“A revolution is a fundamental change in power that takes place in a relatively short period of time.”

Ajeva is announcing a revolution for freelancers everywhere. A change of power is in order. Away from traditional marketplaces and back to the freelancer.

Over the past few years, the world has moved towards more freelance and contract work, and in this time many freelance marketplaces have come up to serve the need of a global workforce. The trouble is that these marketplaces have adopted a very old-school business model of being a ‘middle-man’ in the transactions. This fundamentally takes power away from the parties as there are now protectionist measures in place to preserve their ‘cut’.

We are making a bold move, and announcing a first ZERO COMMISSION, ZERO FEES Marketplace.

In our conversations and observations over the past several months while in closed beta, we learned that while we are a ‘middle-man’ we can not be aligned with the goals of our users. There was always fears of disintermediation, and a protectionist attitude comes naturally out of that. From this then comes restrictions on how we serve our users, in particular our Freelancers.

It is for this reason we are making a commitment to be fully in-line with our users, and focusing on success of their objectives. We want to help you succeed.

Here are the services and tools that will be available to ALL of our users:

1. Find Work engine, that brings together all freelance work available across the web.
2. A service profile that does more. Marketing, Collaboration, and Statistics built-in.
3. Proposals that make you stand-out.
4. Fully integrated project management and collaboration.
5. A Universal Project Inbox to track all project and task communications.
6. Powerful time tracking.
7. Invoicing, with direct payment (no-middle-men, and no-commissions).
8. An Open Reputation and Ratings System.
9. Advice and Best-Practices to create a successful freelance business.
10. A community to help answer all of your freelancing questions and challenges.

We are launching with many of the above feature, and rest are coming very soon.

Also starting now, we are no longer in ‘Beta’. All features we release are ready to use, and come with full support and commitment.

So, the big question – how do we plan to earn?
We are now a service business, here to provide you with our service and tools to help you succeed as a freelancer. We have a “Free Forever” plan that is very generous and more than enough for most freelancers working part-time or getting started. Once we can prove to you that we can help you succeed, then you may choose to use our “Pro” account with an affordable and fixed-monthly fee that is far less than what you may pay in commissions elsewhere.

The plans and fees are outlined below. Our goal is to keep them very simple, and to provide most of our features to ALL users Free or Paid.

 

The Power is Now Shifted to Freelancers. Ajeva gives you complete control over your business, your customers, your earnings. We are only your support team providing you with best-practices, advice and awesome tools to make you successful.

As the coming year approaches, we would like to take this time and send you our gratitude for a wonderful year we had in 2010… and the best of health, wealth and happiness all year round!

With new and upcoming  improvements to our site, we are excited to make your business worthwhile, whether you are a freelancer offering your expertise or a client looking for experts to hire.

We do look forward to hearing from you.  Until then, have a fantastic year in the online marketplace!

Warm Wishes,

Ajeva Team

Before we launch however, I wanted to write and talk about a few things:

1. A Different Marketplace

We are launching a new Ajeva that will help us take further our vision for what an online services marketplace should be. We know that there are now many choices for a freelance marketplace. So, what makes us different? Instead of telling you about it now, I’d love to show you – very soon. But I’ll give you a hint. It begins with Quality. We are moving towards creating a marketplace focused on quality. The details of this will be seen after launch, and on a continual progression.

2. Closed Beta

Since we launched, we have been open for anyone to sign up, and now we have close to 6000 users. But after launch of the New Ajeva, we are actually taking a step back and closing our site to invited users only. If you already have an account, you’ll be able to access the New Ajeva right away. Any new users will be by invitation only.

Why are we doing this? It again goes back to the hint from the first point. We are focusing on quality, and would like to follow a controlled growth from here on out. After launch, we will first be spending a LOT more time getting to know our existing users, and having conversations. Only after we feel we are ready, we will be inviting new users to join us as we can.

3. Conversations

After launch, we will be having a lot more conversations with all of our users. Expect to hear from us, and we look forward to getting to know each and every one of you personally.

4. Service

Working across the globe can be hard, so we want to be there for you at every step of the way. We will be providing a lot more one-on-one level of services to you as a Service Expert, and a Buyer. To achieve the best level of quality for our marketplace, we feel it is necessary to share our experience and best practices one-on-one with our users, and help them make the best results possible from their outsourcing relationships. Think of us as your partner – here to support you fully in your outsourcing relationships.

