect take-off points for Product storytelling. We use the logos to deliver all kinds of messages: We’re doing this to save Earth from space-pirates. Product vision. Making Earth a safer planet. Company vision and mission. Kids-friendly, easy to use, a single function. Expectations. Flat, thin, red. Color options available. Innovation. You press one button and all’s gone. Introduction to services. A guarded space is a secure space. Introduction to company values. A multi-purpose pocket device. Introduction to the Product. Your logotype is your story. The very best logotypes out there drive the storytelling for entire companies, let alone the Products themselves. 2. First impression The first impression is naturally established via a Product landing page, or a company website and it’s usually the former where you meet your future customers. Meeting your customers starts with a “hi” and then following up with a proposition, a Call To Action. A few proven CTAs that you’ll most likely end up using: to start using the Product. Sign Up a Product demo. Try to get early access to the Product. Subscribe It’s worth mentioning that the very last CTA is mostly used when testing concepts, i.e. Keep that in mind and don’t abuse your customer’s trust. when you don’t have any Product at all. Once you’ve decided on the CTA you’re going to use, you should decide on the approach for your landing page. What are you going to show there? Your Product, your team, or both? Does it feel like a friendly welcome, or a sales pitch? The above the fold for online charting platform. It doesn’t show the Product or the team, but instead it builds up the Product connection with showing essential charts icons. Clean Product message and a visible CTA to try the actual Product right away. Everything about the Product, pricing plans, features, etc — that goes below the fold. A very different example, a mobile game. The landing page builds a connection with the Product by showing the actual game, game art and concept. The right-hand visual is fully animated, using the very animations one would see in the game. This one-pager delivers the end-product feel. The holy grail of landing pages has always been about showing the Product. However, we now enter the age of Human Oriented design. Human Oriented design is all about building relationship with the Product, building a unique Company Experience and finding the right emotional connection with the customers. Showing the Product early may not be as effective as you think. People are less excited about the Products in general, as they are about the change in their life a particular Product can bring. 3. Sell at Sign Up This is one of my most favorite pillars as it’s the most overlooked one. Do you tease your Product at Sign Up flow? Do you show your team members? Does your CEO provide a heartfelt welcome message? Usually, a Sign Up page is a simple form that gets your name, e-mail, password, or you can bypass it altogether and Sign Up with Facebook or Twitter. The only purpose a Sign Up flow serves is getting your credentials. This definitely doesn’t sound like you’re using this flow’s full potential. Imagine you saw a Product so promising that you discovered an urge to create your account. Would you like to learn more about the Product? Would you like to learn more about the people behind it? Would you like to know and see how great that Product turned out to be for others just like you? Of course, you would! And that’s the moment when you create the connection between your customers and your Product values. It’s emotional, it’s strong. That’s the point in time when your customers get connected and hooked up on the Company vision and mission. Absolutely stunning InVision’s approach to delivering their existing Customers Stories and hooking you up early with their Product. It’s all about building trust and positive experience, and they nailed it. Core Product video tour at Sign Up page. Keeping the tour on-point and fast-paced ensures the customer stays here and isn’t too distracted from filling in the actual Sign Up form. Paid features are discovered early on — a transparent, healthy and trustworthy Product relationship. Selling at Sign Up doesn’t mean to be the actual “sale”. Sell differently. Sell your vision, sell the big picture. Sometimes it takes that little to convert a customer into a Product fan. 4. Always On-Board All right, this one kind of goes along my other point — a good Product needs explanations. Actually, the better the Product is the more explaining it would probably need. I mean, a great story behind the Product, lots of useful features, various inter-connected services — that should be explained somehow, right? Unless you’re offering a day job of digging through all that to your potential customers. By explanations I don’t mean the abundant FAQs, tutorials, tours and such. Instead, you should always engage the customers. Engagement is playful, engagement is fun and it just feels more natural (like a human conversation). So, what’s up with On-Boarding? It should be a quick game-like experience, a few steps to complete in rapid succession, a chit-chat. Having a reward at the end of your On-Boarding session doesn’t feel like a bad move either. Gamify it. On-Boarding provides you with the chance to know your customers better too and simplify the connected flows. Having On-Boarding flows simplifies the actual Product Experience and makes your Customer Experience more entertaining and fun. On-Boarding flows are the friendly chats between you and your customers. Did you forget to tell them something? Do you need to know their names? Do that at On-Boarding flows. Simplify the rest and create a positive Customer Experience. Going over the Product features one more time, in case our customers signed up in a hurry. On-board trial users and try to convert them right then and there. Different scenarios require different approaches. Simplifying the Sign Up flow means moving personal data entry to one of the optional On-Boarding screens. Mind The End Game Finally, you should mind the end-game of your efforts. I can’t stress enough the importance of picking the right re-design approach and the importance of choosing the right re-design goal. Once the decision has been made we shall not divert, neither we can without the risk of needlessly burning up lots of resources. There are different re-design approaches that you can choose from, depending on the kind of improvements you’re after: The re-design goes around UI and UX, working with the Task Flows and User Flows. We may re-think User Journey, though that’d usually mean going a bit beyond the scope. The goal is an increased number of registrations and sales, and a decreased cost per user acquisition. Conversions and sales. The re-design goes around UX and working with User Journey. We may even create new User Flows to remove discovered bottlenecks. The goal is an increased avg. session time, and a decreased number of support requests. On-boarding and retention. The re-design goes around UI and UX, working with the Task Flows and User Flows. The goal is having a Product 2.0 with new features. Features. Product-focused story (features, team, roadmap). Company-focused story (vision, mission, leadership). To be continued? Leave a comment if you’d like to know more about Company Experience, ways to measure and track it, ways to improve and design for great Company Experience. Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments. Are you after the best Company Experience? I’d love to hear from you, if you’re after the best Company Experience your customers can have or if you’re after the ultimate Product Experience. Shoot me an email.

