vWorker Latest News Blog

Phishing Scam: DO NOT TRUST THE BELOW EMAILS

2012-01-16T15:37:00.001-05:00

Some users have received an email from a phisher (a type of hacker) impersonating vWorker. In one email, they asked the user to update their contact details to prevent their funds from being frozen. In another, they asked the user to take a survey to get a free $150 they had won. We expect there will be other variations in the future. In all cases, the hacker tried to send victims to their fake version of the vWorker signup page so they could steal their login credentials (userid and password).

In all cases, you can tell when an email is fake because the links DO NOT go to vWorker but go some place else (in this case, the hacker's website: http://clusiuserf31.nl/vworker/ ). It's very important to NEVER assume that an email you receive from vWorker (or any site) is real. That's because email is not secure and any person can impersonate any other email address at will. Instead, always look at the link in your browser address bar. If it takes you to www.vWorker.com then you are okay. (Or, if it's an email that send you to a blog posting and sends you to one of the legitimate blog sites: vworkernews.com, vWorkerchanges.com, vWorkerOutages.com). If it says anything else, then don't type in your credentials and instead report it.

More information:

1) Thanks:
Thanks to those users who reported this issue. We appreciate you letting us know so we inform others. In addition to notifying all site users on every page of the site, we've also sent out an email as well. We have also reported this issue to the user's ISP and have asked them to involve law enforcement to press criminal charges. If anyone has additional information about the identity of the phisher, please let us know so we can pass that on as well.

2) I got fooled. What do I do?
Immediately change your email address and password. If anything has happened in your account without your permission then notify us to correct us.

2) How did the phisher get the email addresses? Were you hacked?
First, we never assume that we were not hacked, because no system is 100% secure and it's always possible. However, we also currently have no evidence that we were hacked. The site is audited every quarter by a 3rd party security firm (SecurityMetrics) and that firm has found no holes in the system and has certified it as secure. Further, everything the phisher has done can be done without hacking the site's systems.

There are several legitimate ways to get email addresses from other parties on the site that do not involve hacking. This phisher appears to have once been a legitimate user on the site who went "rogue" and used techniques that other have before. Some tips regarding this:

2a) Protect your contact info release:
If you received this email and have chosen to release your contact information to the other party automatically on $500+ projects, you may wish to turn that feature off. It can be useful, but is also subject to abuse as well.

2b) Be careful what you post publicly:It's also important to be careful what you post publicly in your profile and messages to people. You don't have to post your email address directly to have it harvested. One competitor "harvested" the email addresses of many of our users by using their public profile information to figure out their website URLs (using city, location, screen name, and other information given there). Then they grabbed their contact information from what the user listed on the website or their website's WHOIS. Unfortunately in this day and age we are very interconnected and there may be no 100% way to safeguard against this sort of tactic.

2c) Switch to an email provider that uses enhanced security (SPF):
Some email providers (such as Gmail) use an enhanced security method called SPF that validates that the email came from the place it claimed to. This blocks phishing emails (or flags them as suspicious). We highly recommend switching to one of these providers or telling your email provider to add it (if they don't).

3) Okay, I understand but I'm still concerned. How do I know this phisher somehow didn't break into vWorker and steal my password and/or change my financials?
If they already had your password, the phisher would not need to setup this elaborate scheme to try to steal it. The same applies to access to your financials.

However, if the phisher succeeded in tricking you to give them your userid and password, then they could compromise your financials. See above on how to deal with this.

4) What do they look like?
A copy of one of the emails (phishing hyperlinks have been removed for your protection). Update January 24th: the link below has now been removed by the ISP (Carpathia Hosting) and is no longer available).

More capable, accountable and affordable. Guaranteed.

Hi,

I'm Julia Robertson and I'm a vWorker.com Facilitator. My job is to watch over the bids and projects and shepherd them as they go to completion.

You have some information missing from your vWorker account and I have to ask you to update your contact details, otherwise your account and your funds will be frozen.

Follow this link: Update contact details.

Sincerely,
Julia Robertson
============================================
vWorker.com Facilitator
www.vWorker.com.com
Need to outsource your software development?
Post your project and receive an average of 12.4 bids within 24 hours!

Contact a facilitator / Ask questions: http:///RentACoder/misc/Feedback.asp
P: (813) 908-9029
F: (813) 960-1495
Exhedra Solutions, Inc.
============================================

4b) Copy of the 2nd variation:

Hi,

I'm Julia Robertson and I'm a vWorker.com Facilitator. You have won our prize of the month: $150 to use on our website.

To use the funds you must complete a simple form, where you have to talk about our website. Take me to vWorker.

Sincerely,

Julia Robertson

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

vWorker Case Study 13: Marco-Hans Van Der Willik (Zoe-X)

2012-01-13T15:29:00.000-05:00

About this series:

vWorker recently conducted case studies of successful employers and workers on the site. We will be periodically releasing stories describing how employers have used vWorker to develop/enhance their business and how workers have been able to financially support themselves through the site.

Marco-Hans Van Der Willik:

Marco-Hans Van Der Willik (screen name: Zoe-X) is from Somerset West, Western Cape, South Africa. Marco-Hans graduated from high school in 2002 and wasn’t sure which direction he wanted to take in life. He wasn’t content with the idea of spending 4 years in college, so he completed several Microsoft courses instead, and began his career as a software engineer. After working several years in the industry, he had an important decision to make regarding his future. He chose to pursue his dream of starting his own company, Zoe-X. Marco-Hans used vWorker to develop his website www.Zoe-X.com, which is a competition-based brain training site. Marco-Hans plans to launch the site early this year.

Marco-Hans shared the following with us about his experiences on vWorker.

1. Describe your story. Why did you start your business?

For as long as I can remember, I have had an obsession with creating things; I love analyzing problems and coming up with solutions. At age 4, my parents gave me a Lego set and I built something new every night, from castles to airplanes to different shapes and formations. I remember when I was still too young to go to school, I would be on the road with my father and he would give me mathematical problems to solve. It was then that I invented my first mathematical algorithm: an easy way to get the square of the next or previous number without pen and paper.

My father died in a car accident when I was 16 years old, a week after the September 11 attacks. My mom is great, but her gift is in not business and numbers. So to a large extent, I was on my own. I had to find my own way in this world.

I finished school in 2002 and had to choose a direction. It was difficult to choose a direction because there were many things I could do, but I finally chose to become a software engineer. I figured the digital age had just begun and that a software engineer would always have work and opportunities available. I did not want to spend 4 years of my life at a university, so instead I completed several Microsoft courses in 2003 and wrote my exams. My college, New Horizons Cape Town, then took me in to work for them, and what a time that was! They certainly threw me in the deep end; I had to take over and rewrite many of their internal systems. One time, they booked me into a hotel where I had to study 18 hours a day for a month. I had to work through 5000 pages of programming content and afterwards train a group of developers. The developers had an average of 10 years programming experience. Needless to say, I could have died a thousand deaths but I am alive and here to tell the story!

I had a three year working contract with New Horizons Cape Town, but I wanted more money. So my boss and I came to an agreement. My boss organized me a new job, but I had to pay 50 000 ZAR to end the working contract prematurely. I paid back the money over time, and to date we have an excellent working relationship. At my new job, I once again found myself in the deep end. I only had my foot in the door and could not turn down any work. Long story short, I had one day to learn a new programming language, PERL (terrible language), fix a report, and deploy the report on a Linux server (I had never used Linux). At 20:00, I was still at the factory, and I managed to break the report completely, which was needed for a level 3 directors meeting the following morning. I saw my life flash before my eyes! Around midnight, I had managed to fix everything and was able to go home and live to face another day. I ended up working at the factory for 3 years.

I have only given a little insight into my early days as a developer, but my life as a developer has been action packed from the beginning. There has never been a dull moment. As a developer, I had two choices before me:

Enjoy life: spend 50% of my time on bread and butter work and 50% of my time enjoying life and starting a family of my own.
Live an extraordinary life: spend 25% of my time on bread and butter work and 75% building my company, Zoe-X.

I chose and will always choose option 2: to live an extraordinary life. I admit it has been lonely, but that will change in the near future. I always joke with my friends that I get to look at the menu but I can’t have anything.

2. What unique need/niche do you fulfill?

I have always been fascinated with the brain; I love analyzing the brain and optimizing it. I wanted to provide top quality brain training for everyone, and very importantly, I wanted to add the element of competition because it just makes brain training so much more fun. Without competition, you have nothing to drive you…no benchmark by which to measure your performance. Furthermore, I wanted it to be affordable to everyone. I didn’t want cost to be a factor.

3. How did you find vWorker? What obstacles did you run into that vWorker helped you solve?

My uncle mentioned vWorker 5 years ago when it was still called RentACoder. I used vWorker a little, but it wasn’t until two years later that I realized just what a powerful tool vWorker really is. To be quite funny, you could compare vWorker with the replicator from Star Trek. In essence, vWorker converts cash to any digital product you want.

I am a very hard core developer, but I only have so much time in a day. I personally take care of all the core logic, but I often encounter tricky situations. Instead of going through the full learning curve on my own, I outsource the problem. vWorker has thousands of workers from around the world, and a thousand minds is certainly better than one. Often, I will outsource entire components and then make the code my own by restructuring it to match my style/preference.

From a worldly point of view, everything boils down to money. To beat the competition, I need to maximize my resources: time and money. If a task is going take me 9 hours to complete, I am looking at $900 worth of time. But if I outsource the task, I am able to find a coder that already has the necessary experience for the task, and the task will only cost me $100. I would also need to spend 2 hours of my time: 1 hour to manage the project and 1 hour fine tuning the code. So we are looking at $900 versus $300 ($100 to outsource + $200 for my time). Not only am I maximizing my resources by 300%, but I am able to process 4 times more work, given that time is my biggest constraint.

4. What impact has vWorker had on your career and your business?

vWorker has had a tremendous impact on my career. Any company I have worked for knows they can give me any development work and I will do it in the given timeline. vWorker allows me to work with any technology and offers virtually unlimited on-demand work capacity. I have been analyzing the internet and related technologies for several years and with vWorker’s help, I have developed an incredibly advanced brain training site in under a year. We are now ready to go to market. vWorker has done a great deal of research for me and has helped me create a business plan and revise it countless times. Zoe-X will receive investment in early 2012, as soon as the pty has been registered.

5. Who were your key virtual workers?

My approach is a little different; vWorker is my virtual worker. I have literally worked with hundreds of talented workers across the globe. I often work with a coder on numerous projects, but there is one worker with whom I have really done a lot of work: LEdmiston. He and his cat are now part of the Zoe-X team.

6. What advice do you have for others who are starting the same way you did?

Warren Buffet and Bill Gates were at a conference with thousands of other successful entrepreneurs where everyone had to give one word as the secret ingredient to their success. Only Warren and Bill gave the same word: FOCUS. As an entrepreneur, you need not only talent, but also the discipline and will to push on day after day until you achieve success.

The one thing that most entrepreneurs neglect is a business plan. We all prefer to jump right in and get started, but this is one of the biggest reasons for failure. You simply cannot build a house without blueprints…you are bound to forget something. Every business has weaknesses and areas of concern. You must be aware of these and plan for them from the very beginning.

7. What is your favorite feature on vWorker?

I love the stock standard “Honest-billing money-back guarantee” way of outsourcing. There is no risk and you know exactly how much the project is going to cost. I have also been testing the “Crowdsourcing” feature that vWorker recently release and I am absolutely loving it!

