Market place for Freelancer on LinkedIn App
Business and competitive Analysis
Freelancers are undervalued at sites like Fiverr, Upwork whereas LinkedIn is more professional service environment where the clients get a chance to get to know the freelancer personally. Thus developing a good relationship between the client and the freelancer (which makes way for retainers).
It is very difficult for user to stay updated and get notification and track the process of projects.
Problem
1- Freelancer’s and job poster’s account should not be linked with their existing LinkedIn account ( If they are not full time freelancer )
2- How will you make a freelancer’s profile and job poster’s profile more authenticate and trustworthy.( Because you are not linking their actual LinkedIn profile)
3- There should not be too many steps involved to get a requirement.
4- Payment process should be clear to avoid fraud profiles.
5- Proper record of status of work performed.(In terms of chat, mails)
6- Easy way to post job requirement and find the appropriate person for it.
Primary Objective
1- Freelancer can see the post and bid as quickly and simply as possible simplest (Freelancer would know what kind of work he wants to work upon knowing all the tools and skills involved)
2- Job poster can post his/her requirement very easily without any concern of the lack of knowledge about the specific tools and skills(Requirement can be subjective)
3- An Individual can be both freelancer and job poster (common dashboard page)
User Research
“Think like a potential customer what action would they want to take”
User Interviews:
2 Freelancer, 1 Job poster, Both
User case scenario
Wire framing and Customer Journey
Mockups
Questions asked
Ques 1: How its better than existing freelancing tool?
Ques 2: How costing will be handled?
Ques 3: How a freelance task would be monitor if the task involves so much hours
Ques 4: Why there is no comment option provided for freelance post.
Answer to above questions and observation:
Answer 1: Its is very difficult for user to stay updated and get notification and track the progress of projects. Idea for using LinkedIn as market place would feasibly work because LinkedIn has over 575+ million users, with more than 260 million monthly active user. Of those LinkedIn users who are engaging with the platform monthly, 40% access it on daily basis.
Answer 2: Job poster will decide what should be the costing and time in approx hours. Once the job poster and freelancer starts working on some specific task its been track on that platform in terms of no of hours spent and the status of work performed. Once the project is taken over job poster has to add the money to LinkedIn wallet. If its project is not started in the provided due date the amount will refund to its account and his/her post will get expire.
Answer 3: Its gonna monitor by default messages just like LinkedIn message.
Answer 4: Because if there is comment option freelancer or any random user might comment anything that is not relevant will waste time of job poster to find right person. ( comment like I am interested, modifications about work, negotiation on cost.)