Engaging Product Design

Building the Product Story What Makes The Product? Let’s start with an eye-opening — you may not even have a Product at your hands. You may have a service, an app, a website. Having a Product is different from just having a website. Value + Team + UX + Community = Product. I’ve got a list based on a few quite expensive mistakes, my extensive design and startup practice (co-founder/founder). Products bring value. [✓] Value proposition. There has to be besides just you alone believing in your Product. [✓] Team with a common goal. Interacting with a Product is meaningful. [✓] User experience. There has to be people besides your friends and family aligning with your Product. [✓] Community. Your Product must have all that in check. Picking The Right Time We improve Products gradually along their lifecycle. While we do, we come across two decisive milestones that change the perspective, direction and expectations. 1. Realizing the market fit Make or break for an MVP. While you’re still testing concepts, you discover the selling feature. Your Product is en route to building a strong relationship with early adopters. Focus: Product. 2. Building a relationship A contrasting milestone as it takes months-years to get there. You’ve got a solid Product disconnected from the community. It lacks the Emotional Intelligence. technically Your company is set on course of molding the Product with company vision. Focus: Company. Some Products shape themselves with the big picture, the mission and the company vision right from the start. The result is exceptional just like the amount of time and effort required to ship them. Very few businesses can play the game that long. The difference between these two isn’t a subtle one. So is the focus and the expectations. Now let’s have some context. Focus V Expectations I’ve seen to a lot of companies trying to channel their vision before even having a viable Product and realizing the market fit. Hell, I did it myself with my own projects! This may not be a mistake per se, but it’s a drain on creative, emotional and financial resources. We’re still at a point when no one cares, Here are we, here are they and here is a cold-hearted bottomless pit between us. literally. No market fit equals having no community. Without a Product community, you’re channeling your vision into the abyss. I’ve also seen to a lot of teams improving their tech passionately and tirelessly. They refactor the code, resolve bottlenecks, improve the platform performance, introduce the new database architecture, et cetera. There is little to no regard for their Product brand. That’s a big no-no. You techies may score a miraculous win (case of Nginx). That may happen with luck and years of dedication. Are you willing to bet on luck and spend years on something that may not turn out that good? I’m telling you forget the tech and focus on your brand. I’ve been on both sides of the coin, and what I came to appreciate is the moment the Product starts getting momentum. That’s when it’s the right time to raise the bar and come to understand one hard simple truth — the tech isn’t the king. Yes, your tech got you there. But circumstances change, the landscape evolves and your engineers aren’t omnipotent. Your Product may be better off with less focus on the tech itself. I’m saying that having an engineer/developer background myself. I enjoyed improving APIs from 10ms to 1ms latency even though no one would ever notice that kind of improvement. I understand it’s cool and it’s kind of an internal competition and such. Let’s leave it at that — improving tech is a race against yourself. Take a step back, instead. Let me repeat myself — The tech isn’t the unstoppable force that drives the Product further, neither it should be. It’s not even a force. the tech isn’t the king. single The “driving force” are the personas behind the Product (the foundation team), company vision and where the CEO stands. It’s time to work with that once your Product is recognized. Unless. Unless you launch rockets to space. In this case, forget everything you read so far and please God focus on the tech. You’re building a Product for the people. What do people expect? Better experiences. Product Re-Evaluation Over the past few years I’ve done quite a number of re-designs. I’ve been at various Product stages and I’m a big fan of re-designs. I considered myself a seasoned pro able to deliver the best design to any kind of Product out there. The work I did all those years now feels sketchy at best. Where I’m heading with that? I believe company vision and values, mission statement, people behind the team, community voice — all that should come together to shape a better Product and then could be called a true re-design. Something to be proud of. that And the data is there too — funnels, bounce rates, user journeys click-throughs, LTVs—the data we don’t have at the beginning. It helps massively in developing a better UX, UI, building the next level Product Experience, and simply doing better design overall. It’s funny thinking analytics improves the design, until it does. Having reliable data helps you discover (or interpret reliably): The number one metrics to see whether something’s broken beyond repair. A bounce rate high enough can deliver a punch to the gut to any business. Bounces. A broken Task Flow means your users don’t get to the goal at all. For e.g. they can’t reach the final Sign Up step, therefore they can’t create an account. Terrible. Broken Task Flows. Users lose their way, never complete the flow, jump off the flow, you name it. In other words, there is a Broken User Flows. bump. Users are getting somewhere not the way it’s designed. In other words, a design — your Product is being used not the way it was intended. Can be a case of though rarely. Broken User Journey. bug “not a bug, it’s a feature”, Understanding The Reason Why re-design something that’s not broken? You see the room for improvement, you act upon it. If your Product can become better, you make it happen. It’s that simple. Your Product selling feature is something else. Pivot. Your Product isn’t converting people. Conversions. Your Product is boring. Impact. Your Product is sterile. Story. Building The Story You start the re-design with 1) defining the reason for it, 2) evaluating the Product metrics and 3) getting an understanding of where the Product is headed after. Those are the prerequisites for the re-design. The following are the four high-level pillars that are the foundation for a great re-design. 