8. What has been your experience in mediation/arbitration?

I have been through numerous arbitrations with most of the arbitrations being settled immediately. vWorker’s staff have always been fair and competent. Communication is crucial; you must give clear project specifications and let the worker know the moment you are dissatisfied with work. In this manner, you will not only win your arbitrations, but you will avoid most arbitrations altogether.

9. Do you have any tips/tricks/secrets about vWorker that you’ve learned that you’d like to share?

When you start out on vWorker, it is important that you only work with reputable workers: a worker must have at least 5 ratings and an average rating no lower than 9.5 out of 10. Make very certain the worker knows what to do. Never assume the worker knows what to do.

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

Search Functionality Not Working Properly

2012-01-10T15:36:00.001-05:00

We have recently received numerous complaints about the search functionality not working on the site. We are aware there is an issue, but are unsure as to the true cause of the problem. We have recently rolled out changes that seem to be breaking the search functionality, but the changes were so slight that they should not have caused such a severe problem.

We released a temporary fix late last night which should make searching at least functional. Searches are still taking longer than we would like, but at least they are no longer timing out. We have also opened a ticket with Microsoft to get their assistance on this issue (since it may be related to something they released).

We are working to get a permanent fix released as soon as possible. We will update you as soon as the feature is working normally again. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience caused by this issue.

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

How to be a vWorker Arbitration Champion (For Workers) - Part 2 of 2

2012-01-09T15:39:00.001-05:00

Every day, some workers on vWorker win arbitrations and unfortunately other lose. A decent number are like "undefeated champs" and win arbitration every single time they go into it. But others struggle and lose every single time.

So what's the difference between the two groups? And how do you make sure you're one of the "champs" in arbitration and not one of the "chumps"? Fortunately it's very easy, with the following tips.

In Part 1 of this article, we discussed how to work professionally and competently with your employer. Once you’ve done that, you’re usually in very good shape to win your arbitration. However, there are still some important things you need to do to make sure you don’t “blow it”. By following the below tips, you can make sure you are an arbitration “champion” and not an arbitration “chump”.

Upload all work files at the start…

Upload 100% immediately:

As described in part 1: You need to upload 100% of your deliverables onsite before the deadline/milestone arrives.

However, let’s say there was no deadline…or it has not yet arrived. How do you protect yourself in arbitration in that case? In that situation, you need to upload 100% of your deliverables to date to the site once you start the arbitration (or get a notification of it).

We send out an email reminder telling people to do this, but many people ignore it. That’s a big mistake. If we need to look at the deliverables, you will lose the arbitration. Again it’s a simple thing to do. So just do it!

Upload it all:

Make sure you upload everything needed to verify you met the contract. If you are working on a graphics projects, the source files need to be uploaded as well.

Insults…

You may be very upset at the other party when the arbitration starts. That’s normal and okay. But it’s not acceptable to express your feelings by insulting or threatening the other party (or your arbitrator). Doing this is the fastest way to lose your arbitration. You will also probably forfeit your entire account. Would you want to be verbally abused by someone else? Of course not. No one wants to talk with someone who can’t behave professionally. So don’t be that person.

Some people think they can get around this rule by disguising insults as an opinion. For example, they might say, “In my opinion, the other party is the lowest kind of liar in existence”. This is not fooling anyone. Expressing this kind of opinion is a fast way to lose the arbitration. So don’t do it.

Provide accurate information…

Lying in arbitration:

You would think this wouldn’t need explaining. But unfortunately some people think that the best way to win is by lying in arbitration. If you tell a lie, you are just delaying the inevitable. If you say “I did the work” and you didn’t, we are going to test it and find out that you didn’t. Then instead of getting a 3 rating, you will receive a -3 for failing testing and have a great chance of forfeiting your account.

Everyone makes mistakes. If you messed up, just be gracious and admit it. Not only is this the right thing to do, but you make it easier on yourself. Lying only makes it harder on yourself.

Answer the flaw list accurately:

If the project goes for 100% completion testing, the employer will be filling out a flaw list. You will be given a list of possible responses to each one. For example, you might have a choice of: "Yes, it is a cosmetic flaw" or "No, you will not see this flaw in the deliverables". Choose the most appropriate option from the flaw list wizard.

This seems obvious to most people. However, there are some workers who always choose "Other (none of the above apply)" so that they can write the text response that comes with it. Perhaps they feel that if they are persuasive enough, it will better improve their chances. Regardless…picking the wrong choice just so you can write text about it shows that you cannot follow instructions (which is already a strike against you). It will also cause you more work, because the arbitration will then make you do it all over again correctly and choose the correct answers. It also delays the arbitration unnecessarily and doing so more than once can result in forfeiture for that.

So answer the flaw list accurately.

Answer direct questions with direct answers…

If the arbitrator asks you a “yes” or “no” question like is “Is the work 100% complete as per the contract, or not” then respond with “Yes” or “No”. Responding with “Yes, but…” or “Yes, except….” forces the arbitrator to assume what you are trying to say.

Respond in a timely manner…

Employers and workers are given 3 business days to respond to questions. If responses are not received in that time, your arbitrator may decide to grant a one-time, 3 business day exception. If another response does not come within the 3 business day deadline, you will forfeit the arbitration. So respond on time to avoid an unnecessary loss.

Don’t continue to argue after you’ve already lost the point...

Continuing to argue, not following arbitrator instructions, and other inappropriate behavior may result in being forfeited from the arbitration. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep your emotions in check. When that happens, just ask yourself, “Would I do or say this if the person were a co-worker and standing right in front of me”? If the answer is “no” then you should think twice about it.

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

What makes an entrepreneur tick?

2011-12-22T17:40:00.003-05:00

Are you interested in learning how the mind of one successful entrepreneur ticks?

vWorker CEO, Ian Ippolito, was interviewed in a 30 minute video interview by Andrew Warner of Mixergy. Andew and Mixergy's mission is "to introduce users to doers and thinkers whose ideas and stories are so powerful that just hearing them can change you".

Ian shared personal details with Andrew about how vWorker started, how he and the company overcame numerous obstacles in the early days, his business philosophy and what he strives to achieve today.

Click here for the full interview.

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

How to be a vWorker Arbitration Champion (For Workers) - Part 1 of 2

2011-12-22T14:59:00.003-05:00

Every day, some workers on vWorker win arbitrations and unfortunately other lose. A decent number are like "undefeated champs" and win arbitration every single time they go into it. But others struggle and lose every single time.

So what's the difference between the two groups? And how do you make sure you're one of the "champs" in arbitration and not one of the "chumps"? Fortunately it's very easy, with the following tips.

Part 1 of this article talks about the best ways to do work before the arbitration even begins. Part 2 (published next month) discusses how to conduct yourself once arbitration begins.

Before Arbitration

80% of arbitrations are decided based on something that happened before the arbitration itself ever started. So the most important thing you can do to win an arbitration is to work professionally and competently with the employer. This might seem obvious, yet we see the same mistakes being made over and over again. Here's how to avoid making them.

Clarify vague contract terms…

Ask questions:

If you don't understand something in the contract – ask. Ideally, you should ask before you place a bid on the project. If a contract term is vague and you have already accepted the project, you are putting yourself at risk. That vague requirement could get clarified to be a lot of work, which you did not anticipate. Also, asking questions is a great way to show employers that you have read their requirements and want to meet their needs.

Pros and Cons:

If there are multiple possible implementations for the requirement, then inform the employer about the pros and cons of each. Don't just pick one (such as the easiest, the cheapest, or the one you're most familiar with). If you do then you take a big risk. If your choice causes problems for the employer, you will be responsible in arbitration. You may have to redo your work, or could even lose the arbitration. The employer is the one paying for the project, so make sure you give them the choice they are entitled to.

Don't underbid:

The more you clarify the requirements, the better you can accurately estimate the time and effort the project will take. And that is the only way to accurately estimate how much to charge. Don't get in a situation of underbidding just to win the project. Workers who do this often get demotivated because they are working for too little money and don't do their best. If you do this and get into arbitration, the arbitrator won't accept it as an excuse for sloppy work or not delivering to the contract. You are responsible for estimating and bidding properly. If you have a continual problem estimating, then consider switching to pay-for-time projects so you can avoid this situation.

Explain copyright when using 3rd party or open source materials…

Disclose it:

If you use 3rd party components of any kind (or in the case of graphics projects – 3rd party images) it is your responsibility to explain:

1) What in your deliverables will be 3rd party.

2) What are the copyright consequences to the employer of what you intend to do.

3) Get the employer to agree to it (onsite).

If you do those things, you will be covered.

If you don't, you will lose the arbitration. Why? Employers expect to own full copyright to what you produce (and the standard legal wording gives them that right). If you skip doing one of the above steps, they are not getting what you promised. Worse, perhaps they are going to resell the work. They can end up getting sued for your actions, and not even realize it.

So that's why doing the above is important. It's also why you can lose your account if you don't do it.

Example:

Let's say you want to use open source libraries. So you inform the employer: "I am using the 123 graphics library, which uses the GNU Lesser General Public License. I’ve included a copy of the license.txt file in case you have questions. Please let me know if this is acceptable." If you do this, you are covered on all three steps and fully protected.

However, if you just say "I am using the 123 graphics library" or "I am using open source", there will be many employers who don't realize that this action has legal/copyright implications. You are the one selling the product, and are responsible for informing them of this. So make sure to follow all three steps to fairly inform them, as well as to protect yourself.

Handling employer requests for additional work…

If an employer asks for additional work that is not in the contract, you have several choices:

Accept the additional work:

You can do it for free, or ask for more money. Remember that when you agree to implement something for free, you have amended the contract. That new thing is now a part of it, and you must complete it. And if the deadline comes and you haven't delivered it, then you are just as responsible for it, as if it were a paid item that you missed. So don't agree to something for free, unless you really intend to finish it on time.

Decline the additional work:

Inform the employer politely that this is additional work and you would need either additional time and/or additional money to complete this task. If the employer won't accept it, then vWorker will step in on your behalf to clarify the scope of the contract. Place the project into arbitration for "contract clarification" and we will help determine if it is or not.

Do nothing:

This isn't a good choice, but unfortunately some people do this. If you are not going to do it, then say it explicitly on site. If you ignore it, your silence may come across to a competent person as implicitly accepting it. And if so, it will become part of the contract and you will be responsible for it. For example, let's say your project is to design a logo and no mention is made of where to put the logo. While you are working, the employer says, "Oh, I need you need to place the logo on all my web pages too, because I don't know how". If you just respond with, "Everything is going great and I’ll let you know when everything is done", then a competent person would believe you were implicitly accepting the new term. You then become responsible for it. To avoid this, make sure you explicitly reject anything that you disagree with it.

Manage your deadlines properly…

When the employer stops you from meeting a deadline:

If you are waiting on the employer for an answer to a question and the deadline is approaching, notify the employer that they are preventing you from completing the work (and what they need to do to correct this). If you do this, you are covered and not responsible for the deadline. But if you don't do this, then you become the one at fault for the missed deadline…not the employer. Always give the employer a reasonable amount of time to respond to your requests.

Upload, upload, upload the deliverables:

As a good customer service habit, you should be uploading the deliverables regularly to the vWorker site regularly (at least once a week). But you absolutely MUST upload 100% of them to the site before each deadline/milestone.

We cannot emphasize this strongly enough! If you don't upload work, then you have no proof that you delivered to the contract. We can't let you upload later, because a cheating worker could use the extra time to do additional work. So you will lose the arbitration.

