Guru.com
As part of my efforts in drumming up new business, I went ahead and signed up on Guru.com as a freelancer. I have used Guru.com in the past as an employer when I was looking for some outside help on a couple of projects.
So I go through the signup process and start off with a Basic account. Unfortunately, having a basic account is pretty much useless. The Basic account is supposed to allow you to search for and bid on projects in your category, but I was unable to find even 1 project in my category to bid on! All projects required the upgraded ‘Vendor’ account to even be able to submit a proposal! So it sounded a bit like a sham to me but thought I would go ahead and give it a shot.
I upgraded my account to Vendor ($150 for 1 year). I was then able to go bid crazy. Let me start by saying there are literally hundreds of projects posted. I filter through looking for a gig that would match my skill sets. On the first day I submitted 12 proposals. Looking through the available projects and submitting bids is a time consuming process. I spent about 90 minutes searching for compatible projects and writing out well thought out proposals.
Luckily for me, I did find a good project lead that has already gotten back with me and awarded me the project! Let’s hope finding work on Guru continues to be this easy! So I have my first Guru gig and here’s to hoping it goes well. I have read some not so great stories of people’s experiences with Guru, so let’s hope mine turn out better.