1. Having a great logotype Your Product must have a great logo. Great logos look good, they tell a story, they stand out. They make people curious about your Product. Your Product story starts with the logo and so does your company vision. A good logo channels the deepest message you have without you having to explain it. You should be after the logo with great marketing potential and the ability to deliver a powerful opening on its own. The most popular chart types visualized in the logo animation. The emphasis is put on the Product, features and services. Charts creation platform logotype tells a story of creating a chart. Simple, straight-forward, enjoyable to look at. The logotype is supported by various animations that can be used on the website (or in app) to further solidify the Product Experience. A live Product demonstration using Product shots and the logotype intro animation. Here is a very different storytelling example: Flying kite, a couple of seagulls and running into the sunset to chase the dream. The emphasis is put on the Product vision, company mission and Product expectations. Game development and publishing studio delivers their company vision thru a mesmerizing logotype animation. It’s a storytelling within a storytelling, a dream inside a dream. The opening story is a story of a girl chasing her kite that transforms into seagulls. It serves as a metaphor for “chasing dreams”. The closing story is told at the final frames — seagulls leaving the box. The message is delivered with them flying out of the box outline while the girl keeps an eye contact on kite. “thinking outside the box” [a former] Logotypes are the perfect take-off points for Product storytelling. We use the logos to deliver all kinds of messages: We’re doing this to save Earth from space-pirates. Product vision. Making Earth a safer planet. Company vision and mission. Kids-friendly, easy to use, a single function. Expectations. Flat, thin, red. Color options available. Innovation. You press one button and all’s gone. Introduction to services. A guarded space is a secure space. Introduction to company values. A multi-purpose pocket device. Introduction to the Product. Your logotype is your story. The very best logotypes out there drive the storytelling for entire companies, let alone the Products themselves. 2. First impression The first impression is naturally established via a Product landing page, or a company website and it’s usually the former where you meet your future customers. Meeting your customers starts with a “hi” and then following up with a proposition, a Call To Action. A few proven CTAs that you’ll most likely end up using: to start using the Product. Sign Up a Product demo. Try to get early access to the Product. Subscribe It’s worth mentioning that the very last CTA is mostly used when testing concepts, i.e. Keep that in mind and don’t abuse your customer’s trust. when you don’t have any Product at all. Once you’ve decided on the CTA you’re going to use, you should decide on the approach for your landing page. What are you going to show there? Your Product, your team, or both? Does it feel like a friendly welcome, or a sales pitch? The above the fold for online charting platform. It doesn’t show the Product or the team, but instead it builds up the Product connection with showing essential charts icons. Clean Product message and a visible CTA to try the actual Product right away. Everything about the Product, pricing plans, features, etc — that goes below the fold. A very different example, a mobile game. The landing page builds a connection with the Product by showing the actual game, game art and concept. The right-hand visual is fully animated, using the very animations one would see in the game. This one-pager delivers the end-product feel. The holy grail of landing pages has always been about showing the Product. However, we now enter the age of Human Oriented design. Human Oriented design is all about building relationship with the Product, building a unique Company Experience and finding the right emotional connection with the customers. Showing the Product early may not be as effective as you think. People are less excited about the Products in general, as they are about the change in their life a particular Product can bring. 3. Sell at Sign Up This is one of my most favorite pillars as it’s the most overlooked one. Do you tease your Product at Sign Up flow? Do you show your team members? Does your CEO provide a heartfelt welcome message? Usually, a Sign Up page is a simple form that gets your name, e-mail, password, or you can bypass it altogether and Sign Up with Facebook or Twitter. The only purpose a Sign Up flow serves is getting your credentials. This definitely doesn’t sound like you’re using this flow’s full potential. Imagine you saw a Product so promising that you discovered an urge to create your account. Would you like to learn more about the Product? Would you like to learn more about the people behind it? Would you like to know and see how great that Product turned out to be for others just like you? Of course, you would! And that’s the moment when you create the connection between your customers and your Product values. It’s emotional, it’s strong. That’s the point in time when your customers get connected and hooked up on the Company vision and mission. Absolutely stunning InVision’s approach to delivering their existing Customers Stories and hooking you up early with their Product. It’s all about building trust and positive experience, and they nailed it. Core Product video tour at Sign Up page. Keeping the tour on-point and fast-paced ensures the customer stays here and isn’t too distracted from filling in the actual Sign Up form. Paid features are discovered early on — a transparent, healthy and trustworthy Product relationship. Selling at Sign Up