We send out numerous informational messages about this and alerts as well, and yet still see this problem over and over again. Don't make a dumb mistake that unnecessarily costs you money. Upload your deliverables.

Nothing to upload?

Please note that if you work directly on your employer's server, that does not mean you can skip uploading to the vWorker site. A cheating worker might miss a deadline and then use the extra time in arbitration to fix something on the employer's server that was broken before. So even if you work directly on the employer's server…upload to vWorker too. Otherwise you will lose arbitration unnecessarily.

If you are doing something (such as a server configuration) where there are no deliverables, then tell the employer to switch it to pay-for-time instead (where we take screenshots of what you are doing and you don’t have to prove delivery to get paid).

Respond promptly to employer questions and provide status updates…

Communicate problems promptly:

Communicating with the employer can really prevent a lot of bad situations. For example: Let's say you know you are going to miss the deadline for a personal reason. If you tell the employer 4 weeks in advance, this gives them plenty of notice. They have time to adjust the expectations of their customers and many are willing to work around the issue and extend the deadline. However, if you say nothing (or wait until the last minute to tell them), they are going to be caught in a bind. Most are not likely to give you an extension.

In Part 2 of this article, we will discuss how to handle the remaining 20% of situations that happen during arbitration. Part 2 will be posted within the next few weeks. Make sure to check back for these useful tips on how to become an arbitration "champion".

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

vWorker CEO Ian Ippolito Speaking to Young Entrepreneurs

2011-12-06T19:35:00.002-05:00

vWorker CEO, Ian Ippolito, will be speaking to young entrepreneurs at the Center Club's Rising Leader Committee on January 13th at 7:30am. Ian will be talking about the lessons he learned while creating vWorker.com.

The Rising Leaders help foster the growth of up and coming entrepreneurs. They also promote community involvement and raise awareness for charitable organizations.

http://www.clubcorp.com/Clubs/Centre-Club/About-the-Club/Calendar/Rising-Leaders-Committee11

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

Interview of vWorker CEO Ian Ippolito by Joseph Warren

2011-12-02T14:20:00.001-05:00

vWorker CEO, Ian Ippolito, was interviewed by Joseph Warren in a 30 minute video about succesful startup founders. In the interview, Ian talks about:

How his early business setbacks taught him crucial lessons...lessons that ultimately enabled him to create vWorker.
The challenges he went through in the early days of vWorker, and what he did to overcome them.
How his early childhood influenced him to become an entrepreneur.

Click here to see the complete interview!

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.http://www.josephwarren.org/2/post/2011/12/vworker-builds-an-amazing-marketplace-of-285700-programmers-ian-ippolito.html

vWorker Case Study 12: Daniel Offer (Athena IT Limited)

2011-11-09T16:31:00.001-05:00

About this series:

vWorker recently conducted case studies of successful employers and workers on the site. During the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing stories describing how employers have used vWorker to develop/enhance their business and how workers have been able to financially support themselves through the site.

Daniel Offer:

Daniel Offer (screen name: Athena IT Limited) is from Swindon, Wiltshire, United Kingdom. Daniel graduated from college with a degree in Finance in 2008, which unfortunately was the same time the global banking crisis started. So he struggled to find a job in his field. Realizing that he needed to take matters into his own hands, Daniel started dabbling in several business ventures. He realized there was a need for a desktop Facebook messaging app, so he used vWorker to outsource the development of Chit Chat for Facebook. This application has gone viral and is downloaded more than 10,000 times a day! Daniel now uses vWorker to outsource marketing, research, and writing work for his company.

Daniel shared the following with us about his experiences on vWorker.

1. Describe your story. Why did you start your business?

Well, the background story really starts in July of 2008. I had just graduated from Warwick University (England, United Kingdom) with a BSc in Accounting and Finance. I didn’t do as well in college as I did in high school, and I received just a 2:2. (In the UK, the degree system rankings are 1st, 2:1 (upper second), 2:2 (lower second), 3rd, and fail.) It was my own fault, really…I had chosen too many tough options in my second year.

Despite graduating from a well regarded University, I struggled to find a job. The year was 2008, and as you may remember, that was the time of the banking crisis – a year of recession for many countries, including my own. So trying to find a job in Finance was somewhat problematic, to say the least.

In short, I struggled to find any job – I was too qualified for some jobs and didn’t have enough experience for others. I went to tens of graduate scheme interviews, only to be turned away at the very final hurdle (they have a lot of rounds – normally four or five) or for the scheme to be cancelled.

In the end, I managed to get a job with Intel UK on a one year contract as a "green badge" (temp worker) within the Finance department. Whilst it was a good job and I was very grateful for the opportunity, I never felt secure in my role. It had a very short termination notice (one week), and the area in which I worked was under the legal and financial spotlight. Moreover, it was made clear to me early on that the job was temporary, and at the end of the one year, assuming it lasted that long, my time would be up. To give a little more background…that year, Intel had scrapped its graduate scheme and put a bar on hiring full time.

With the economy still looking bleak, and finding myself essentially stuck, I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands.

I had done a little bit of enterprise activity in the past, most notably, Emoinstaller back in 2002ish when MSN Emoticons were all the rage. I had the software developed by someone I'd found off on Planet Source Code and then recreated by another programmer in 2005. Despite learning some basic Visual Basic 6, programming wasn't my forte. This had helped me pay my way to some extent through college.

So, after settling in my job, I started to brainstorm. I was thinking about enterprise again – what I could do, what I could work on, what was a good idea.

Previous Project Failures

Now, I should probably mention some project failures before I talk about the success of Chit Chat for Facebook, because those failures were really important feedback for my path.

In my second year of college in 2007, I had got into my head that a petition and questionnaire app for Facebook was a brilliant idea. I was forever being sent petitions and questionnaires to my Facebook inbox. Therefore, I developed "Petpoll." (Well I say I developed it. I really planned the application and then outsourced it to a worker.) Unfortunately, it was a complete flop – I lost all my money and time. It didn’t fail because it was a bad idea; it failed because Facebook changed the way in which the invite system worked, as soon as it was ready for launch. Rather than allowing you to invite all your friends, you could only invite five a day. Who wants to run a questionnaire or petition where you can only invite five people a day?

I learnt a valuable lesson from it – developing on someone else's platform is risky. Moreover, I see it as a precious learning experience on handling and bug testing highly complex projects.

Another important "feedback" lesson was when I developed (well again, had someone else develop for me) a blog spider tool that sought out abandoned blogs that still had a page rank. The idea was simple – find the blogs/websites and re-register them for their page rank and existing Google ranking. The app worked just fine, however, it seems I wasn't the only one with the idea, and my app just wasn't quick enough to compete. Moreover, most of the sites that were abandoned had very limited amounts of traffic and page rank anyhow.

I learnt that "black hat" SEO doesn't really work – you're better off forming relationships for marketing and having something of value (a product or service that is news worthy).

Project Launch

So returning to why I started the business "Chit Chat" – I was feeling stuck in a job that had no foreseeable long term prospects at that time and the economy was looking bleak, so I had to take things into my own hands. If no one else was going to give me an opportunity, I had to make one for myself.

It was never anticipated that our desktop Facebook software app came into being. Indeed, at the time of launch, we had the only Facebook messaging application for your desktop, which arguably influenced the development of rival products. There was a long list of projects considered, and a desktop Facebook software application was thought of as a precursor to raise enough money to start a different project I had in mind. As it turned out, I decided to stick with the Facebook messaging app for the longer term, developing it for other platforms such as the Blackberry and iPhone.

2. What unique need/niche do you fulfill?

At the time of development, there wasn’t a good solution to using Facebook chat on your desktop. I was finding that an increasing amount of my friends were shifting from using MSN Messenger to Facebook chat for instant messaging. As good as Facebook is, it's a very distracting environment. Keeping Facebook open on your browser makes it hard to focus on working on the task at hand – for example: work, your homework, or even shopping!

Chit Chat lets you passively stay connected to Facebook chat, letting you chat with people when you want to.

Due to the success of the desktop version, we recently launched our Facebook Blackberry chat version. Whilst Facebook has launched an official version of their chat app, it isn't very good at handling many conversations at once or customization.

3. How did you find vWorker? What obstacles did you run into that vWorker helped you solve?

Well, I found vWorker – back when it was RentACoder – through Planet Source Code. I used to (well, try to) tinker about with programming when I was younger. I remember a poll that was placed on Planet Source Code asking visitors about a concept that Ian had thought of regarding renting a programmer. Of course, as a poor teenage student at the time, I selected that I had no interest. How things change…

Simply put, I love using vWorker. I feel that it's important to use an outsourcing platform like vWorker in order to reduce the risk of project failure, ensure you're getting credible candidates for projects, and – when things do go wrong – there is an affordable (free) arbitration process in place ready to take care of things.

I find that vWorker is brilliant when it comes to the very beginning of a project (finding candidates) and at the very end (payment). Escrowing monies provides security to both the employer and the worker. vWorker helps me find credible candidates for each task that I have in mind, at affordable prices…and sometimes, more importantly, at short notice…for each aspect of my business.

So, whilst I started out entirely focused on programming, I soon moved into outsourcing marketing, research, and writing work on vWorker. So for example, I recently have been using LEdmiston to do press release writing for me, and I used Ayeshaahmed to do research on making our application more accessible to those with visual disabilities.

We use vWorker's recommended tool Assembla for management of the "development" side of most of our projects.

4. How has your business grown?

The business started off with a few hundred pounds (GBP). Two years later, we have a popular desktop version of our Facebook app and a Blackberry version. Furthermore, at the time of writing, we have an iPhone version and web messenger version about to be launched.

Put simply, vWorker helps you to get you're projects done.

Chit Chat's website currently gets over 14,000 unique visitors and over 10,000 downloads of our Facebook messaging application each day.

5. What advice do you have for others who are starting the same way you did?

Firstly, only risk as much as you can afford to lose, but also recognize that unless you pay "enough" for a project, that project will never come to fruition. At the end of the day, everyone has to make a living.

Secondly, developing for someone else's platform is a risky business – avoid it if possible. Develop for your own server.

Thirdly, everything takes much more time than you'd expect – ensure that you have workers commit to using Assembla, weekly reporting, and phased releases. A rogue worker can easily delay a project by months, so check, check, check that they're working on the project. If they're not, let go of them and get someone else.

Moreover, be both firm and fair – give credit where it's due – but equally, don't be afraid to drop someone or a team and enter arbitration if it's not working out. It's better to cut your losses.

You won't win every time – be prepared to lose small, to win bigger.

Make sure you get your programming done in the RIGHT language – ask several programmers about the pros and cons before you make your choice if you don't understand the difference. For example, I've seen firms start out with their sites entirely in flash, which is a bad idea if you want organic traffic from Google, as Google can't read flash.

Lastly, don't blow your entire budget on your website and/or programming – you will need money to market your solution. While some people are too frugal, some spend way more than they need to.

6. What is your favorite feature on vWorker?

Timecards – it's fairly new, and I run into a problem every now and again, but it has really has made it possible to turn project work into longer term work. It allows me to ensure that workers are accurately reporting their time worked and they are paid fairly for doing so.

7. What has been your experience in mediation/arbitration?

I've mostly had good experiences and been able to reach self-mediated solutions. When I say "good" I mean that in relative terms. This is because if I've outsourced a project, I generally want it finished and completed within the allotted time. I don't want my money back…I want the "deliverables".

Unfortunately, a sizeable proportion of projects end up in arbitration for whatever reason.

