A friend and I are kicking around the idea of starting a freelance website very similar to upwork odesk etc.
Only difference is ours would be completely free and ad supported, hopefully before we get too big we could generate enough revenue to justify paying for better hosting than what we are currently thinking of, which is hosting it from our houses and using an email relay.
I have seen the complaints about upwork and read a couple articles about how much other freelance IT sites charge a lot in commissions.
The price for us to run the site will be fairly minimal, we are thinking about $20 a month for the email relay, $1 for the first year for the domain provided we can find a good one no one else is squatting. The price of internet to our homes provided we don't get blacklisted or DDOSed. I have a couple good servers sitting around collecting dust. Figure have everyone use paypal to take care of payment or what ever method they agree on to keep that part out of my hands.
It should take about 3 months from start to finish before going live. So the only ture investment is out time.
My though are, and correct me if im wrong please. I should have no problem getting IT people to sign up, being in the freelance IT world for about 15 years Im pretty sure of the demand.
How to get the people that will actually pay the IT people to go and use the site? Besides SEOing the crap out of the site is there any other things I might think about before setting out on the endeavor?
Keep in mind Im not looking for ideas of how to get anyone to my website, but how did upwork, odesk etc, build the trust and relationship with paying clients to stop by their website in the first place?
Yes before anyone asks we are a little crazy.