
Show HN: I made a SaaS that helps keep freelancer's pipeline full - with no code - robwilliams88
http://letsworkshop.com
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fishtoaster
That is some excellent marketing copy. If you'd said "it's just a freelance
job posting aggregator with a newsletter as its interface"[0], I probably
would have closed the window pretty quickly. Instead, you spent that space
talking about the value proposition it provides (maybe a _little_ too in-
depth), an only brushing on the features. It's not too vague that I don't know
what I'm getting, but it's not too specific that I think "$40 seems steep for
a mailing list."

I don't even freelance, and I almost want to subscribe. :)

[0] That's what I got out of the pitch, anyway; I could have misunderstood.

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ryandetzel
I agree. I never read these things but I read this entire page. Well done sir.

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gautamnarula
If this works as advertised, it's pretty cool! I have a few questions though:

How exactly do you find the leads? Did you write software to do it (and if so,
how does it work?) or are you manually searching for leads?

Does everyone get the same leads? That is, if I were to sign up for the web
developer leads, does that mean that every other person who signed up for the
web developer leads gets the same 5-10 leads per day/week and I have to
compete with all your other customers for them? Or do you have a big pool of
equal quality leads and randomly select a small number to send to each person?

Also, friendly typo alert: "I'm an independent designer who's worked with
startups, ad agency's" should be "I'm an independent designer who's worked
with startups, ad agencies"

Overall, this looks pretty cool. Good luck!

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robwilliams88
The emails are all hand-curated, meaning I find them by hand and add them by
hand. Currently leads outnumber members 26 to 1 Fixing that typo now thanks =)

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bdcravens
I signed up a few days ago. The leads are good, but there aren't that many
(5-10 per day). Do you see the number of leads growing? Eventually the leads
you send will get pestered to death the larger your list grows, unless you can
scale your list as you scale your customer base. I can see that really biting
you. Based on your pricing, I can't see it being viable unless you can at
minimum 10x'ing your leads list.

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robwilliams88
Thanks for signing up! =) Price is going up soon (not for you of course).
Particularly, once I start building this thing out ... and sending even more
personalized emails and leads.

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kareemm
I'd also start to think about how to capture the demand side of this market
(clients looking for freelancers). Aggregation is nice but if you can scale up
the demand side you'll have fewer problems getting supply.

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robwilliams88
deffffinitely, that will help make my job easier.

I'm going to charge $200 per listing and let refers keep 100%.

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alabut
Interesting idea for a service. Not sure if it would've solved my problems
when I freelanced though, since the biggest time sink wasn't finding leads, it
was all the communication before even starting a project to determine what
they really needed in the first place, breaking it down by scope, priority,
timing, etc.

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thibaut_barrere
I solved this problem by charging for everything I do, be it a discussion,
requirement gatherings, analysis, estimates, quotes etc. There is a lot of
value in the early communication. I wouldn't go back to doing this for free
now since it really set a different tone, and people actually care of the time
you spend on their projects in that case, much more.

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ollieglass
Could you say some more about this? I'm curious how early in the process you
start charging, how you present that to clients or potential clients, and how
you handle objections.

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jbail
It's not SaaS if there's no code. The first "S" is software.

That nit aside, the site looks nice. Good luck!

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robwilliams88
there's software (gumroad and campaign monitor), just not custom code ;)

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l0gicpath
Congratulations on launching this. Looks neat.

A software as a service business is more concerned about the software _you_
offer as a service not the software you use.

/2cents

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lucaspiller
Looks pretty nice, however the $40/month seems a bit pricey to me in my
current situation (3 month contract coming to an end - may or may not be more
work, so I want to keep my options open). Have you thought about taking a
commission of jobs you fill a la recruiters?

Edit: Also great marketing copy!

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kareemm
If you land one gig the $40 pays for itself. Assuming the leads are quality
and you can close, this seems like a no-brainer.

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jsnk
While this is a great concept, I am not so sure if this will help freelancers
in the long run.

As this service becomes more popular, freelancing subscribers will be hurt
from the success. More subscribing freelancers? More competition for leads,
and once again the same problem of driving down the wage.

As the website states, the pool of freelancing opportunities are pretty
limited. It'll more or less stay around the same. So I feel that this service
will have same problem like craigslist, odesk etc, but even worse while paying
$40/month or $480/year.

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robwilliams88
I'm going to make a bigger push in getting exclusive leads. Meaning only
available to members of workshop.

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trythrowcatch
Pretty cool. Although my worry as a freelancer is not that I can't find leads
or don't have time to find leads, but that I find it hard to close.

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dkroy
I signed up, hopefully the money I spent helping a fellow HNer out, comes back
to me with interest. The sign up was pretty painless, though an email on what
to do next would be very helpful for new signups.

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kevinlangleyjr
It says $1.30 / day but I only see the ability to pay per month. Is it
possible to do like a week instead of a full month? Trying to evaluate if the
leads match what I'm looking for.

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robwilliams88
you can get the sample email here for free -
[https://confirmsubscription.com/h/i/7030908AEF2E8C7E](https://confirmsubscription.com/h/i/7030908AEF2E8C7E)

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toki5
I was interested in the "with no code" addendum but couldn't find more details
on your page. Mind elaborating on that (and on why you felt it was an
important bit to share)?

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robwilliams88
I used the most basic setup possible to get started... which turned out to be
gumroad and campaign monitor, so I haven't done any custom code yet.

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thoughtpalette
Great idea! You're going to be making money hand-over-fist!

You already have great ideas for the product road map, (skill personalization,
etc) and how to scale!

Excited to see a post about the status in 6 months!

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marban
These are not personalised — so everyone gets the same list?

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jcc80
Try [https://www.creamhq.com/](https://www.creamhq.com/) for personalized.
Upside is the matching. Down side is that if nothing fits what you're looking
for, you of course receive nothing.

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hkbarton
good idea, just quick question, will you add skill stack match feature? e.g i
can setup my skill stack in your service and the mails send to me are match my
skill.

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robwilliams88
Currently not offering personalization but it's is in the works

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brianbreslin
excellent copywriting on this site. I need to learn how to write better copy.
any tips?

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robwilliams88
Thanks!!

Here's what I've used: [http://copyhackers.com](http://copyhackers.com)
[http://unicornfree.com/](http://unicornfree.com/)

Also, I've dissected landing pages from people like Ramit Sethi, Amy Hoy,
Brennan Dunn, and Joanne Weibe.

Hope that helps!