However, I did have one programmer whom provided a poorly written solution that just about met the specification but broke other things within the code. While he technically met the specification, his solution wasn't ethical, nor did it meet my needs. To describe the situation, he wanted more money for a proper solution he argued outside vWorker whilst placing the project into arbitration. I felt that he was trying to hold me for money as he'd seen I'd paid a bonus to workers in the past. In the end, when it came to the crunch, he fixed it properly for no additional money.

8. Do you have any tips/tricks/secrets about vWorker that you’ve learned that you’d like to share?

Yes, of course. At the outset, when reviewing workers, ensure they have relevant skills and experience that you require for your project. If you're outsourcing a large job, don't be afraid to ask them to take a relevant ExpertRating test, which vWorker provides for free.

Secondly, always ask the level of time that a worker can commit to a project – do they work full time, in their spare time, after work, or a couple of hours every other week? Then, ask yourself, does that matter to you and your project?

Thirdly, always create a legal agreement on a large project that prevents a worker from working on a rival project after they're done working with you. Consider also using a legal agreement (NDA) on smaller projects with access to confidential code.

Lastly, develop relationships with people – get to know which programmers are good at what, which marketers are good at what, etc. Knowing someone trustworthy that can do a job for you is better than finding someone new each time.

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

Great News for Indian Workers Using PayPal

2011-10-14T13:06:00.001-04:00

Attention Indian workers receiving payments via PayPal:

We are pleased to announce that PayPal has been notified by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that Indian PayPal accounts can now receive payments for goods and services up to USD 3000 per transaction (raised from USD 500 per transaction), effective immediately.

To comply with the RBI guidelines, you must add a Permanent Account Number (PAN), Purpose Code, and local bank account to your PayPal account in order to continue receiving export-related payments. Instructions on how to do this can be found here.

For workers who would like to receive more than $3000 per payment period, we are still offering the multiple payment option. If you would like to set up your account to receive multiple payments, please use the site feedback form to contact Finance and post the following:

"Hello, I have an Indian PayPal account and would like to try the multiple payment option. I understand that vWorker is doing this as an experiment and cannot guarantee this will work, or will work permanently. I also understand that the fixed price fee of $2 will be charged for each payment made.”

If you wish to update your payment settings now that this change has been made, you may do so by going to the "My pay options" page of your account.

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

Business Plan Competition

2011-09-25T16:17:00.004-04:00

vWorker CEO, Ian Ippolito, will be a judge at the University of Tampa Entrepreneurship Center's CREATE Business Plan Competition on September 30th, 2011 at 9:00am.
Entrpreneurs will present their 90 second pitch to the judges. The winners will be placed into a team with two business students (one with a background in finance/accounting and the other in marketing) and go through a 5 week boot camp of workshops on different parts of their business plan. After the boot camp, the teams will compete in a final competition. The first place team will receive $3,500, the second $1,500 and the third place $500. All teams will gain invaluable experience.

Click here for more information.

New payment method for workers in 230 countries: Payoneer transfers!

2011-09-02T11:20:00.001-04:00

Workers: Payoneer has rolled out a new payment service that pays via international banks transfers to 230 different countries! It's fast and convenient and unlike their debit card service, has no recurring monthly maintenance fee or withdrawal fee.

How much does it cost?

The base price is $14.95 (including both the Payoneer and vWorker fees) for most countries and $9.95 for a few selected countries (with cheaper processing costs). Currency conversion from U.S. dollars to certain local currencies is available for an extra fee (which is lower than most bank rates). Transfers that stay in U.S. dollars incur a small SWIFT transfer fee of 1% (up to a maximum of $10). Payoneer requires a minimum payment of $50 to use this method.

Is it available in my country (and what options do I have)?

To find out if it's available in your country, you will ultimately go to Payoneer.com. However, since this program is new, they have not yet updated their site with the information. So we have created a list of the countries and fees as of September 1st, 2011:

Click here for the excel version.
If you do not have excel, you can view this same list in Goole viewer format (which is a little more difficult to read). Click here for the google viewer version.

It's available for me! How do I set it up?

Note: you cannot complete the vWorker portion of this setup until the current payment period has ended (after September 7th at 11:59:59pm EST). This is because the current payment period has already started and billing changes are frozen. However, you can get the Payoneer.com portion rolling (which can take a while to setup if you are from a country requiring extended validation). Then you can come back to vWorker.com and complete that portion after the 7th.

If you have an existing Payoneer card:

Go to the Payoneer.com site and login with your vWorker registered Payoneer account. Look for the Worldwide Bank Transfer Service that is located under the prepaid card sign up. Select your country and you will be directed to the Local Bank transfers service sign up (that is the name of this new feature). Follow the instructions they give you.

Then after September 7th, go the vworker.com site and select Payoneer for your payment option (Go to 'my account', 'my registration settings' and 'my pay options' and then choose 'Payoneer').
If you do not have an existing Payoneer card:

You must wait until after this week's rollout of new code (currently scheduled for September 1st 11:59 p.m. EST). You'll be able to signup on Payoneer.com like this:

Go to 'my account', 'my registration settings' and 'my pay options' and then choose 'Payoneer'.
Click on 'details' to learn more.
Follow the site prompts. It will send you to Payoneer.com. Look for the Worldwide Bank Transfer Service that is located under the prepaid card sign up. Select your country and you will be directed to the Local Bank transfers service sign up (that is the name of this new feature). Follow the instructions they give you.

I'm from Pakistan. Is this method available for me?

Yes it is (via Swift in U.S. dollars). And we have not forgotten our Pakistani workers and are working on yet another payment method for them as well. We will have more details when it is available.

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© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

New Payoneer feature for 8 countries: Local Bank Transfer Service!

2011-08-22T21:07:00.002-04:00

Payoneer has announced a new Local Bank Tranfer service for 8 countries! The Payoneer Local Bank Transfer Service allows their users to receive their payments directly to their local bank accounts in their local currencies at a very competitive fee.

Currently this service is supported in Romania (RON and EUR), Hungary (HUF and EUR), Czech Republic (EUR), Canada (CAD) and Spain (EUR). Malaysia (MYR) and South Africa (ZAR) will follow shortly. In addition India is open for USD transfers.

Payoneer will constantly add more countries to this service over time.

How do I sign up?
To sign up your existing Payoneer card for this service, contact Payoneer customer service at: http://www.payoneer.com/contactUs.aspx

Local bank transfers service benefits

Faster than wire transfers and checks
Funds are loaded directly to your local bank account in your local currency
Cheaper than wires
One time setup of account details
No maintenance fees

Pricing
The price per transfer is $10.95 or $14.95 depending on the bank account country* ($5 vworker payment fee + $5.95 or $9.95 Payoneer fee). Minimum transfer amount is $50. Any smaller payments will be aggregated and once the total reaches the threshold of $50, the funds will be transferred to your bank account.
For more information or any questions, contact Payoneer support at: http://www.payoneer.com/contactUs.aspx

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

What is technical debt and why do I need to manage it?

2011-08-02T18:52:00.003-04:00

Have you ever been in this situation before? You have a project and at first your programmers make fantastic progress. You’re delighted and add on a bunch of new features. This time, you notice that progress slows down and they start missing a deadline here and there. But you know they are giving your project the same attention as before and working their hardest, and they delivered so well before. So you chalk it up to bad luck and ignore it, and give them some more features to do. This time, they take even longer than before and you get a little more worried, but decide to press on. The process repeats itself until progress finally slows down to a snail’s pace. You end up receiving you later releases horribly late…or not at all. You end up spending much more time, effort and money than you planned and are unhappy with the result.

What happened to you? After all, your programmers weren’t goofing off or not putting in enough hours. What happened is that you probably were a victim of technical debt. If so, you aren't alone. Gartner group estimates that the cost of current global technical debt is $500 billion and will reach $1 trillion in five years!

What is technical debt? Every time your programmer creates a new feature for you, they must choose between two ways to create it:

The "short-term fast" way:
This gets it done very quickly, but in a way that will be difficult for you/them to add features or fix bugs (perform code maintenance and enhancement) in the future.
The "short-term slow" way:
This gets it done much slower, but in way that will make it much faster to perform code maintenance and enhancement in the future.

You might think the "short-term fast" way would always be the best. However it rarely is. The "short-term fast" way is actually the long-term slowest and most expensive way, because:

Only 10-20% of the money and time you spend on any feature will be from the first release. 80-90% will actually be for maintenance and enhancements.
The later in the process you wait to do work on something, the more exponentially expensive it becomes to do it.

So every time your programmer chooses the "short-term fast" way, it costs you more in the long run. That is what technical debt is. You will not see it as an end user when they release it to you, because your software works the same regardless of how they build it. But inevitably you’ll pay it back when you try to add to the software or have to fix bugs. And you will for it back with increased time, money, effort and missed deadlines.

So if the "short-term slow" way is so much better, why would programmers ever choose to incur technical debt? There are a few reasons (one good, and the others not):

Good reason:
1. They understand that you need to get your first version to market as quickly as possible (perhaps to win funding). So they explain the choices to you and you choose to take on the technical debt for now. If you achieve your goal, you are fine with spending much of version 2 cleaning up the debt that you've accrued in version 1.
Bad reasons:

The programmer sees they are falling behind schedule and doesn’t want to miss the deadline so they take shortcuts to make up the time.
The programmer doesn't understand that there is a better way to implement a particular feature. So they unintentionally take on technical debt that they did not need to.
The programmer is too inexperienced to understand the trade-offs involved in technical debt and inadvertently takes it on without even considering it.

So how do you avoid this problem? Obviously you can’t rely on your programmer to announce, “I’m taking on technical debt, now!” when they themselves may not even realize it. And technical debt is very insidious because you can’t actually see it when you test the software (as an end-user). The software will look and works exactly the same way no matter how they build it (as long as they code it successfully). So testing won’t reveal it.

So what do you do? The way to determine when technical debt is occurring is called an inspection. If you are technical then you can do this yourself. If you are not (or are managing a project outside of your technical expertise) then you can hire a Tech Sherpa to do this for you. Doing so is like an investment and will save you far more than you spend.

Here’s what needs to be inspected:

Design/architecture inspections: After the design/architecture is completed, the documentation is reviewed. Technical debt is identified and either deemed an acceptable trade off or eliminated.
Code inspections: All code is reviewed (line by line) for technical debt. If you are using the spiral development method then this will occur right before or after each release to you. Again, technical debt is identified and either deemed an acceptable trade off or eliminated.

Managing technical debt does take time and effort. However it is an investment that pays back on itself many times over. On very small programs that you know will never grow into anything bigger, you may be able to safely ignore the issue of technical debt. But on medium to large sized projects, managing the debt is essential to completing the project on time and on budget.

Help my software project is a disaster!

2011-07-29T17:16:00.001-04:00

Q: The final deadline arrived and the end result is nothing like what I wanted and I've wasted all that time! What could I have done differently?

It's extremely rare for a software project to just suddenly go bad at the end. A project that fails catastrophically usually shows many warning signs throughout its life-time. If you are paying attention and managing your project correctly, you should never get to the very end of the project and be so horribly shocked.

The most important key is to touch base with your programmer as often as possible. Many new employers believe that once they give they've given the initial description to the programmer, their work is done. They expect they can relax while the programmer works, show up at the end of the process and pickup perfectly delivered software.

