What is the reason no one is competing with UpWork?

Question

UpWork has a market cap of near 1bn and yet no one in the recent years has made any significant attempt to compete with them. Of course they have huge network effect and they dominate the SEO, but if executed well then the potential winnings are huge too. A startup with 5-10M investment could grab a significant share of the market.You have of course freelancer.com, but it has a terrible reputation and it is mostly used by low skill workers.You have fiverr.com, but their unfortunate branding has stagnated their growth outside of one of gigs.You have toptal.com, but they specialise in high-end talent contracts.UpWork has a sweet spot of mixed calibre talent of all sorts and no clear competitor.Thoughts?

unlinked_dll · Accepted Answer

Their competitor is a number of agencies that you've probably never heard of, and personal networks of experts and generalists.
I think their numbers are a bit crazy and I don't think they effectively solve the hiring problem. Which is noise reduction and directed messaging. LinkedIn does a better job and they're not great. It's a hard space to operate in, it's a cost center for businesses, and the value add is somewhat intangible.
I also think it's great for people that don't know the cost of a decent developer in today's market. Even outside the US, day rates for qualified freelancers are typically > $500.

tarun_anand · Answer

Upwork is not very friendly to the freelancers. The talent is also questionable on the other side. Using classic bait and switch techniques to get projects.It is like the "get slim" industry. It is evergreen but the value both sides derive is questionable.

wizzerking · Answer

I personally have several contracts through upwork.com But I am a high end windows developer with OpenCV experience, Tensorflow, Keras etc etc with also a long history (25+Years) of development. I keep getting asked for 1 - 2 month projects, where the fixed price is a few hundred dollars mostly from offshore companies. So IMO upwork is not a sweet spot unless the company is international or USA I thank you for the other sites especially toptal

Jugurtha · Answer

>Of course they have huge network effect and they dominate the SEO, but if executed well then the potential winnings are huge too.I would question that network effect. Granted, on a social network, the network effect can be quite strong: you wouldn't go to another network because your friends are there.Unless there's differentiation, people would shop around. Think people who check prices on Uber, Lyft. People who check tickets on different airlines.Some feature would be a vetting service to avoid scams. I haven't looked into why the review system hasn't solved the impersonation problem on these platform (test and work done by different people).

pier25 · Answer

I thought about building a non profit org for freelancers.All costs are shared equally among all people getting jobs.Companies can post projects for free.

_bxg1 · Answer

I used guru.com for a bit a few years ago. Seems like the same thing.

muzani · Answer

There's definitely a few competitors, but many are dodgy, too localized, poor quality, fraudulent advertising.X-Team and Gigster seem decent, a little higher than Upwork, below Toptal.

mentessa · Answer

I think that marketplaces genuinely are tough business, and not easy to compete. I in fact have never used UpWork and sticked to Fiverr eversince.

What is the reason no one is competing with UpWork?

Upwork is not very friendly to the freelancers. The talent is also questionable on the other side. Using classic bait and switch techniques to get projects.
It is like the "get slim" industry. It is evergreen but the value both sides derive is questionable.

I thought about building a non profit org for freelancers.
All costs are shared equally among all people getting jobs.
Companies can post projects for free.

I used guru.com for a bit a few years ago. Seems like the same thing.

There's definitely a few competitors, but many are dodgy, too localized, poor quality, fraudulent advertising.
X-Team and Gigster seem decent, a little higher than Upwork, below Toptal.

I think that marketplaces genuinely are tough business, and not easy to compete. I in fact have never used UpWork and sticked to Fiverr eversince.