5. More Jobs

A very important part of a marketplace is of course the work opportunities that are available. We have had over 150 opportunities in the past year, but we will be working hard to bring you a lot more quality jobs with the new Ajeva.

So, when is the new Ajeva launch coming? Sooner than you may think. I will try to post some screenshots or previews of the new version as I can.

Stay tuned, and stay engaged. Talk to us about your outsourcing needs – we are here to help.

A lot of underdog freelancing sites out there never lived to see another day just because its talents and clients have decided to do business on their own.  Whatever the reason is: It’s purely business!  By doing a buyout, a service buyer can get rid of the percentage commission being charged by these freelancing sites on each invoice.  This money can then be used instead to pay the professionals directly.  Since this activity proliferates and are harder to monitor, many freelancing sites lose thousands of dollars in income.

Should You Work Outside the System?

To answer this question, we have come up with great reasons why working within any freelancing site is BETTER than doing it your own way:

Benefits of Working Within the System for Service Buyers

1.  Outsourcing can be tough, specially when it comes to managing your projects.  By working within a freelancing site, you get to use the latest project management tools that come with the latest security features on the web.

2.  Some freelance websites come with a time-keeping software ( with screen captures ) that can come in handy when you need to dispute for hours worked by your remote workers.

3.  If you hate Math, you might as well stay within the system and let the freelance website make your billing and invoice, stress-free, each payment cutoff.

4.  You will have a traceable record of all of your projects done and those that are still in progress, plus, you get to build a good reputation as a service buyer.

Benefits of Working Within the System for Service Providers

1.  By staying within a freelancing site to do your work, you get access ( most of which are free ) to thousands of jobs across the globe.

2.  Not only will you have a ready-to-use tool to find work, but you will also have the chance to build your reputation as a highly-skilled freelancer on the web.

3.  Since many of these freelancing sites have their own hassle-free billing and payment processes, the only thing you need to do is sit and wait for your money.  There are a few freelance sites that offer payment guarantee.

4.  You will have a chance to promote yourself and your services to the right market, which will help you land better paying jobs.

With the rise of freelancing sites offering an easier way to post jobs and get hired for work, some people may just be tempted to steer clear of doing business within the system.  If you do so, know that you will be greatly responsible for the consequences of your actions.  If someone fails to deliver, there will be no one to help you out ( collecting payments, getting refunds, etc. ).  You just don’t have any customer support to handle your concerns.  In the end, there will always be risks working outside the fine print and you may just pay a high price for your daring.   Don’t Make That Costly Mistake!

Something Interesting:

The Superlancers Freelance Marketplace: An Underdog or Another Disappearing Freelance Site?

In the past 10 years, I started a computer consulting company, that evolved into a website and graphic design house, and further evolved into a web application development company, with some kick-ass SEO abilities to throw in.

I worked with over 50 ‘providers’ in 14 different countries on nearly 100 projects. I learned as I went – I grew – I suffered –  had some failures, and some great successes, but most of all I learned. Maybe global sourcing wasn’t as easy as many said it was – and not all apparent cost benefits are as good in long-term. But the trend was clear. Global sourcing is here to stay, and will only grow as the world continues to shrink.

I wanted to take the lessons I learned over these experiences, and in-turn help more global relationships succeed. Thus, I dreamt of a platform for the livelihood of web workers – the brilliant, and entrepreneurial freelancers in all parts of the world. A platform to help remote work relationships succeed – whether they’re across town or across the world.

Today we launch our very first, and a very beta version of this Livelihood platform and marketplace – Ajeva.

Why ‘Ajeva’ you ask? The word Ajeva means ‘Livelihood’ in Pali, the language of the first written teachings of Gautama Buddha. It is part of the eight tenants of Buddhism. The full statement is “Samma Ajeva”, meaning “Right Livelihood”; supporting yourself without harming others.

Ajeva firmly believes that true free-trade, and global sourcing satisfies samma-ajeva. Managed properly, global relationships can provide a true win : win for individuals, companies and societies at large, allowing competition, growth and fair trade to flourish based on creativity, professional development and comparative-cost advantage.

So, where do we fit in? We want to provide the right platform and a marketplace to allow for successes in global and local remote work relationships.

Over time, we will evolve this first version of our platform and marketplace – bringing together the pieces that we believe will help create a foundation for success in any remote-work relationship.

To get started, sign up on Ajeva and more importantly, participate in a dialog with us. We love to learn and understand the unique needs of our community.

On Twitter:

@AjevaCom – our company account
@Seventhman – my personal account