

The future of creative work online - Welcome to the new Scoutzie (YC S12) - jenntoda
http://blog.scoutzie.com/post/49891113780/new-scoutzie-future-of-working-online

======
haroldherbert
The founders may want to drink their own champagne, and hire a designer for
their own site. The bizarre gray textured box that expands upon hovering over
the dropdown was an immediate turn off within seconds of visiting the site.

Any design related platform should expect an inordinate amount of aesthetic &
UX criticism, so I don't think this comment is out of line.

To offer something constructive, I would suggest developing an overall theme
to the thumbnails (e.g. tight cropping on a detail, bringing in the color
palette). This will give the homepage a higher level of aesthetic consistency.
Your homepage is the most vital marketing piece in regards to convincing high
quality talent to get on board.

~~~
jenntoda
Thanks for the note and the constructive suggestion. We will continue to
improve. One pixel at a time. :)

------
callmevlad
This is awesome! When Scoutzie first launched, I thought "Why does this have
to be limited to mobile designers?" - so it's really great to see that it has
now expanded into more areas.

Right now, there is not one "marketplace" where a business owner can go to
find the best designers, especially for websites. Without knowing their
options, I've seen many businesses settle for a) a crappy site by their local
yellow pages outfit b) the first result for "[my city] web designer" c) one of
those do-it-yourself site builders or d) no website at all. A centralized
directory of vetted designers makes a lot of sense for easier discovery.

One other thing that would make sense is an Airbnb-style rating system, so
designers can start earning a verifiable reputation based on prior work that
originated through Scoutzie.

~~~
msutherl
Isn't that what Dribbble and Zerply do?

~~~
marknutter
Yes. Yes it is.

------
jfisk87
I used them and had a really bad experience. Our designer was very bad - not
Scoutzie's fault necessarily. However, their refund is actually around 70%.
They do not refund their pretty big Scoutzie fee. Their customer support is
also pretty arrogant..

~~~
mike_herrera
What is the fee? I couldn't find any reference on the site, easily.

------
mnicole
My initial concern with Scoutzie was that there was no way to verify that
these "mobile designers" had actually tried and tested their designs in
production vs. using a PSD device template; no app store links, no product
websites. I think that this is an important aspect of calling yourself a
mobile designer because you're dealing with physical interactions on a
tangible interface. I also made some suggestions to the UI and general
"categories" designers would find themselves in. Despite what I felt was
constructive criticism by someone in the field, I've actually avoided
commenting in Scoutzie threads since then because Kirill thought it
appropriate to respond to me by telling me I was just jealous I didn't get in
because I was a bad designer.

He later apologized, but I bring this up only because the quality curation
aspect previously spoken to is non-existent, even though that was supposed to
be a selling point and something that set them apart from their competitors. I
was excited about this because I feel that every other site in this market is
oversaturated and makes it _more_ difficult to connect designers to gigs. To
the same point, both iterations of the website have been awful both in design
and usability, losing my trust in the founders' abilities to curate to begin
with.

Now that it seems anyone of any talent or skillset are allowed in, I don't see
how it's any different than Dribbble, Behance, Coroflot, Zerply, 99designs, or
even personal portfolios. I fail to see value in this site over any of the
aforementioned, especially because you're taking part of my potential income
(and planning on airing my personal rates) in the process. What is the benefit
here?

~~~
kirillzubovsky
Actually, we are not "airing" your personal rates and instead ask the client
to start a proposal with a range they are willing to spend. This way you can
judge whether this is a client that would interest you or not. Beyond just the
money, we also ask that clients provide as much relevant about information
about themselves , much like designers do. That includes their prior
experience, and most importantly, social verifications. When the proposal is
sent from the client to you, if you feel that a client cannot explain his/her
product well enough, or is not willing to share enough information about
themselves, you don't have to continue on the project.

Scoutzie is not for everyone, and we don't hold it against you if you choose
not to participate. We do, however, aim to provide as much value to our
members as we can, working to bring out the features they have requested. I
understand that sometimes we make mistakes and we try to correct them. We
cannot please everyone, but I know for a fact that we had a great number of
successful project, which means clients and designers who were happy with the
outcome.

I can assure that you we will work tireless to continue improving the
experience and to ensure that our community is happy.

~~~
mnicole
Thanks for the response! Those features make a lot more sense as to why I'd
use it. Do you guys have a roadmap online?

~~~
kirillzubovsky
Not at the moment, but it's not a bad idea. Having a list features available +
upcoming would be helpful to keep everyone up to date!

------
uncoder0
Scoutzie is a great company to work with. Our project that went through
Scoutzie hit some snags for many reasons which were completely outside of
Scoutzie's control. Scoutzie promptly offered us a refund of the full amount
remaining in escrow and declined our attempts at giving them back the fee
portion of the refund. After the resolution of our Scoutzie contract the
designer ended up signing a contract directly with us for this project which
was of a much broader scope then our original project on Scoutzie. We
continued the project and have produced a great product that I hope to share
soon.

The Scoutzie founders were very nice and understanding people to work with
throughout the whole process and I'm sure this new product will be a success.

PS: I'm glad the site works fine without Javascript enabled.

~~~
fotoblur
_PS: I'm glad the site works fine without Javascript enabled._

Who does this and why? Do you like browsing the web where 80% of website's
functionality is broken because you think its a good idea to browse with
JavaScript disabled. Makes no sense.

~~~
jabbernotty
> Who does this and why?

I'm one of them. I do this because of malicious adverts and because of
tracking systems. These cost privacy, but also real money (a well-publicized
exampple is ordering airline tickets)

> Do you like browsing the web where 80% of website's functionality is broken
> because you think its a good idea to browse with JavaScript disabled. Makes
> no sense.

I agree, it wouldn't make sense if people liked broken websites, and I'm
pretty sure that they don't. But I think what you mean is that I should enable
JS because it is in wide use. For me, that is not a good enough reason.

As a former web application developer, I do believe that most of those
websites could do fine without JS!

~~~
jabbernotty
With 'malicious adverts' I mean malware being spread via advertisement
systems. These tend to use JS, Flash, Java and such.

------
msutherl
One of the better things I could do for my reputation is avoid associating it
with something called "Scoutzie".

~~~
Major_Grooves
That's not a very constructive comment. Do you really believe that the word
'Scoutzie' has the potential to actually damage your reputation? How?

~~~
msutherl
With the kind of people that I work with, yes. It's a silly name that evokes
the image of a toy for children.

------
PufferBuffer
I like the idea. It'd be great to see more designers in the mix, but I suppose
that will happen over time.

------
sixQuarks
I like it, but I wish there was a way to see what kind of hourly rates they
charge.

~~~
kirillzubovsky
(one of Scoutzie founders here). We will be releasing more search and filter
features that will allow you to refine your options on multiple criterion,
including budget. Coming soon! :) For now, you can submit a proposal, stating
your available budget, which allows designers to quickly judge whether you fit
into their ballpark range.

~~~
orangethirty
Doesn't that reduce sales?

~~~
kirillzubovsky
Elaborate? We are big believes in quality, which is applicable for both
designers and clients. When you find a happy match, you end up with a better
quality outcome, which in the long run leads to more projects. Same goes for
the client; if you match well with a designer, you end up being a better
client, which leads to long term engagement, and therefore high quality
designs on many products to come.