But this is not how software development works. The main reason is that with even the simplest contract, there are numerous ways to interpret the terms. To use an analogy: imagine you are hiring a contractor to "build the house of your dreams". You tell the contractor and he imagines this:

The contractor's interpretation of "the house of your dreams"
So he quotes you $300,000 for it and says he'll be done in 6 months. You think "Wow! This is the most amazing deal, and unbelievable! I'll take it!!" That's because in your head you are imagining this:

The actual "house of your dreams"
Obviously, there is going to be a huge problem! If you simply sign the contract and take a vacation for three months, you'll return to an enormous headache. Had you been checking in consistently with your contractor, you would have realized something was wrong the minute he started pouring a driveway instead of a reflecting pool!

Software development is the same way. You need to check-in on your programmer as often as possible to identify problem programmers early and resolve issues while they are still small and easy to fix. On pay-for-deliverables projects, you should be checking in every week at a minimum (and more often if the project is a short one). On pay-for-time, you should be checking their timecard daily, at first. Once you know for sure the project is on track, you can reduce the check-ins to every few days and eventually once a week.

When you check-in, don't just ask "How's it going"? You'll almost always hear back, "it's going great!" because the programmer doesn't want to disappoint you. This kind of check-in gives you no real clue as to how the project is really progressing. Instead you should be requiring the programmer to show you a live demonstration of what was completed since the last time. A great way to do this is using the sprial development method which is designed to give you the superior feedback of frequent demos. If your programmer says they can't demo something until the very end (on any project longer than a week), then that is a huge red flag. Explain to your programmer that you need them to perform in a more agile manner. If they won't, then strongly consider choosing another programmer that can.

All of this checking does require time and effort. So it is worth it? A study by Boehm and Papaccio found that getting a requirement right at the beginning of the process cost 50x to 200x less than doing it at the end. So if you want to cut your costs and reduce your chances of project failure significantly, then the answer is "yes".

But what if you don't have the time to check as often as you should? Or what if you don't know anything about programming and simply don't have the knowledge or ability to do it well? Are you doomed to a string of never-ending failures? Fortunately, the answer is "no". You can hire a Tech Sherpa to do the check-ins on your behalf. The Sherpa is an expert themselves in programming so they know what to look for. They can tell if a programmer is not going to work out, as well as sniff-out requirements issues and other problems early in the process. This lets you eliminate them before they become larger and more costly. A Sherpa does cost a little extra, but this investment will more than pay for itself in time and cost savings on your project. And the larger the project, the more the savings.

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

Employer How To's: How do I best choose the location of my worker?

2011-07-23T18:24:00.003-04:00

It's important to understand how the location of your worker affects the speed, qualify and cost of your project so you can choose the best location for your needs.

(Note: the names of the categories below assume you are an employer from the United States, since that's the country where most employers are from. However, the concepts are similar for employers in all countries.)

On-shore: (United States)
- Pros:
  - Time synchronization: You share the same time-zone, so they are working when you are working.
  - Communication: You share a common culture which makes communication of abstract concepts easier, quicker and more accurate. You are both native English speakers which minimizes the chance of delays due to language miscommunication.
  - Legal: Strong intellectual property laws and non-disclosure agreement protection mean that the worker cannot disclose your secrets without catastrophic consequences (i.e. enforceable IP laws). This allows you to give them confidential work.
- Cons:
  - Most expensive: $45 - $85 / hour
- When to use it:
  Ideal for your core business, your "secret sauce" and anything involving intellectual property that you need to keep secret. Also ideal for very complex or time sensitive projects where communication is critical.
Near-shore (Canada, Ireland, Philippines, South America, etc.)
- Pros and cons:
  Similar to on-shore, but with some additional cost savings. Prices are typically $25 - $45 / hour
Off-shore (Romania, India, Bulgaria, Pakistan, etc.)
- Pros:
  - Cost: Lowest and cheapest option. Typically $10 - $35 / hour
- Cons:
  - Legal: No enforceable intellectual property and non-disclosure agreement laws. As such a worker can resell or redistribute the work they do for you to others, and not suffer any legal consequences.
    
    However, this can sometimes be minimized by breaking larger projects up into smaller parts, so that no worker has the entire solution. (If you want to do this but are unsure, a Sherpa can do this for you for an hourly fee).
  - Different time zone: Much more difficult to coordinate with them because they are asleep when you are awake, and vice versa.
    
    However, many off-shore providers will work U.S. hours if requested. Also, some employers actually use this difference to their advantage by pairing an off-shore team with an on-shore/near-shore team, to do "round the clock development". This allows progress to be made at twice the speed.
  - Communication / English: Broken English and/or a different culture can cause project delays due to miscommunication.
    
    However, you can minimize this by vetting their English in advance and only using workers with English skills that will work for you.

On vWorker.com, you can view the location of every worker on their profile, so you can make the best choice for your situation. When you post a project, you can also chooose to limit bidding to workers in countries with certain economy types (emerging, mature or both).

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

vWorker Case Study 11: Jawad Shuaib (python_kiss)

2011-07-20T15:36:00.002-04:00

About this series:

vWorker has recently conducted case studies of successful employers and workers on the site. During the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing a new story each week; describing the story of how an employer was able to use vWorker to develop/enhance their business or how a worker is able to financially support themselves through the work earned on vWorker.

Jawad Shuaib:

Jawad Shuaib (screen name: python_kiss) is from Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada. Jawad had a very comfortable paying job as a software developer, but he wanted to be an entrepreneur and own his own company. Using vWorker contractors he created a website and a niche business selling cell phone accessories: BudgetElectronics.ca. Jawad's business grew quickly and he eventually left his day job to work completely for himself. The business continued to grow and now he also hires vWorker assistants to research and keep up with the latest industry develompents and news...so he doesn't have to anymore.

Jawad shared the following with us about his experiences on vWorker.

1. Describe your story. Why did you start your business?

Prior to starting my business, I was a software developer. I caught the entrepreneurial fever during the rise of Web 2.0 tech start-ups, such as YouTube, MySpace, and Twitter. All of a sudden, anyone with access to the internet could change the world. During this period, we also witnessed another great innovation: the rise of the smart phone. The trick to succeeding in business, as I saw it, was to combine a great product with the right market timing. I became keenly interested in making my mark in the mobile sphere, as the timing was just about right. So I left my job as a senior software developer to pursue an entrepreneurial dream.
I already had a comfortable job, so this was a challenging decision to make. However, I did not have to feel alone in my struggle, as I had the help of many talented contractors on vWorker. Together, they all helped shape and realize my goals into reality. After signing up, I immediately began employing any sort of help needed to grow the business—and that's exactly what happened.

There will be a market for products as long as there are wants. Certain market opportunities, however, ring better than others. The focus of our business is to serve cellular retailers in Canada by providing them accessories at wholesale prices. We see tremendous opportunity for growth in this fast paced industry. We found our niche to be accessories, such as cell phone covers, chargers, screen protectors, data cables, for the very latest handsets. This, however, also presented us the challenge of staying up with the latest news relating to our market. Assistants from vWorker have been integral in helping research the latest handsets and news so that we may serve products accordingly.

No one person can know everything—and that's certainly true for me. As a result, I used vWorker to hire people for print graphics, web development, search engine optimization, and research.

2. How did you find vWorker? What obstacles did you run into that vWorker helped you solve?

My career started out as a freelance developer, but I have always been interested in starting a business. My fervor for entrepreneurship was further fueled after having discovered the enormous pool of talent available on vWorker.

Most small businesses are undercapitalized and need to preserve overhead. Thanks to vWorker, we were able to hire amazing software developers, print graphic designers, marketers, and assistants, for very little cost. Our business today boasts its own Customer Management System (CMS), a great website, and professional print brochures. We were also able to get a lot of help in regards to search engine optimization—which ultimately helped us grow our customer base through organic traffic.

3. Who were your key virtual workers?

I have worked with many vWorkers over the last few years. The following are the ones I enjoyed working with the most, in terms of their cost, professionalism, and quality.

Software Developers:

Dev.pgmr
Bear Software
Volcan
Dan Kingston

Copywriters and Assistants:

Costrander08

Owais Siddiqui

4. How has your business grown?

Our business' website today is the number one listing on search engines for our keywords, and far better in quality than our competitors. We are able to serve cellular accessories in Toronto, and the rest of Canada, for the latest smart phones, far ahead of our competitors.

As a result, most of our sales leads come from the web now. None of this would have been possible without the hard work put in by professionals found on vWorker.

5. What advice do you have for others who are starting the same way you did?

Make sure you give your worker appropriate amounts of time—nearly all projects miss deadlines. Moreover, in order to succeed in any project, it is necessary to give clear guidelines and expectations. It is also useful to provide competent oversight. For example, it is always a good idea to let the software developers manage development projects, or get marketing professional to oversee marketing initiatives. Good management is integral in being successful over vWorker.

6. What is your favorite feature on vWorker?

Employee history and reviews are extremely useful on vWorker. This alone has saved me a ton time and money in terms of hiring good talent.

7. What has been your experience in mediation/arbitration?

Unfortunately, some projects do tend to go sour. In my case, the staff at vWorker has been extremely professional in terms of handling conflicts, resulting in the fair treatment of both employers and workers.

8. Do you have any tips/tricks/secrets about vWorker that you’ve learned that you’d like to share?

Reply timely and be nice to the workers. Both the employer and the worker are mutual partners in any business venture.

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

Advanced outsourcing: What is spiral development and how can it help me with my software project?

2011-07-14T21:18:00.033-04:00

(Note: This article was updated on July 19th. Before, the model below was nebulously described as "iterative development". Now it is more accurately described as "spiral development". Additional detailed information has also been added on the waterfall method as well.)

The traditional way of developing software results in a shockingly high failure rate of 75%. Agile development methods (such as the sprial method) were created to solve these problems and slash project failure rates dramatically. They also allow you to create your software much faster, cheaper, more accurately and with far less risk.

This article explains the differences between traditional and sprial development. It also talks about the most effective ways to achieve spiral benefits using vWorker.com.

(Note: if you're an employer who wants to take advantage of agile methods, but don't want to bother learning all the details, then consider hiring a Tech Sherpa. Sherpas are experts in advanced methodologies like this one, and will allow you to do this without lifting a finger).

The traditional method (waterfall model):
Traditionally, most software projects are done according to the "waterfall model". It's called this because the steps look like a waterfall:

To give an example: let's say you are creating the next Facebook. In the "requirements" stage, you create a complete document of the thousands of features you want the site to have. After taking a few weeks to do this, you move to the next stage in the waterfall: "design". When this happens, the requirements are locked and you cannot make any changes to them. This lock-down makes it much easier and quicker for the technical workers to their work (but as we'll see later is one of the main reasons this model results in software that is not acceptable to the end user). Theoretically, at the end, you should receive exactly what you wanted and are delighted. However in practice this rarely happens. A 2004 study found that 75% of projects following this method failed or were never used.

Entire books have been written on the many reasons why this model performs so poorly. Some of the biggest reasons are:

The myth that you can document all the true requirements in advance:

The waterfall model requires you to document your entire software project 100% accurately in advance. If you don't, then you will end up not getting what you want. This sounds reasonable in theory, but in practice it only works very small software projects. On anything larger, you'll find that:

You will simply forget to include some requirements. (No human being can design complex software 100% perfectly in advance).
Others you will remember to include, but will be misunderstood by the programmer due to miscommunication and will end up wrong.
Others will be perfectly communicated and perfectly implemented by the programmer. But when you see them live in the product, you'll realize they are wrong (should be done differently). Again, no human can visualize complex software 100% perfectly in advance.
Others will be perfectly communicated, implemented and still be correct...at the time you created the requirements. But due to business needs changing during the time of the development (which can weeks, months or longer), the needs changed and they are now wrong. (Here's a real-life example.)