doesn’t mean to be the actual “sale”. Sell differently. Sell your vision, sell the big picture. Sometimes it takes that little to convert a customer into a Product fan. 4. Always On-Board All right, this one kind of goes along my other point— a good Product needs explanations. Actually, the better the Product is the more explaining it would probably need. I mean, a great story behind the Product, lots of useful features, various inter-connected services — that should be explained somehow, right? Unless you’re offering a day job of digging through all that to your potential customers. By explanations I don’t mean the abundant FAQs, tutorials, tours and such. Instead, you should always engage the customers. Engagement is playful, engagement is fun and it just feels more natural (like a human conversation). So, what’s up with On-Boarding? It should be a quick game-like experience, a few steps to complete in rapid succession, a chit-chat. Having a reward at the end of your On-Boarding session doesn’t feel like a bad move either. Gamify it. On-Boarding provides you with the chance to know your customers better too and simplify the connected flows. Having On-Boarding flows simplifies the actual Product Experience and makes your Customer Experience more entertaining and fun. On-Boarding flows are the friendly chats between you and your customers. Did you forget to tell them something? Do you need to know their names? Do that at On-Boarding flows. Simplify the rest and create a positive Customer Experience. Going over the Product features one more time, in case our customers signed up in a hurry. On-boarding trial users and trying to convert them right then and there. Different scenarios require different approaches. Simplifying the Sign Up flow means moving personal data entry to one of the optional On-Boarding screens. Mind The End Game Finally, you should mind the end-game of your efforts. I can’t stress enough the importance of picking the right re-design approach and the importance of choosing the right re-design goal. Once the decision has been made we shall not divert, neither we can without the risk of needlessly burning up lots of resources. There are different re-design approaches that you can choose from, depending on the kind of improvements you’re after: The re-design goes around UI and UX, working with the Task Flows and User Flows. We may re-think User Journey, though that’d usually mean going a bit beyond the scope. The goal is an increased number of registrations and sales, and a decreased cost per user acquisition. Conversions and sales. The re-design goes around UX and working with User Journey. We may even create new User Flows to remove discovered bottlenecks. The goal is an increased avg. session time, and a decreased number of support requests. On-boarding and retention. The re-design goes around UI and UX, working with the Task Flows and User Flows. The goal is having a Product 2.0 with new features. Features. Product-focused story (features, team, roadmap). Company-focused story (vision, mission, leadership). To be continued? Leave a comment if you’d like to know more about Company Experience, ways to measure and track it, ways to improve and design for great Company Experience. Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments. Are you after the best Company Experience? I’d love to hear from you, if you’re after the best Company Experience your customers can have or if you’re after the ultimate Product Experience. Shoot me an email. About the author Pavel Pekanov is a seasoned Creative Director, Art Director and Designer Started his creative career in 2004, followed by the launch of his own Creative Agency in 2008. Ranked a top earning freelancer on Upwork (former Elance) in 2013. Launched a few startups of his own. Featured on CSS Design Awards. Former Creative Director at QUOINE. Pavel has been helping startups, founders and well run businesses with Branding, Product Design, UI/UX and Brand Experience for 14+ years. (and a Developer, but tss-s tell no one). Personal website: pekanov.com

A Masterclass in Engaging Product Design

Is this the good news or the bad news for freelance writers? Let’s use a common sense approach to come up with a useful and unbiased answer for our fellow freelance writers. First things first, Fiverr and ClearVoice didn’t team up or merge. That’s important to emphasize. Fiverr bought ClearVoice, plain and simple. Truth to be told, ClearVoice will operate as an “independent entity” within the Fiverr business structure for some (limited) time. So, this isn’t a case where oDesk and Elance went through a business fusion to give birth to a freelance platform with a new name — Upwork. This situation is more similar to the one when Freelancer dot com consumed vWorker. Why I’m bringing up these examples? To which extent they’re relevant to the question I asked at the beginning? Let’s find out. Does Anyone Even Remember vWorker? On the one side, we have a small online workplace that puts a strong emphasis on the quality — ClearVoice. On the other side, we have a freelance giant that has built its reputation on the cutthroat race to the bottom pricing and working models — Fiverr. Now, what’s going to be the most probable outcome of this takeover? Do you think that Fiverr is going to follow the ClearVoice’s business model or it’s going to be the other way around? The big fish eat the little fish! Some freelance writers may say, . True! But, it’s also true that ClearVoice won’t be able to maintain its business independence indefinitely. but hey wait, Fiverr has made a promise that the business will be as usual for ClearVoice’s clients and freelancers You don’t buy a company just to admire it. Right? You have some plans. Your own business plans that don’t have to be on the same page with your newly acquired company’s objectives and priorities. This is exactly what happened to vWorker. This used to be one of the pioneers in the freelance industry. One day, a freelance giant came with the offer they couldn’t refuse. The rest is freelance history in which no one remembers vWorker. There’s No Room For Emotions In Business Acquisitions Much sooner than later, Fiverr is going to say, OK ClearVoice