[ppanwar]

Hello,

I am launching a global outsourcing marketplace in Australia on Feb 2005. I secured some funding from family and friend and spent five months designing the whole concept.

Currently, its getting developed by the best web development company.

As I am competely alone in this venture, I am in desperate need of a partner or funding. Funding is not easy as I am not very experienced though i have just finished master of business...

So please send your feedback and i will be most happy to reply to any of your questions

Parveen Panwar
www.go4outsourcing.com

[blueeyebrit]

Hi ppanwar,

Could you drop me an e-mail sometime via rogue@rogueconnect.com as I'm interested to hearing more about your idea. I'll reply from another address after that (don't want to post it here because of SPAM).

I had intended to work on an outsourcing idea myself these holidays. I'm not sure how it would compare to your own, but my idea was along the lines of smaller projects.

[ppanwar]

I think there is a lot of potential in outsourcing. I don't see any harm in outsourcing as most of the developed counteriers outsource there goods to counteries like china. Go to shopping center and you will see everything is from china, so similar with professional services like I.T

So we have a well established team in india, therefore, just email me at ppanwar@gmail.com, if i can be of any use

The outsourcing marketplace will give the freedom to outsource services locally and nationally also.

[pentupentropy]

are you talking about a freelance/reverse auction site? Do you already have the software? Be careful if you don't, I purchased a few versions of freelance scripts from companies and got crap from every single one of them. I spent $100 on some and $500 on one, but none would let me really dig around with it.

[ppanwar]

Currently the marketplace is getting developed by one of microsoft solution partner in india. It is costing a lot. Its not based on Auction. the buyer has the freedom to put evaluation criteria in order to choose a qualified service provider.

The concept is based on providing more freedom to buyer rather than a Auction system.

we will be launching it in febuary. Please feel free to message me if I can be of any help.

[pentupentropy]

so... this is not like elance, scriptlance, devlance, etc? All of the places for outsourcing your accounting, printing, media, etc?

[ppanwar]

The concept is similar, but it is based on proposal system rather then bidding. Service provider definetely have to enter the cost to finish the project, but its upto the buyer to select the most qualified service provider.

The flow and the details of each process is quiet different to the exisiting marketplaces. We also have higher levels of membership which confirms the company or business conducted by the service provider exist as well as the authorize person registered it as well ( So Authentication & Verification)

More higher level of membership will require more strict criterias. So different buyer with different budget will post their project in different levels of service providers.

We will also offer a project support system , not offerred by any of the exisitng marketplaces.

Recently, we have also used our own team to finish a dating website in US. It will be online in few weeks. Therefore, we will provide both marketplace and development services ( through our own team)

Your feedback will be most welcome and feel free to message me

[pentupentropy]

I'm not trying to down your idea at all, really, but these places already have most of this. elance even has global project management. They have a broad array of services, I have talked to them. Most base their levels on A) a paid membership and B) must maintain a certain rating from users who have accepted their bids/proposals.

Again, I don't mean to put a damper on it, but is there some kind of tool that makes it advantageous to use over them? I briefly tried this with some decent software and a small dedicated server, those were the only costs I put into it, just to see what the marketplace was like...

I called around tyring to get businesses to sign up for free but the response was not great.

It seems like you need a whole lot of people with project needs before people will sign up for the provider part of it.

[edit] also, since you're going to be competitive, I assume you're going to handle escrow like the others do? Have you looked into what can happen with this? Make sure you dot your i's and cross your t's

[ppanwar]

You are perfectly right. Customer acquision will be the biggest issue once it is launched. Our website will provide a improved functionality then elance. The only extra feature i think what we have is the project support system which consist of task list, calender etc.

Any suggestions, please let me know. I am alone on this project, the only thing is I have an excellent development team in india.

[ppanwar]

I are providing an payment system where service provider can send invoice to buyer and buyer can pay through us.

I haven't included escrow yet, will think to do that in few months after its launch.

You seem to have quiet a good knowledge in this field. Thanks for your comments

[pentupentropy]

if you haven't built the backend yet... I would just suggect going through hotscripts.com or resourceindex.com and finding project management software for CMS related scripts, and integrating that. They have a lot of good ones, most are open source.

Also.... maybe since the acquisition and the overall cost (CPA) of them is so high... maybe try something these other sites haven't.

No one seems to remember offline marketing with a lot of these new ventures. Find some projects that people will list. Call them directly.. let them know there is no fee.. and then get 10 or 20 projects listed.

Print out abunch of posters that say "work at home, freelance web designers needed" or something to that effect.. but actually state something about the project. This may or may not get many people to sign up but if you got friends in many cities around the world to post a fwe fliers for you on tele poles and whatnot, and 50 people signed up, it would have cost you nothing. Again, just a thought =)