Work N Hire – Online Marketplace for Freelancers

An exclusive talk to Mr. Kumar Mukul – Co-founder of  WorkNHire.com

 Introduce about Work n Hire !

Work N Hire is a Freelance Marketplace for India where clients post project and freelancers bid on them. Work N Hire is a product by Excellence Technologies team to bridge the gap between clients and freelancers in India by bringing them under one roof. The idea of Work N Hire came to us seeing the demand generated by the numerous start-ups and small business to find freelancers/contractors for their work and hence a customized solution for the Indian market. Projects can be posted and found on various categories like IT & Programming, Graphic Design, Content Writing, Data Entry, Finance and Sales & Marketing. Creating an account, finding work or posting a project is free of cost on Work N Hire.

When did you take the entrepreneurial plunge and what motivated you?

We took our entrepreneurial plunge 3.5 years back when we founded Excellence Technologies.  Excellence Technologies is mainly a service based company focusing on Web Application Development and Ecommerce.

We decided to start Work N Hire 8 months back looking at the Freelancing Market in India and internet boom in India. The main motivation behind Work N Hire was to create a platform to promote & grow the Indian freelancing market. Indian freelancing market is in a very nascent stage and we think that there is a lot of potential but it needs to be properly structured and presented to both freelancers and employers

What is the entire structure of your business like?

Work N Hire is a freelance marketplace which allows employers/clients to hire freelancers and pay safely through our site. As a business Work N Hire can be explained as a third party providing services for Clients to hire freelancers and for Freelancers to find work.

How many people are there in the core team? Introduce them.

The core team consists of two co-founders, profile briefs about them can be found below.

Kumar Mukul:-  Mukul graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a B.Tech degree in 2008 after which he joined Headstrong in India with Manish Prakash which he later left to set-up Excellence Technologies with Manish as the Co-Founder. In his brief stint at Headstrong, he was involved in development of an application for a top I-Bank. He has been with Excellence Technologies since August 2009. As the Co-Founder for Work N Hire, Mukul oversees all the marketing and sales aspect of Work N Hire. He is also actively involved in the development of Work N Hire. Mukul is an avid sports fan and was actively involved in table tennis and hockey during his school and college days.

 Manish Prakash:- Manish spent his early years in Delhi. He graduated from IIT Guwahati with a B.Tech degree in 2008. He has a total of 4 year of work experience, of which 3 year of work experience is on web development, mainly ecommerce websites. Manish, a programming guru has been the chief mentor at Excellence Technologies and he and his team have executed numerous E-Commerce projects under his leadership. As the Co-Founder, Manish helps out with the technical aspect of Work N Hire. He is also the lead developer and the chief architect for Work N Hire. An avid sports enthusiast, Manish has played at the National level Table Tennis for Delhi. He loves spending time reading and learning all about new technologies.

 How do people freelance with you? What are the options available?

Work N Hire is an open marketplace where clients post their projects and freelancers apply for these projects. Freelancers are not working directly for Work N Hire. We have numerous categories where clients can post project, from IT Jobs to Data entry and Freelance Photography to Accounting Jobs. Right now Work N Hire has fixed cost projects only but in future we plan to launch hourly projects as well.

 How do contractors and clients interact?

Clients and Contractors interact with each other through a messaging system implemented in the Work N Hire website. Each of the party is notified via email when they receive a new message from the other person. Contractors initiate this interaction by posting a proposal/bid for the project posted by the Client. Once the project is awarded to the contractor a separate project workroom is provided per project to interact where they can message each other, create invoices, send files and setup project milestones.

How do the freelancers get paid?

Once a freelancer has been awarded a project by the client, both of them agree to a term, which mentions the cost of the project and the timeframe. After project award client can either directly pay the invoice or escrow the funds with Work N Hire. Escrow is a system in which Work N Hire holds the client’s money temporarily until the project is successfully completed by the freelancer, and once client is satisfied that the project is complete, he can release the funds to the freelancer. Escrow payment is a system which ensures payment safety for both clients and freelancers. All transactions show up in Work N Hire account summary and Freelancers can withdraw these funds (after it’s released) to their personal bank account through NEFT, Cheque or Paypal withdrawals.

What if someone breaks his/her contract?

In case someone breaks a contract, the other party can file a dispute with Work N Hire. Dispute can be handled by Work N Hire only if escrow payment system is used. Work N Hire tries to arbitrate between client and freelancer to settle the dispute to a mutual agreement. Work N Hire’s decision in arbitration would be binding.

 What is your revenue model? How successful has it proved?

Work N Hire charges a fee of 5% + service tax for each payment made for the awarded project to the freelancer. We plan to introduce various other revenue models like Profile Verification Service, Skill Tests, Pre-Package Service, Selling Digital goods etc in the future.

How do you market Work N Hire?

Right now we are marketing Work N Hire mostly through Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing and SEO. We plan to rollout Google ads and Facebook ads campaigns soon.

Any achievements managed till date?

Work N Hire has been launched around 1 month back. Our biggest achievement till now has been getting 2500+ registered users on site within this time period. We have also received numerous positive feedbacks from the people visiting the site.

Anything else that you would like to share with us?

We plan to launch many features in Work N Hire down the line like

1. Payment gateway integration:  We plan add credit card, net banking and other payment options to the website for ease of payments.
2. Pre Packages Services: Freelancers who are offering services at fixed rates for eg. SEO service for 5000 Rs, Company Incorporation for 10,000 Rs can post on the website and people requiring these services can directly purchase these using our escrow system.
3. Digital Goods Market: Indian Freelancer and Professionals who want to directly sell their digial products like Photoshop designs, website templates, software’s can directly sell on Work N Hire.
4. Profile Verification Service: In this service we will manually verify user’s personal details, educational, work experience. After successful verification user’s profile will be highlighted to the client as verified.
5. Dispute Resolution Service: In case a dispute arises between a client and freelancer, we will provide an arbitration service which will be chargeable.
6. Skill Tests: We will be adding tests on various skills, which freelancers can take. These test scores will be reflected on users profile and highlighted to the client.