guys you had your fun, now it’s time to play by our rules. The trouble with Fiverr is that they haven’t changed their “business models” from day one. Fiverr without the five buck gigs isn’t Fiverr. On Fiverr you can buy an article for $5. On ClearVoice you could do the same, but for the price of $50 or even $500. When the freelance writers, who used to charge $5 for five words, face a new reality on Fiverr where they will have to write 500 words for this amount, then we will have one hell of a freelance party. My Dear Freelance Writers Nothing Will Be The Same, And Fiverr Is To Blame Fiverr has just eliminated its competitor in the writing gigs field. I think that’s only a matter of time before the exodus of the ClearVoice writers begins. Some freelance writers may decide to stay and give it a try on Fiverr. Good luck with that because you’re going to need it in the endless ocean of countless five dollar writing gigs. I also have every reason to believe that Fiverr clients won’t have an understanding for the high-quality standards ClearVoice writers brought with them. They are after the lowest prices possible. That’s why they’re buying the gigs on Fiverr in the first place. What’s going to happen with the former ClearVoice clients? Well, they will hire quality writers somewhere else. The reason they worked on ClearVoice in the first place was that they didn’t mind paying extra for the top quality work. Fiverr won’t make them change their old habits. So, my dear fellow freelance writers where are you going to work next? Are you already packing your freelance bags? Follow me on LinkedIn and Quora to learn more about the ways freelancers and entrepreneurs can help and learn from each other.

Fiverr Acquired ClearVoice: Why Freelance Writers Can’t Rejoice

A refined know-it-all guide on all about the Product About the author Pavel Pekanov is a seasoned Creative Director, Art Director and Designer Started his creative career in 2004, followed by the launch of his own Creative Agency in 2008. Ranked a top earning freelancer on Upwork (former Elance) in 2013. Launched a few startups of his own. Featured on CSS Design Awards. Former Creative Director at QUOINE. Pavel has been helping startups, founders and well run businesses with Branding, Product Design, UI/UX and Brand Experience for 14+ years. (and a Developer, but tss-s tell no one). Personal website: pekanov.com UI/UX & Product Design UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) go along together these days. Thought it wasn’t always like this. Some 10 years ago we had Graphic/Digital Designers who were doing the UI, and Usability Experts who were making sure something is accessible within whatever amount of clicks they deemed reasonable. Everybody’s been so obsessed with Usability, and everyone’s been a Usability Expert. However, the goal was to ensure something is visible, clickable, accessible and there was little regard for the UX. Everybody’s been so obsessed with Usability, and everyone’s been a Usability Expert. Thankfully, Usability Design (as a Digital Design discipline) faded away and was replaced with User Experience Design; or evolved into User Experience Design. Instead of two entities (Usability Expert and Digital Designer), we now have just one—a universally capable UI/UX Designer. And it makes perfect sense in light of the standards that modern products strive to meet. Let’s start with going over the design routine that products follow during their design cycle (or cycles, iterations and pivots): 1. Defining business goal(s) If you’ve ever heard something along the lines of that’s what this is about. “we’re solving problem X with our Y product”, The is at the core of all great product designs out there. Unless you’re on a verge of starting an entirely new market, the goal is always there however bold it may be (for e.g. ). “problem that needs solving” “revolutionizing X with our Y” 2. Understanding User Journey(s) The importance of getting an understanding of how exactly the product is going to be used by real people is something you can’t ever overestimate. Right from the very start you and your product will face a lot of questions, doubt and uncertainty. Designers tend to think the product itself is the just like using the product is the In simple terms, a is a projected series of steps a person takes while using the product. “experience”, “journey”. “journey” A journey usually ends with a: Conversion (i.e. user registration) Purchase Call to action Meaningful engagement with the company or a product And sometimes it’s just plain and simple entertainment. 3. Wireframing Product Flow(s) Did you know 90% of all Products started with a pen and a piece of paper? Or maybe with a marker at a drawing board? Some guy draws boxes and lines pointing to other boxes, and even more lines pointing to even more boxes. Essentially, that’s a wireframe. A dumbed-down design. Did you know 90% of all Products started with a pen and a piece of paper? Don’t be fooled by Yes, it may not be pretty. Well, most of the times it’s not. However, the purpose of the wireframe is different from being The purpose is to outline all the flows (or at least, the core function) in form of screens, interactive, non-interactive elements. “dumbed-down”. “pretty”. Wireframes are very popular with freelance clients, early and seasoned entrepreneurs alike, and just anybody who’s got an idea for one simple reason. Wireframes give function to an otherwise vague idea and outline the Product use cases. 4. High-Fidelity Design Once the function is defined, the form kicks in. A high-fidelity design is the end-user product presentation. Whenever someone’s saying that a product is either well-designed or designed poorly, the design in question is usually high-fidelity design. Most of the time, a high-fidelity design deviates from the initial wireframes. That is due to excessive wireframing of UI elements and UX. Whenever someone’s saying that a product is either well-designed or designed poorly, the design in question is usually high-fidelity design. High-fidelity design purpose goes along optimizing the UX and simplifying the UI, while making the product appealing and easy to comprehend. Eventually the deviations from the wireframes will be very noticeable. Finally, high-fidelity design includes Product UI kit, brand materials, illustrations and icons. 