The myth that your programmer can estimate 100% accurately:

Even if you create the requirements 100% correctly (which you can't) the programmer still will not be able to create an accurate estimate from it. Studies have found that time estimates (from otherwise excellent programmers) are too small by (on average) two to five times. The larger the project the larger the chance of underestimation. There are many reasons for this (which you can read more about here).

The important thing to understand is that your programmer will probably seriously underestimate how much work the project will take. This leads to many of the missed deadlines and slow project delivery problems of the water-fall method.

The above are just a few of the many reasons that waterfall method projects fail so often and consistently.

The spiral method:

To deal with the unacceptable failure rate of the waterfall method, newer methods have been created. These are called "agile" because they are nimble and quick. They have a much higher success rate and allow software to be developed much faster, cheaper and more accurately. A very effective one is called the "spiral method".

The spiral method, with an example of four iterations. This method results in much
faster, cheaper, more accurate software development with substantially less risk of project failure.

In the waterfall method, you wait months before you see the product live for the first time. With the spiral method you see live releases of your software much more frequently (often every week). And each release builds on and is an improvement on the last. Also, if your worker is not doing a good job, you'll know right away and can immediately switch to a better one (rather than having to wait until the very end). This method is called the "spiral method" because your software evolves larger and larger (like a spiral) with each release.

Here's how it works. You start by identifying the smallest possible core portion of your final product. Your programmer designs it and develops it. At the end of the week, you get to view and try out the live software and see how it works. At that point, you'e reach the end of the first "swirl" (which is caused an iteration). You may find some things that are wrong. If so, you tell the programmer and they go back to work. The next week, you receive your next release. If it's perfect, you now tell the programm to add on the next most important core features, and repeat the process. It will take several iterations to get everything right. But they happen so quickly, that this doesn't take a long time. And every release, you see more and more of your software, until it's finished.

Why is this a better way to create software? There are several reasons.

Extremely accurate final product:
The end result will actually be exactly the way you want it to be, instead of being incomplete or buggy.
Ability measure and accurately manage the project:
The spiral model lets you view/use the software after every iteration. Every week you will know:

If your worker did a good job or bad.
If your worker was fast or slow.
If the project was on schedule or late.
If the software was high quality or buggy.
If the software met your requirements or didn't.

If they are not doing a good job, you have the ability to recognize it early and switch to someone who will; instead of only knowing after they've wasted considerable amounts of your time and effort.

Less arguing; more working:
Workers in the waterfall method are in a mutually-opposed relationship with you. Every change to the software (whether caused by your missing requirements, or their misunderstanding of them or their under-estimation) costs them money. This often results in arguments over requirements, including needed changes. This can severely reduce worker productivity which results in slower progress. It can also cause you to have to constantly cycle through new programmers, which results in high turnover costs for you.
With the spiral method, changes become mutually-beneficial. Now, instead of getting into fights over changes, you can harness them for competitive advantage. This results in higher programmer productivity which increases the speed of your project and reduces your time to market. And by creating long-term relationships, you also greatly reduce your turnover costs.
Release to the public earlier:
Unlike the waterfall-method, you don't have to wait until the very end of the project to release to the public. Since you're forced to work on the most important features first, you'll find you get a feature-complete product for your target market much earlier in the process. Once you do, you can release it to the public and tweak it with further improvements. This lets you get to market sooner and may mean the difference between having the first-mover advantage and losing it.

To give a concrete example: If you are creating the next Facebook, the entire site will ultimately be hundreds of pages in size and encompass thousands of features. With the waterfall method you might take several weeks to lay all that out on paper. But with the spiral method, you don't. Instead, you identify the smallest possible core of the product. And after thinking about it, you realize it's the profile page with two things: the wall tab and the info tab. So you start with just that.

Now you need some workers. You post your project and hire a programmer and a user interface (UI) designer (unless you are already an experienced UI designer). You describe what you want the profile page and tabs to do to the UI designer and they create paper mockups. After a few attempts they look good to you. So the UI designer passes them on to your programmer, who codes them into a live site that you can then visit in your browser. Unlike the waterfall method, all of this is very quick. In about a week, you're actually viewing your live site with the core working!

Of course, once you see the working site, you'll realize it's not what you wanted. You'll see that you forgot some things, made some things too difficult and could do other things better. If you were using the waterfall method you'd be in trouble. But instead, you just tell the UI designer the changes you want and the process repeats itself. This time you might get a live release from the programmer in 3 days. It might be perfect this time; but if not you repeat the process until it is.

Then you take on the next most important feature, in the same way. Incrementally, but very quickly, your site takes shape. You are able to build your site faster, cheaper, more accurately and quicker than using the waterfall method.

What payment methods work best with agile/spiral development?

The standard pay-for-deliverables payment method requires the worker to place a fixed-price bid on your project at the very beginning. In order to do this, they need to know everything the project entails. This requires you to define your entire project up front, which is the main feature (and shortcoming) of the waterfall method. So this way of working is incompatible with the spiral / agile method. Pay-for-time, on the other hand, requires no up-front requirements document and pairs up well with spiral / agile development.

Some may be tempted to try to use a modified version of pay-for-deliverables on an spiral/agile project by doing a new pay-for-deliverables project for each iteration. This is possible to do. However, unless your project is very small, you will find that the increased overhead required to define each iteration completely in advance will negate the main benefits of spiral/agile development: which are speed, and reduced costs.

A much better idea is to use one of the hybrid methods ("Hybrid Payment Model" and "Hybrid Payment Model + Sherpa"). These methods give you the protection of pay-for-deliverables for the first few iterations when the worker is new and untested. Then once they've proven themselves, you switch to pay-for-time. This gives you and them more flexibility, reduces your vWorker.com costs by 40% and allows you to enjoy all of the previously mentioned benefits of spiral / agile development.

Employers: We want to tell your story!

2011-07-13T12:25:00.006-04:00

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Attention Employers: We are looking for more great stories from entrepreneurs on how you used vWorker to help launch your venture. We are looking to use these case studies to inspire non-technical entrepreneurs and show them that they too can get their website (or other venture) up and running using our services. If you have used the vWorker site to help launch your venture, we'd love to hear from you. Please send us an email via the site feedback form and include "I would like to provide an Employer case study" in the reply, and we will get back with you shortly. Thank you!

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

July 13, 2011: Upcoming changes to bidding!

2011-07-13T11:56:00.015-04:00

Image: nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Update 8/23/2011: This change has been rolled live and we'll post the official announcement about it tomorrow.

-------------------------

We've listened to your feedback and will be making two changes in the next release regarding bidding and escrowing. This will be live on the site soon (anticipated the middle week of August) and will be announced (as usual) on siteupdates.vworker.com.

1) Workers:

As many have requested, the vWorker fee will no longer be deducted from your worker bid. Instead, it will be added to the amount you bid.

That may sound confusing to some, so here is an example. With the current site: let's say you want to receive $85 on an open-aucution pay-for-deliverables project. You would not type in $85 as your bid, because the vWorker fee is deducted from it at the end, and you'd receive $85 - 15%...less than what you wanted. Instead, you would use the bidding calculator, and it would tell you to bid $100 ($85 + the vWorker fee). After we deducted our fee, you would receive the original $85 that you wanted. This is quite a bit of calculating work for you to do, for something that's fairly simple (especially when you have to do it over and over again).

After the change, it will be much easier. If you want to receive $85, you simply bid $85.  Behind the scenes, vWorker will add the vWorker fee to your bid and show that to the employer ($100 in the example above). So from the employer's point of view, it looks the same ($100 both before and after). But from your point of view, it's much easier. There will be no more calculating and no more guessing when you bid.  You simply receive what you bid: plain and simple.

2) Employers

From the point of view of an employer, there will not be much of a change. In the above example, the current site will show a bid of $100, and after the change, employers will still see a $100 bid. However, there will be an additional feature for employers that will potentially allow them to escrow less money than they currently do.

Currently, many employers do not take advantage of an easy way to reduce the fee on every project by 16%, by simply using something called a preferred payment discount.  When an employer pays via a cheaper method for us to process (check, wire, or ACH), we pass the savings on as a discount. You would expect a majority of employers to use this feature. However, with the current site bidding method, many employers don't really "see" it, and so never really think about the fee. As a result, few take the small extra effort required to use it.

However, after the change, the way the employer escrows will change slightly, and the preferred payment method will be able to be used to reduce the amount the employer needs to escrow.

Let's use the same example as above where the employer escrows $100. The new bid acceptance screen will give the employer two options:

a) Escrow the full $100 (for credit card and paypal)
b) Escrow $100 - the 16% preferred payment discount (for snail mail check, ACH, and wire)

So unlike currently, employers will actually be able to deposit *less* money up-front if they choose a preferred payment method!  In these tight economic times, that will be a welcome thing. And being able to see the benefit up-front will give many employers the extra incentive to take advantage of the preferred payment discount in the first place, and benefit from the savings.

3) Other

This next release will also have 20+ other new features, including the ability to respond to vWorker emails via email and other heavily requested items! Check out siteupdates.vworker.com for the latest information.

4) More information

Here is a preview of some of the new FAQ items regarding the bidding changes that will go out in the release:

44) How did bidding and the vWorker.com fee change in July of 2011?

Prior to July of 2011, bidding and the vWorker.com fee* worked like this (on an open-auction pay-for-deliverables project with 15% fee):

Worker wanted to be paid $85.
Using the bid calculator on the bid screen, the worker calculated that they should bid $100, to take into account the vWorker.com fee*. The worker bid $100.
Employer saw the bid as $100.
Employer selected the worker and escrowed $100.
Employer accepted the work as completed. Worker was credited with $85. vWorker.com was credited with $15.

After July of 2011, the same scenario works like this:

Worker wants to be paid $85.
On bid screen, the worker is instructed not to raise their bid for the vWorker.com fee* anymore, because we will do it for them instead. Worker bids $85.
Employer sees the bids as $100 (the vWorker.com fee* is now included at this point).
Employer selects the worker and escrows $100.
Employer accepts work as completed. Worker is credited with $85. vWorker.com is credited with $15.

In both scenarios, the employer pays the same amount, and both the worker and vWorker.com receive same the amount. However, after the change, it is much easier for the worker to place their bid, because they did not have to calculate the fee. And the entire project is much more likely to enjoy a 2.5% discount on the fee, from a preferred payment method. That’s because the discount was formerly not applied/noticeable until after the employer released the funds. And at that point, most employers probably didn’t even notice it was occurring. However, now the employer sees the effect of a discount during escrowing and it's very apparent that they can save significantly by paying this way. So this allows the entire project to be done cheaper.

