Over the past few weeks, the number of quality inbound projects has dropped substantially. I have a few theories as to why, but as MattBearman mentions, an email mentioning the lack of projects probably would be a good move.
The biggest challenge now is getting quality stuff coming in on a regular basis. I'm also working on fixing a few of the more painful interactions on both sides (talent and project owner).
Admittedly, my weakness is figuring out how to spark growth while at the bottom of the "shark fin" (http://www.longevitas.co.uk/site/images/Shark.png) -- the initial buzz has died down (though, interestingly, we're getting double digit signups a day still), so organic inbound projects aren't happening much anymore, and the ones that are have been disappointing generally.
I will be honest, I sort of expected this to happen. I've worked with a lot of freelancer/project sites over the years and brought 1000's buyers/sellers into those sites. The biggest problem is finding the buyers. Now tinyproj aims to filter buyers, which makes it even more difficult to keep a steady stream of work coming in.
I don't think it's a chicken and egg problem, people go wherever the jobs are quite easily and fast. Finding those jobs is the challenge. I wish I could offer you some advice on that front but the ratio of realistic expectations and budget jobs to $20 facebook clones is pretty low. It's hard to brand or distinguish your quality versus a place like oDesk when they are almost as equally faceless (actually oDesk et al may even do a better job selling their talent with reviews/ratings/info).
I think you need to focus on the buyers, the workers are the easy part of the equation.
Good to hear things are still happening behind the scenes. I suppose it was only a matter of time before all the 'make me a clone of facebook for $20 and chicken' requests started to come in. I'm just happy they never made it to my inbox, that's what I love about tinyproj.
Best of luck getting the good quality projects again, I'm a massive fan of tinyproj :)
Over the past few weeks, the number of quality inbound projects has dropped substantially. I have a few theories as to why, but as MattBearman mentions, an email mentioning the lack of projects probably would be a good move.
The biggest challenge now is getting quality stuff coming in on a regular basis. I'm also working on fixing a few of the more painful interactions on both sides (talent and project owner).
Admittedly, my weakness is figuring out how to spark growth while at the bottom of the "shark fin" (http://www.longevitas.co.uk/site/images/Shark.png) -- the initial buzz has died down (though, interestingly, we're getting double digit signups a day still), so organic inbound projects aren't happening much anymore, and the ones that are have been disappointing generally.
I hope to have more updates soon.