5. Customer On-Boarding Design The key to the efficient Customer On-Boarding isn’t the amount of words you use to explain how the product works, but keeping your explanations short, on-point and entertaining. Below are a few on-boarding concepts I did for some of my past projects. A series of cool animations for AI/Machine Learning mobile app: Left: the kind of media suggestions. Center: your social network profile data is used. Right: use the app with friends to get better suggestions accuracy. On-Boarding can be just a bit more complicated, as seen at this Banking & Investments app design: A set of on-boarding screens explaining core product function. You may want to integrate the on-boarding into the actual application flow, like I did with Trading & Exchange app: The prompt to start using the product (on the left). The dashboard fills up with essential pieces as the user adds them (on the right). And sometimes the product is just so huge (or the update to your current product is so substantial), that it requires its own pre-boarding website: Interactive website narrated by company chief executives (early concept). The key to great Customer On-Boarding Design is about the right balance between what you’re saying and what you’ve got to show. A very common misconception is that great products don’t need explaining. That’s a myth. The best products out there do give a nudge to new Customers. In the end, a properly done on-boarding just converts and literally sells the product. 6. Design for Customer Engagement Launch screens and intros are great to start engaging with your customers. Think of it as revealing the product look & feel early on, before the customer even has a chance to interact with the actual thing. Some products are using their logo animations, some use intro videos. There is no limit to express yourself here as long as you keep it reasonable (for e.g. having music playing on background might not be a very good idea, unless a product is a game app). Below are just a few examples of Customer Engagement I did for my past projects: Processing data is visualized during load times; the app launches with a cool looking animation that installs the scifi-inspired AI/Machine Learning visual concept right from the start. Intro animation for Investment & Banking app. A logo animation with music background to set the mood for the game. Here is an example of animated icons for the Spendings & Activity screen for a fin-tech application. All animations are looped and snapped to the scroll — they play to the end as the user scrolls further down, and play in reverse once the user starts scrolling up: Accessories, bags, etc. Business. Clothing, tailors, suits, etc. Health & fitness. Groceries. Leisure, gaming, etc. Does it have to be complicated? It doesn’t. When you design for Customer Engagement, keep in mind the goal is to keep the customer entertained while something is NOT happening (i.e. or waiting for app/server response). “loading” 7. Product Prototype A prototype (or multiple prototypes) is most often used to pitch the product to potential investors or company decision makers. Another use case, is having a prototype early to test the UX, getting developers involved in decision making thus optimizing the flows. Producing animated demos along with the prototype can be huge to showcase the Product UX, due to lack of interactive transitions provided by InVision/Figma. Especially, if the product is using context-dependent Meta UX which is just impossible to show with limited prototyping tool functionality. In any case, a prototype is a test to one’s design skills on its own. It’s the very first time the product feels alive, and you can estimate kind of first impression it would leave with your Customers. My Product Design (UI/UX) toolbox Mind-mapping user journeys and flows. MindMeister. Wireframes and high-fidelity designs. Sketch. Photo retouching, backgrounds, high-fidelity designs. Adobe Photoshop. Icons and vector illustrations. Adobe Illustrator. As unconventional as it may sound, I still use it to produce stunning animations, videos, UI special effects and product tutorial walkthroughs. Back in the day, designers were using Flash to showcase the products (argh, the boiling tension of manually placing all the keyframes right until the moment the whole thing crashes to oblivion). Adobe After Effects. I use it to showcase the product and render cool backgrounds. Can also be used for animations and UI special effects, though it’s way easier to do that in After Effects. Blender. What’s next? That sums up the essentials about the product, Product Design and Product Experience. However, this is just a start for your product. Nice design, cool visuals, clever on-boarding, optimized flows and journeys — that’s just the foundation for the next Experience layer. When there is a working product and a market fit, engaging Customers and a revenue stream, it’s time to think what kind of Company Experience you’re delivering to your Customers. Nice design, cool visuals, clever on-boarding, optimized flows and journeys — that’s just the foundation for the next Experience layer. Company Experience Company Experience is a highly profound mixture of Product Experience, Customer Experience, Brand Experience and the company value proposition. While Product Experience answers the question of Company Experience answers the question “how eager I am to use this product again or ever?”, “how eager I am to get involved with this company again or ever?”. It’s a higher level Experience layer that requires communication across Product, Marketing and Management in order to manifest itself in inter-product, inter-company and inter-marketing customer communication patterns. Company Experience check-list: Customers are happy with the Support “Wow, I got my issue resolved so fast.” Customers are happy with the Product “I couldn’t imagine it was so easy to do that.” Customers engage positively with the Company “These guys at X do Y, you should definitely give it a try!” Customers looking up to the Company “Guys at X are making Y great again!” Customers believe the CEO is the new messiah “One more thing, huh? Just take them money already!” While Product Experience answers the question of “how eager I am to use this product again or ever?”, Company Experience answers the question “how eager I am to get involved with this company again or ever?”