*vWorker fee*:

This example uses 15% as an example, but in actuality, the percent ranges from 6.5% - 15%, depending on the type of project and method of payment.
Both “prior” and “after” the 15% fee is calculated as 15% of the entire escrowed amount (i.e. worker credit + fee). If you reverse-calculate this as a percent of the worker’s bid, the amount is 17.xx%

45) Has the vWorker.com fee gone up since the July of 2011 bidding change?
	No, it has not. For example: on an open auction, pay-for-deliverables project, it has been (and remains) 15% of the entire escrowed amount. In both scenarios, this percentage can be reverse-calculated as a percent of the worker’s bid at 17.65%. (Click here for more information on forward and reverse percentage calculations.) Note that this 15% is just an example fee used here. It can be reduced significantly by using a preferred payment method, a different payment method, or auction type. Click here for a list of all the possible reductions.
	Back to top

47) How did bonuses change after the bidding change in July of 2011
	Employers did not see any difference after this change. Before the change, they would post $100, we would subtract a 6.5% or 10% vWorker fee, and the worker would get the remainder. After the change, it works the same way.

vWorker Case Study 10: Naveed Baig (Hi Needz)

2011-07-07T17:08:00.005-04:00

Naveed Baig:

Naveed Baig

Naveed Baig (screen name: Hi Needz) is a graphic designer from Islamabad, Pakistan. Naveed has had a passion for graphic design since childhood. After graduating with a Bachelor Degree in Information Technology from PIMSAT Islamabad in 2005, he still knew he wanted to pursue a career in the design. He started out working IT jobs for various software houses, while gaining design skills in his spare time. Once he felt confident enough to work on his own, he resigned from his job and started working full-time on his own. Naveed has since completed over 400 projects on vWorker, including designing the logo for vWorker.com.

Naveed shared the following with us about his experiences working on vWorker.

1a. Why did you start working on vWorker? How did you find vWorker?

Designing and graphics has always been my passion since childhood. I received my first computer in 2001, and this was when my exploration in designing first started. Initially, the computer was a toy to me, where I explored Windows and Microsoft Paint. Since graphics were not as important then as they are today, I used it more for self-based experiments.

My first introduction into graphics was in Gif animations, and that was what attracted my attention. While I was in school, I visited a software mall and purchased a couple of Gif animation CDs. Unknowingly at the time, one of the CDs I bought was Adobe Photoshop 6. I wasn’t really aware of the setup process with software since I was still just a student at the time, but I installed Photoshop anyway. I started experimenting on it, and reading the help files from the CD itself, since dialup internet was way too costly and considered more of a luxury.

I started excelling in Photoshop gradually. I was soon then introduced to Macromedia Flash by one of my colleagues in school. Designing websites was my passion, and curiosity led me to consult my colleague once again to learn about HTML 4.0. I started to learn HTML as well, and by then, I started understanding the power of the web.

I graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Information Technology in 2005 from PIMSAT Islamabad. During my graduation process, I interned at one of the local software houses during the evening. This was where my scope broadened. I was lucky enough to work with professional gurus of Vector and Raster graphic designers.

I later joined 4-5 software houses, each offering different exposure and experiences…some bad, some good. I then took a customer support position for one of the local ISP companies in order to make ends meet, as my financial situation wasn’t great at the time. This wasn’t my field, but I continued to explore graphic design at home whenever I had time. I eventually became a night owl, finding that I work best at night.

Hi Needz Logo

Coming to vWorker (or freelancing work in general) was not my choice. In fact, it was my last resort for survival. IT in Pakistan has never really been in boom. It was here in small demand from 2000 until 2005. After the 9/11 incident, the demand started to decrease, and by the time I graduated college, the industry was barely surviving. Software houses were closing down, cutting employees. Wages were decreasing, yet the workload was increasing 10-fold. The industry still hasn’t improved in several years. An employee must have at least 5-7 specializations in order to be hired for a job.

So it was in 2007 when I was jobless for exactly a year. I wasn’t getting any employment and was surviving on the basis of local freelance work, which was barely enough to cover the cost of living. It was a really tough time for me. And since I had bad experiences working in software houses, I wasn’t willing at first to go for one of the few jobs they offered.

It was during local freelancing that I required a PHP programmer for one of my projects. Through a friend, I was referred to a freelance programmer. We became best friends, and he eventually introduced me to vWorker.

I joined vWorker in 2007, but never started working or placing bids at the time. I had no idea about working online like this, as to communicating and dealing online. I didn’t think I was competent enough to win projects over seasoned freelancers, so I caved in and joined one of the local software houses instead.

My schedule was tough; I had to work 10 hours a day and was badly facing a financial crisis. I soon realized that I wasn’t satisfied with the job I had accepted. As a graphic designer, I was not freely allowed to do things on my own, according to my own style. Rather, I was forced by my boss to implement designs that never actually went according to design rules. Since “the boss is always right”, I had a major issue of conflict. So I decided that I was going to pursue a career in freelancing, in order to work according to my own style.

I started learning and understanding the vWorker procedures and process in my spare time. Since I didn’t have a PC or internet at home (I had to sell my computer due to my financial crisis), I asked my boss to allow me to visit the office on Saturdays and Sundays to learn. My boss allowed me to do this, and I spent all day exploring and reading articles about freelancing. I read 100s of different articles regarding entrepreneurship, freelancing, tips, guides, etc. It was a hell of a learning process!

I eventually placed my first bid on vWorker, and although I lost my first 5-10 bids, I kept trying and eventually had a bid accepted. That was my turning point in life!

After that first bid acceptance, I completed another 25 projects, and started to receive lots of appraisals from employers. My portfolio started to build up, and my boss eventually offered me to join him as a partner. It was then that I felt confident enough to pursue a career as a freelancer, and I resigned from my job. It was a big risk and it paid off!

I bought a cheaper PC with internet connection, and started giving my full dedication to vWorker. As the business belonged solely to me, I worked very hard to achieve high results. I was my own boss; I had my own priorities; and most of all, I had my own style of work. I’ve gone from completing that first project to over 400 projects on vWorker.

vWorker logo designed by Hi Needz

I have since updated my requirements, purchased a new laptop, wireless internet connection, etc. I still get to learn new things, and I feel great!

1b. Are you able to find sufficient work through vWorker to support yourself, or do you also have a full-time job?

Yes, I’m able to find sufficient work now that I’ve established myself. Initially, winning projects was the hardest part of all…especially the first project. But as my ratings got higher, the percentage of project approvals also increased. At times, I now even cancel out of projects if I receive too many at once.

Even at this point, though, I can’t sit back and relax. I still improve my portfolio on a regular basis, apply efficient methods to win projects, experience new employers, etc. vWorker is my full time job right now, and luckily I’m supporting myself full fledge!

1c. Have you been able to form a company and hire others through the work completed on vWorker?

*Hi Needz* is in fact the company which I own. Currently, I am the CEO, as well as its only employee. A couple of months back, I did consider expanding by hiring some online workers (using the sub-account feature), but later changed my mind as I decided to keep running the company on my own. No one else will be as loyal as I am to Hi Needz. Secondly, clients expect the same level of quality as in my portfolio, so I cannot risk having other workers provide work that does not maintain this level of quality. I don’t want to lose clients that way.

Once I find a proficient worker that I can trust, I will surely expand my company using the sub-account feature.

2. What advice do you have for others who are starting the same way you did?

Very importantly, learn the ropes first. Gain some experience locally through software houses, and then jump into freelancing. Secondly, don't use shortcuts in learning and educating yourself. In fact, add hard work and honesty. Lastly, learn to be professional. Improve your skills and always be a mirror to yourself when dealing with clients.

Remember, time is money! BUT money is not everything!

3. What is your favorite feature on vWorker?

Every vWorker feature makes my favorite’s list, but the most important ones are:

1. Escrow payment process (I love this)
2. Secure money safety & transfer (I love this)
3. Sub-account feature
4. Unlimited # bids
5. No monthly / annual subscription fees
6. Most of all, prompt responses from the CEO himself

4. What has been your experience in mediation/arbitration?

Arbitration is the awesome feature that I always try to avoid. I initially used the feature frequently when I first joined vWorker, but I gradually now find myself rarely using it.

Arbitration has always been fair for both workers and employers. vWorker has arbitrators to keep an eye on things while the project is going on and make the right decisions. If a case gets complicated, the arbitration is transferred to a technical arbitrator.

The best part is that arbitration can be reopened if doubts arise. There are also no charges or fees for arbitration. I never feel like I am being discriminated by any means.

5. Do you have any tips/tricks/secrets about vWorker that you’ve learned that you’d like to share?

I will say that working on vWorker for any worker is like running their own business, so you should treat it as such. You are responsible for your right and wrong doing. Whatever you do will not make vWorker’s reputation bad; it will only affect your own reputation. So take care of your business and respect it. Try to flourish it and maintain your standard of work.

Also, a little secret: Explore the internet…you can learn a lot. :)

6. Do you have interesting stories about employers or projects you’ve completed that you’d like share?

Yes, of course. I worked with one employer last year, and after the project was completed, we gave our ratings and comments for each other. The employer gave me such a great tagline as appraisal that I made it my brand Identity:

If You Have Graphic Design Needz?
Then Don't Hesitate 1 Second To Hire Needz!

Subscribe to the vWorker Latest News Blog through RSS or email. Visit vWorker.com.
© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

vWorker Case Study 9: Mariano Iglesias and Claudia Mansilla (cricava)

2011-06-29T15:00:00.001-04:00

About this series:

vWorker has recently conducted case studies of successful employers and workers on the site. During the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing a new story each week; describing the story of how an employer was able to use vWorker to develop/enhance their business or how a worker is able to financially support themselves through the work earned on vWorker.

Mariano Iglesias and Claudia Mansilla (Co-founders of cricava):

Claudia Mansilla and Mariano Iglesias

Mariano Iglesias and Claudia Mansilla (screen name: cricava) began actively working on vWorker in 2005. They started by bidding on smaller projects in order to build a reputation. However, no matter the size of the project, they always tried to give their employers the VIP treatment they felt they deserved. This strategy paid off and they eventually started winning larger projects. With time, word of mouth recommendations and repeat business became their main source of income.

In May of 2010, five years later, Cricava reached the # spot in the vWorker "All Worker Competition", and ranked higher than the hundreds of thousands of other workers on the site. They have remained there ever since.

Mariano and Claudia shared the following with us about their experiences working on vWorker.

1. Why did you start working on vWorker? How did you find vWorker?

We found vWorker almost by accident by the end of 2003. Right after signing up, we found a local opportunity to start a venture, so our vWorker experience was put on hold. After two years of a great learning (and stressing) experience, we decided to remain a software boutique by moving away we from the larger company co-founded.

That was how, by early 2005, vWorker came into our horizon again. We realized it presented some great opportunities for us, so we started dedicating more and more time to bidding, until deciding to take the chance to make vWorker our only source of work. Each time we won a bid, we got new ones. Profitability came after some months, since the first few projects were relatively small in size, not so greatly paid, and required a lot of effort. However, we always went the extra mile, making sure not only the full scope of the project was met within the deadline, but also that each client felt our VIP treatment…a software boutique treatment.

The excellent feedback our clients left for us helped us find new bids, larger in size. Word of mouth recommendations started becoming our main source of income, with new clients joining vWorker just to work with us. By the end of 2005 we were already within the top 250 workers in the site. Exciting times were ahead of us.

With the increased exposure, and a considerable number of returning customers, the second year (2006) of our active participation in the site came to show us that not only we were able to become profitable, but also that within 12 months of continuous, non-stopping work, we kept climbing the charts. We finally reached the #1 spot by May, 2010.

The continuous flow of projects, invitations, and recommendations, presented us with a dilemma: should we grow as a company, or should we remain a small boutique? We decided to keep true to ourselves. The boutique service was and is what defines us.

2. What advice do you have for others who are starting the same way you did?

First and foremost, be patient. It is understandable that one may feel disappointed if the flow of projects is not what you would expect. But if you stay positive, deliver good work, stay within the deadlines, and most importantly maintain permanent communication with your customers, the workflow will increase. Be nice to the customer.

