

Casual Contracting - our contract work website - chrispesto
http://casualcontracting.com/
Hey guys, we just hacked together this little site for casual contracting.  The premise is there's no long-term commitment / equity payment nonsense.  This is for small, quick cash jobs that take less than 40 hours (maybe a website proof of concept, for example).  We think RentACoder, Elance and the like are too centered on heavyweight, long-term projects with extended commitments.  We'd hope this would be something a Hacker News user might use to earn some extra money on the side.  There are invite codes on Twitter http://twitter.com/casualcontract.
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chrispesto
Hey guys, we just hacked together this little site for casual contracting. The
premise is there's no long-term commitment / equity payment nonsense. This is
for small, quick cash jobs that take less than 40 hours (maybe a website proof
of concept, for example). We think RentACoder, Elance and the like are too
centered on heavyweight, long-term projects with extended commitments. We'd
hope this would be something a Hacker News user might use to earn some extra
money on the side. There are invite codes on Twitter
<http://twitter.com/casualcontract>.

~~~
kaffeinecoma
Are you planning on handling the money aspect (i.e. escrow) of consulting,
like elance/odesk do? Or is this more of an introduction service?

~~~
omarish
We'd like to focus on introductions. Handling payments can be somewhat
arduous. Would you be more/less comfortable with the service if it handled the
financial aspects as well?

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kschua
I like the idea and am trying to join in but it is really annoying to try to
get the invite code that is working.

Entering one that is already used requires me to cut and past another one and
fill in my password again.

On another note, isn't $99 a bit steep for people to list their projects? I
believe Rent a coder charges less for this, though the charges are borne by
the developer

~~~
angryasian
wtf, whats the point of having the invite code if you are just giving them
away on twitter. Its more of an annoyance.

~~~
chrispesto
@angryasian Well, we are starting with the invite codes on Hacker News because
we feel like developer quality is probably pretty good here and we need to get
the site going. We are working right now on a more long term way to scale up
the number of developers and still maintain high quality.

~~~
martinkallstrom
I think you should have patience with this and be very careful to not let
someone in just because (s)he's a HN reader. I, for one, am a crappy coder
after five years in the CEO seat of my startup.

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joshontheweb
Would have signed up also, but Im not going to hunt around and try a bunch of
invite codes that may or may not work.

~~~
omarish
Could you @omarish on twitter?

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garethsprice
Good grief, talk about manufactured scarcity.

I am a senior developer who takes on side work, but I'm too busy working on
client projects to be watching your Twitter feed all evening and pasting in
codes hoping that one works.

Why not just post an invite code in the thread that's good for 24 hours?

~~~
omarish
Thanks for your feedback.

We spent a lot of time thinking through a rational strategy that would a) spur
a developer list while b) managing growth and ensuring top-quality developers.
It could look like manufactured scarcity right now, as we have people coming
in from only one channel (HN).

We wanted to test our larger invitation strategy on a smaller cohort of people
first, which is why we opted to do invite codes with the HN crowd.

Either way, I couldn't find a twitter or email address in your info. Could you
please contact me: omar.bohsali@gmail.com / @omarish? I'll pass you an invite
code.

Again, thanks for the great feedback.

~~~
garethsprice
Thanks for the response Omar! Glad to see that you're having trouble keeping
up - means that your idea is being well validated!

Here's a few items I noticed after logging in that I e-mailed to you, thought
I'd post here to see if anyone else on HNN had feedback.

After signing in:

1\. Would be good to see a list of projects that have already been submitted
that can be searched, or if you're e-mail focused, an archive of past
projects.

2\. Would also be interesting to see a list of other users (if they opt in to
the public list?) and/or information on what other skills people are listing.

3\. Also, as it's an invite-only site it does have some level of exclusivity,
so a public profile with a dofollow link to my website would be another
incentive to sign up and maintain my profile. Actually, the exclusivity angle
might be an interesting way of attracting high-end/well paying clients (see: A
Small World).

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endlessvoid94
Yeah, sorry. I just tried 3 of the invite codes on your twitter account and
none of them worked. Wtf? This is an unnecessarily high barrier, and will
probably alienate many, many potential users.

EDIT: I am a total hypocrite and found an invite that works. Looking forward
to it.

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jarin
Looks great, and I'd like to sign up, but having single-use invite codes and
putting them on Twitter is kind of a pain. I tried 3 or 4 that didn't work, so
I guess I'll sign up if I ever see it around again.

~~~
omarish
Got it. I just sent a working invite to your email. Enjoy.

~~~
jarin
Thanks! I'll try to send along some clients too, I get requests here and there
that I can't take on for whatever reason.

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rpwilcox
Nice idea. I especially like the <40 hour jobs only - makes estimating much
easier. Also, the $100 fee for projects to enter weeds out the low-ball
projects that want 12 hours of work for $50.

~~~
chrispesto
@rpwilcox Yes, that requirement is taken from our personal experience /
preferences. We like contract work because it's varied and interesting, but we
don't want a long term commitment that turns into a full-time job.

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dbalatero
<40hrs is a perfect time commitment for me when it comes to side work. Thanks
for putting this together, and hopefully it works out for everyone!

~~~
chrispesto
@dbalatero Yeah, that's taken from our personal experience and preference for
no long term commitments in contract work. I'm glad you like the idea!

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Vivtek
I seem to have broken the signup (or, more likely, you may have) - after
trying new tokens w/o success for a while, I was presented with a login strip
across the top of the page with Chrome's guess at my password. But the login
doesn't actually work - and yet I can't get to the signup page again either.

I allowed Chrome to save the password on this final step, so that might be the
problem.

~~~
omarish
Just followed up with an email. Sorry for the trouble!

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scottyallen
Love the idea. The concept of short, self-contained projects is really
appealing, particularly if they're for high quality clients.

~~~
chrispesto
@scottyallen Thanks! Short and self-contained is kind of the ideal for us,
too. We think lots of good developers like that kind of work so they have the
free mindshare for their other big ideas.

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jlvarner
I'm getting this error when I try to log in:

Ensure this value has at most 30 characters (it has 36).

There was an error during the sign up as well, but on the next attempt it told
me that e-mail was already in the system.

~~~
chrispesto
@jlvarner Sorry, we'll look into this.

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logicalmike
The "Your Skills" field on the "My Settings" page is showing my password.

Site looks great otherwise. Looking forward to seeing what pops up.

~~~
alextebbs
I am getting the same issue. Also cannot seem to modify any fields on the 'My
Settings' page.

~~~
reinhardt
Yeap, edit doesn't work here either.

~~~
chrispesto
We're working on fixing it right now! Thanks for the feedback.

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reinhardt
After the reported bugs are ironed out, can you also add a 'weekly' option to
email frequency? Thanks for the invites!

~~~
omarish
Added. Great idea.

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shaggyfrog
I'm hoping I can use this site both as a contractor and as a client with the
same login. Will that be possible?

~~~
omarish
Great point. This is in the works right now; we'll get it working shortly.

~~~
chopsueyar
Also, how to change password?

~~~
chrispesto
Yeah, we need to put that on there today. This was really going for the
minimum viable product. We wanted to see if there was interest, and apparently
there is!

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snorkel
I'd like to be able search/browse the available projects before signing up.

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joebo
how do i know it's high quality developers or high quality clients? do you
screen somehow?

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masonicb00m
i'm interested. can i get an invite code?

~~~
omarish
Yup - just sent one to the address on your google plus.