. Surprised to see Customer Support leading the way? It’s actually not that surprising. It’s my strong belief that as we venture further, providing an exceptional Customer Support would eventually become the norm. Great Customer Support means higher Customer Engagement rate and higher satisfaction with the product, it’s that simple and it should be adopted and viewed upon as the Product Experience foundation. Customers are happy with the Support. Then we have a level of product satisfaction. This one is pretty straight-forward. Solving the problem (i.e. the “pain”), unnoticeable solid UI, fast Customer Support — that’s a winning combination to have happy customers. I keep mentioning Customer Support just to stress out this is the key element for any product after a certain point of growth (usually, a bit before and certainly after the Product market fit has been found). Customers are happy with the Product. Then it leads to Customers engaging with the Company on their own, non-incentivized. Positive reviews, referring their friends, happily tweeting and sharing, all these hippie colors, memes and ponies running around kind of activity. Customers engage positively with the Company. Then we have Customers looking up to the company and its product as their role model, of sorts. It’s that feeling when you see someone with the latest iPhone or using the latest Macbook Pro or riding around in their Tesla Model X, you assume that person must be a successful one. Customers looking up to the Company. Finally, your Customers start thinking your CEO is the new Steve Jobs and the Product team are omnipotent heavenly beings eating rainbows for breakfast. Customers believe the CEO is the new messiah. Good read My other article on Customer Engagement: https://medium.com/swlh/design-for-customer-engagement-331f7c7dc535 To be continued? Leave a comment if you’d like to know more about Company Experience, ways to measure and track it, ways to improve and design for great Company Experience. Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments. Are you after the best Company Experience? I’d love to hear from you, if you’re after the best Company Experience your customers can have or if you’re after the ultimate Product Experience. Shoot me an email.

UI/UX and the Company Experience

Unpacking Upwork’s S-1: Metrics & Lessons for Marketplaces

receives a lot of hate on the from professional, successful designers. The main arguments I’ve seen are that contests and spec work are a great way to have your work ripped off, to work for free, or to submit a into the ether that goes unappreciated or unrecognized. 99designs internet design This is a huge problem, but I don’t believe it’s 99designs’ fault. I believe the people creating the contests and managing them are to blame, and I also believe my contest addressed these issues and led to a better experience for both the designers and me, the client. My first mistake on 99designs was opting for an open contest (instead of a blind contest). An open contest allows everyone to view all submissions and all of the ratings, whereas a blind contest shows the people contributing but hides their specific submissions. I chose to have an open contest because I’m exercising complete transparency in my business. Open salaries are the main item, because companies like to hide behind a business charade and negotiation which 1) makes their employees prove or guess their worth instead of just knowing it 2) perpetuates the wage gap for women, people of color, and other under-represented groups in tech … because they are working against a system that has punished them for speaking up for themselves for many generations. I’m taking transparency a step further than most because I think it helps everyone. Putting our company bank account on our website so employees know how we’re doing financially, tracking exact costs and margins on our microgreens so that when customers buy a salad they know where it came from and exactly how much it cost us as a business, etc. So with all of that transparency at the core of our company I thought an open contest was a no-brainer. But after running it for a day and receiving hundreds of reiterative designs, I realized that transparency is really about consent. Designers on the site had no choice but to submit a publicly available logo, but in so doing they also completely exposed their work to thousands of other designers on the site who could just take their work, apply it, and profit from it. After realizing what was happening I reached out to the 99designs support team and they flipped the visibility of my contest. The single most important thing I did in my entire contest was to rate, review, or decline every single submission. Literally every single one … if a designer who competed in my contest didn’t receive enough feedback, reach out to me. With 1 day and 5 hours remaining in my contest here’s where I stand as a client: I’ve received 451 submissions at the time of this post and it’s absolutely exhausting to go through every single design, figure out exactly why I like it and why I don’t, look through the submitter’s history to understand what I like of their work, give the designer specific feedback on my preferences and how their submission caters to that and how their past work does too, etc. But if you as a client aren’t able to do this then you’ve failed. There are hundreds (likely thousands) of people who are giving you their mental energy to read your design brief, think about it, sit down at their computers, work on a design, and then be confident enough to submit it to you knowing that it may not be seen or even acknowledged. Another decision I made as a client was eliminating designers early in some cases, even if they were very talented. To eliminate early is a tough balance … you may be taking away a chance from