Freelance vs. business

Freelancing as a mass phenomenon appeared recently, I think not more than 10 years ago, along with the global dissemination and socialization of the Internet, and today this business model is still very poorly understood, today's freelancers are in fact the pioneers of learning a new way of life directly into it.

I went to my solitary voyage in the ocean of the global economy about 5 years ago, but safe fishing in the coastal zone quickly got bored, I was always attracted by the open ocean, where the distance sailed huge ships global corporations and fast yachts startups.

For those who, like me, are not satisfied with the simple selling of their time on the open market, I will describe my way, which seems to me the most direct and obvious course for the evolution of the freelancer.

The first year or two you enthusiastically work in a new, more relaxed atmosphere, gradually acquiring the skills of a Manager who has the resources until only one artist — himself, and if all goes well, very soon these resources is too small, there comes stagnation.

The most obvious way — delegation of work, you're breaking a large problem into pieces and assign them to execute other professionals, most likely the same freelancers. The case is moving, the size of the projects and the revs rise substantially, you almost cease to engage in his original work and focus all attention on the control.

If you continue to move in this thread, then very soon there comes the next crisis, now already exhausted your bandwidth, as a Manager. A dozen simultaneous projects and multiple subcontractors generating a flow management issues, which can in-DDoS-it's even a very capable Manager.

Some time ago I found myself in exactly this situation, my bandwidth, as a Manager, was exhausted, but needed some way to serve the increasing flow of orders. At this time, my production process looked like.
the

the
• some of the customers may need to perform some work,
the
• he speaks to me through email stating the initial requirements,

we agree with the client the details of the work and the period of execution the

• if this case applies to piece-rate payment scheme, then there is bargaining and negotiating cost of work,
the
• after, and sometimes in the process of negotiating parameters, I address the email to one or more of its sub-contractors and offer them performing some of the work, and I have with them is exactly the same process as with the customer, but I'm already on the other side,
the
• after all the conditions with all participants agreed to begin execution of the work,
the
• develop — the most peaceful stage, if TK made good, all just work
the
• then the subcontractors are beginning to take their tasks and I check their work
the
• when all subtasks done I give the work to the customer
the
• then seek confirmation by the customer of acceptance of the work and record the amount of debt in the balance in the General table of Google Docs, each of my sub-contractor does the same.

Now imagine it feels like to work at the same time with dozens of customers and several sub-contractors, keeping all those threads takes a lot of time and effort, but it boils down to repetitive processes.

And of course, I started looking for suitable tools to organize and automate the entire process, and saw that the manufacturers of the control systems focus exclusively on the traditional companies, not freelancers, meanwhile, between these options employment there is a big difference.
negotiating and bargaining

Only in traditional companies it is possible to establish the task and it means that he or she automatically starts to run, no one asks him, if he would like her to do, whether to comply within the prescribed period, whether it suits the proposed payment. For a freelancer this is unacceptable, approval of terms, bargaining is the most important part of the workflow that must be solved in the email. But this process is standard and always takes place on one scenario:
the

one of the partners provides the initial conditions of the problem, the

• second, if necessary, corrects them and makes a counter offer,
the
• task is transferred from one partner to another until, until all the conditions are to satisfy both sides.

You need a few simple mechanisms:
the

the
• to compare two versions of TOR showing the partner changes
the
• if one of the partners forgot what the other expects from him, you need to periodically remind him of that until it either accepts the terms or will not refuse,
the
• after a certain period, if the contractor has not accepted the task, the customer should be able to cancel the task and pass it to another artist,
the
• task must include time-based or piece-rate payment scheme.

Delivery and acceptance

Commissioning and acceptance work for freelancer no less important process than the adoption of tasks to run, thus the following processes:
the

the
• customer should be able to offer the contractor to deliver the work ahead of schedule in its current state, if circumstances have changed,
the
• after a certain initially agreed term, if the customer has not made a decision, that work should be taken automatically,
the
• customer should have the ability to send task to completion and the worker to accept or reject it.
the
• after acceptance of the work, its value should automatically be stored into the calculations of the partners.

Delegation

Delegation of work is the main mechanism for scaling of freelancing, it is essential that it is done easily and conveniently:
the

the
• should be able to agree terms with the subcontractors before you accept a task from the customer
the
• delegated tasks should not interfere with the operation of current, while the subcontractors working on them,
the
• after completion of the work, the customer can make the work of subcontractors automatically.

Settlements

In traditional companies financial relationship is completely separate from workers, very few control systems, you can assign a value to a task and lead a full partner settlements and generally only in units. At a time like a freelancer — this area is no less important than the task Manager and it should act like the rules:
the

the
• if the partner wants to add to the calculations with another partner is disadvantageous for the operation, should request his consent for this operation, the same when you remove a profitable operation, in other cases it is enough to notice
the
• a reminder that the partner expects completion of the transaction,

freelancers often live in different countries, we need a transparent accounting in different currencies translated at the actual exchange rate that it was impossible to play on rate difference.

As you can see, the arrangements are fundamentally different from on which is built the modern management system for the corporate sector, and without these mechanisms, the utility of these systems for a freelancer is not much higher than e-mail. My colleagues and I have tried a few systems (dotProject, Basecamp), but eventually went back to GMail and GDocs. But the idea of how when all you can do is not give rest, and in the end we sat down and wrote such a system for yourself.

The system was implemented as a social network in which participants do not make friends and conclude business agreements, and not send messages, and give each other tasks and are mutual. Over time this system grew with many additional features and capabilities, and at the moment it's hard for me to imagine how you can do without it.
In my administrative problem of congestion was resolved by using the correct automation to simultaneously conduct many small projects is easy. For me, the main result of this experiment is the confirmation that the freelance has good scalability, not inferior to many other types of business to automate it need differently than a traditional business.

We are currently working on the implementation of the project full fully virtual company, I have touched on this topic in last year's article Corporate slavery, runaway slaves, and the virtual Corporation, but this requires revision of the system than we are doing now.

The control system is called WorkReactor, I will not give a link, those interested will find. We invite all who, like us, believes that the freelance the future of employment relations.

Article based on information from habrahabr.ru