a designer who could give you everything you need from a branding perspective. But on the other hand, you could be making them work for hours and hours without any chance of being paid. I don’t know if I have the specific answer, but my approach was to look at their entire portfolio (if they had one), talk to them about their design(s) (communication is critical especially in such a nuanced and subjective area), and to be confident in potentially losing out on a masterpiece. In doing so you are respecting their work but also respecting their time moving forward. I love 99designs because I got my professional start as a software engineer many years ago on oDesk and Elance (now ). I put myself out there in a similar way and a really great mentor of mine Jerry found me, nurtured me as a software engineer, and launched my career. I went from literally counting the dollars in my wallet to afford ice cream to billing the Department of Defense, Department of State, and many other clients of mine $200/hr. Upwork From there I’ve started the , which is a hyperlocal salad and produce delivery company. I’ve incorporated as a Delaware C-Corp with because they are a really incredible service for high growth startups such as my own. I’m using 99designs and other services because I can’t afford to hire the amazingly talented people I’ve worked with over the last decade. I’ve put in ~$10k of my own savings, I’m finalizing a $30k seed round using a , and I have my first customer in Denver ready to start selling salads. Gardeno Foundation Gust Launch SAFE I say that I’ve successfully branded my company even with a day remaining on the contest because I’ve met dozens of amazing designers in just a couple of days. I’ve received some really incredible submissions, of which I think I have some pretty remarkable finalists. No matter how tired I am of reviewing and critiquing I’m going to see this initial phase of the contest through so that I can give everyone a fair shot. I can’t wait to reveal the results!

How I successfully branded my startup as a technical, solo founder

Launched 15 years ago, has emerged as the most popular social media platform for professional networking, with more than half a billion registered users from all over the world. However, while most of the features are available to users for free, one of the things that many users detest is the $59,99 subscription fee that has to be paid to make use of more advanced features of the website. LinkedIn People stay with LinkedIn because they don’t know about alternative solutions, but many of them started looking for other platforms to create professional connections. In case you are one of them, you should totally take a look at our list of the top LinkedIn alternatives worth checking out. Xing The German alternative to the U.S. based LinkedIn; Xing also claims to have members from all over the world, and their multi-language interface backs it up. Xing offers professional profiles, discussions and groups. Another useful element to Xing membership is the ability to attend networking events hosted by the website’s so-called ambassadors, where members can meet, pitch ideas and get business advice from each other. The unique feature of Xing is its stringent anti-spam policy which helps to guarantee that offers you receive are credible. Meetup Meetup is an online social networking site that claims to facilitate “offline group meetings in various localities around the world”. Like Linkedin and most of the other platforms on this list, Meetup recently became available as a mobile app. One of the modern features of Meetup is that users can join groups based on shared interests, which may include movies, arts, sports, politics, etc. According to the company’s reports, the platform is currently available in over 280 countries (more than has LinkedIn) with over 32 million members. While average users can join any group for free, organizers of groups have to pay a subscription fee. Upwork While not strictly a ‘networking’ site unlike LinkedIn, Upwork offers a wide array of job opportunities for freelancers around the globe. The site is a product of the mega-merger between Elance and oDesk in 2013. The site acts as an intermediary between employees and employers looking to hire professionals on a contract rather than on a full-time . Users can choose to hire or get hired either on a short- or long-term basis, so whether you’re looking to pay per hour or project, Elance has got you covered. It’s a great site to find a short-term job, but it’s not useful for those who are looking for something more prolonged. job Netparty Netparty is an event-based networking platform. These events have more of a social mixer environment as opposed to professional or industry meetups. Networking events take place all over the world, with most of them taking place in large cities of the US and Canada. It is primarily targeted at a young crowd, and most of these meetups have more of a casual, relaxed atmosphere rather than formal networking events. It is a fantastic platform for a smart way to spend Friday night, but that’s it. Four platforms on the list have their advantages and disadvantages. What if you want an aggregate account will ALL benefits from these platforms for networking opportunities and an efficient job search? Aworker Meet next-gen solution. is the platform that helps to find the most suitable company and job position based on your psycho-type, professional skills, and work achievements. There is no need to be afraid of blockchain technology because the decentralization provides the best opportunities for creating the new professional ecosystem. Also, all information is securely stored, and all the actions are transparent which exclude the chances of getting trapped with expensive yet unnecessary obligations. Aworker develops a disruptive solution by putting blockchain-driven technologies at the core of the Work 2.0. Now each person will receive a reward for his job-related recommendation. Aworker You can read the case study about the Aworker algorithm on the . HackerNoon What is your go-to networking platform? Write in the comments section!

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