When bidding, make sure you read carefully the project specifications, and ask any questions if information is scarce. It is better to spend several messages by further defining the scope of the project, than risking your reputation. Assumptions lead to failure. Furthermore, several employers welcome questions, and get thrown off when copy-paste bids are placed in their projects. Show the employer you care about their project.

This is one advice you may not hear often: choose your employers. Even when you may feel compelled to accept any work that lies in front of you, particularly at the beginning of your vWorker career, beware of employers that may want to take advantage (by requesting free work, or a lot of work for a very low pay), or employers that may make you stay on endless projects because they can't determine the scope. Choosing your employers carefully may prove to be the most difficult, and rewarding task. Use your gut feeling; it is there for a reason.

3. What is your favorite feature on vWorker?

Arbitration. Hands down. There are so many things that could go wrong on a project (for either side) that having the proper protection in place, and one that is not automated, but carefully orchestrated, is definitely a safety net. Without arbitration, we would've probably never joined vWorker.

4. What has been your experience in mediation/arbitration?

We’ve had a handful of self mediations and arbitrations. We never lost one because we were careful to follow all of vWorker rules. By keeping communication logged in the site, we were able to prove all of our statements.

If there is one piece of advice we can give when a worker goes through these stressful proceedings, it is to stay nice. Not only to your arbitrator, but to your employer. Many workers lost arbitrations because they couldn't keep their temper. Good manners show professionalism, and professionalism goes a long way.

5. Do you have any tips/tricks/secrets about vWorker that you’ve learned that you’d like to share?

Keep a portfolio of projects, and keep it updated. You don't have to show every single project you ever worked on, but rather select your very best. If you don't have enough projects to showcase, consider building open source software, or doing pro-bono work for charities. That will not only help you build your portfolio, but will also expose you to potential customers.

6. Do you have interesting stories about employers or projects you’ve completed that you’d like share?

Plenty. Since we keep such a close relationship with our customers, our whole vWorker experience is an interesting story. We get to know most of our clients on a personal level, keeping in touch long after the completion of a project. Some of our clients even traveled thousands of kilometers just to meet us.

Every now and then a client will go the extra mile in return. As a result, we have been surprised by original gifts that were sent to our doorstep: boxes of Hawaiian chocolates (tasty); mugs with our names inscribed; invitations to jungle resorts, you name it!

Clearly, being nice pays off.

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© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

vWorker Case Study 8: Nir Caspi and Aaron George (AppVenturous)

2011-06-22T14:36:00.000-04:00

About this series:

Nir Caspi and Aaron George (Co-Owners of AppVenturous, LLC):

Nir Caspi

Nir and Aaron (screen name AppVenturous) graduated from the University of Arizona in 2009. They had both found full-time jobs after graduation, but were looking for a way to earn extra income on the side. They were both fascinated with their iPhones, and all of the games and apps available for download on the App Store. They knew they had to find a way to merge their passion for apps with a way to earn the extra income they needed. So they started by creating a few gaming apps of their own. They eventually began outsourcing the work on vWorker, and with time, were able to create their own company named AppVenturous. A year and a half later, they have been able to develop apps for multiple business clients, and also had one of their apps reach the App Store Top 25.

Nir and Aaron shared the following with us about their experiences on vWorker.

Aaron George

1a. Why did you start your business?

After graduating from the University of Arizona at ages 22 and 23, we started AppVenturous, LLC from the couch of our Scottsdale, AZ apartment. We both had iPhones and were constantly talking about the new games and apps we downloaded, and how much our phones have enhanced our lives. This led to us coming up with our own ideas for the next great apps. We were both also working full-time jobs at the time and wanted a way to make money on the side, with a minimal time investment. So we finally decided to feed our entrepreneurial spirit by creating apps of our own. We started out smaller than anyone could imagine…drawing our own graphics with Microsoft Paint and spending $100-$200 on development. Now, about a year and a half later, we have developed apps for multiple business clients, and we recently had our first app reach the App Store Top 25.

1b. What unique need/niche do you fulfill?

At the time we started, we knew that gaming apps were the most popular and were generating the most revenue in the App Store. Therefore, we started out by creating various simple and addicting games to simply act as time-killers for the average iPhone user. In addition to creating gaming apps, we have now branched out to various utility apps, as well.

2. How did you find vWorker? What obstacles did you run into that vWorker helped you solve?

We found out about vWorker through a blog we read about outsourcing app development. The two main obstacles that vWorker helped us solve was a lack of significant start-up capital, and of course, having zero coding and technical knowledge. Both obstacles were easily solved by vWorker by matching us up with workers that could bring our ideas to life, for a fraction of the cost of going through an American-based company.

3. Who were your key virtual workers?

We have done a lot of our work with Zanazan Systems.

4. How has your business grown?

Our business has grown tremendously over the last year and a half due to our ability to learn about the app industry, how to effectively use the vWorker site, and how to create projects by combining various workers that specialize in different areas. Our initial apps that were released did not even recoup their investment. However, one breaking point in our business was when, through an article in a prominent business journal, a company reached out to us about buying one of our apps. The sale of this app led us to be able to develop higher quality projects with better graphic design and functionality. Finally, after a year and a half in business, we had our first app reach the Top 25, and furthermore, it was ranked as high as #2 overall in the free app category. The ads in this app alone generated our highest revenue stream to date, earning several thousand dollars per week, and surpassing revenues from all our other apps combined. It is still doing very well, although it is no longer in the Top 25.

5. What advice do you have for others who are starting the same way you did?

Stick with it. Everything takes longer than expected. Starting a business is about the learning process and making mistakes that you learn from and improve upon. Even after our initial apps proved to be less than successful, especially for how high our hopes were, we continued to develop and create projects. We analyzed why these apps did not perform as well as we thought, and improved upon our mistakes by learning how to more effectively use the site to create higher-quality projects.

6. What is your favorite feature on vWorker?

Our favorite feature on vWorker is being able to receive bids from different workers all around the world, so that we can see roughly what any given project will cost us. With the model that the site has provided, workers compete for our business by promising better work for lower cost. In this way, we can ensure that we are getting the best possible deal, while still achieving optimal quality.

7. What has been your experience in mediation/arbitration?

We have had no problems in the arbitration process. There have been times when we received less than satisfactory work or projects that were not completed by the deadline, and vWorker always settled in our favor. The escrow process is fantastic and a perfect way to make sure both parties are getting what they are expecting.

8. Do you have any tips/tricks/secrets about vWorker that you’ve learned that you’d like to share?

A tip that we can offer is do not just accept the lowest bid on your project. It is true that you get what you pay for, and a worker will not be motivated to create high-quality work on a big project for a low cost. Sometimes, you have to go with a better worker with a better profile because spending a little more will pay off tremendously in the long run. Also, be generous and give bonuses if you are truly satisfied with the work. Treat your workers with respect and loyalty, and they will be more willing to provide you with higher quality work in the future.

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© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

vWorker Case Study 7: Nabeel Shahid (Grace Group(SEO xPERTS))

2011-06-15T17:06:00.005-04:00

Nabeel Shahid:

Nabeel Shahid (screen name: Grace Group(SEO xPERTS)) is a virtual worker from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Nabeel knew he was an entrepreneur at heart…he just didn’t know where to start. In 2009, Nabeel started on vWorker with a small web designing project. The small project eventually led to many others, and Nabeel was able to start up his own company. But after a few months, the company dissolved due to internal issues, and Nabeel feared his dreams were over. However, he didn't give up and decided to try again. Through hard work and dedication, Nabeel was eventually able to form a second company. Today that company has more than 200 projects in its portfolio, with assets of more than PKR 1M.
Nabeel shared the following with us about his experiences working on vWorker.

1a. Why did you start working on vWorker? How did you find vWorker?

It was always there…something kept me thinking for years, and I finally realized that it was the young entrepreneur inside me. A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. I started off with a small $50 web designing project with a friend in a small room, in February 2009. We decided to go with vWorker straight away. I knew that vWorker is the safest place because you don’t have to pay for a membership (like many other sites), and because you are in safe hands via the escrow and arbitration system that it offers. I was managing two jobs at that time; my evenings and nights were spent building up ‘Grace Group’. The energy and passion inside me never allowed me to settle for a routine task in office. I wanted to do something different…something which I enjoy, something which leads to success in all forms.

Things were pretty simple at first. Projects started coming frequently, as I was focusing not only on the quality of work, but my pricing structure was also very competitive. vWorker made my dreams come true. I felt like an entrepreneur while interacting with buyers and receiving payments. Everything was great; projects were coming easily, as I had a very good bid proposal for all sort of work we do. We kept our price low and worked hard for our reputation. I found vWorker really amazing. For the first few months, I was emailing the vWorker help desk on almost all issues I encountered, and the best part was that I always found the help desk staff made things easy for me. We were earning good money; things were smooth and I was dreaming $$. It just took 2 months, and Grace Group stopped operating due to internal issues of communication between the team. It was a terrible night for me. I saw my dreams dumped for no good reason, and I felt all alone that night. But I never stopped thinking…I kept on motivating myself. I never wanted anyone to know that Grace Group no longer existed. My current projects were sent into arbitration and our rating fell from 10 to 8.2.

One morning while I was on my way to the office, I decided not to quit. I promised that I wouldn’t let Grace Group be history. I made myself believe in what God has given me, and made myself realize that if I stand up from here, I will someday be one of the most successful people in this world. I remember I had tears in my eyes. So I started learning everything myself: I learned how to use Google and everything there is to know about 'SEO’. I took projects at very low cost, and worked hard day and night. I believed so many of our dreams seemed impossible at first. Then they seemed improbable. But they soon became inevitable, and I was able to form 'Grace Business Solutions'. I bought a new notebook, carried a BlackBerry, and had confidence in being the founder of GBS. The story doesn’t end here though; I completed 100 projects, made people aware of GBS, and made new friends and business partners. Today, GBS has more than 200 projects in its portfolio, with projects from all over the world. GBS accounts are managed by Muhammad Ahmed Quadri (USA), Sales Marketing & Solution Designing by me (UAE), and Operations by Yasir Hassan (Pakistan). Today, GBS has assets of more than PKR 1M.

For all young and new freelancers, my quote is: “If you are short of money, invest time.” For me, freelancing is an art. It starts with no money in your pocket, and allows you the freedom to build a company, provided you have a trustworthy middle man (vWorker).

1b. Are you able to find sufficient work through vWorker to support yourself, or do you also have a full-time job?

I think it’s pretty easy for you to get sufficient work at vWorker, if you have multiple skill sets. Moreover, since vWorker does not require any membership fees for workers, it’s a pretty fair competition among all workers. If you are competent, there is no reason you should get ignored by employers…keeping in mind that you take their project description seriously and prepare your bid/proposal accordingly. I have gone through almost all freelancing websites, and I find vWorker the best by all means. I have a full time job, but I am earning more by freelancing. That’s what surprises many people the most around me. So I call freelancing my full time job instead.

1c. Have you been able to form a company and hire others through the work completed on vWorker?

Yes, I formed Grace Business Solutions in 2010. Initially, I started off with a graphic designer and paid him a generous amount. Then I started working myself, and now only outsource the work to competent people around me, if required. I usually hire people whom I can meet and talk with in person, but my plans are to begin using vWorker’s “sub-account” feature in the near future, in order to expand my business globally.

2. What advice do you have for others who are starting the same way you did?

Don’t work for money; work hard for your reputation. Once employers know you via vWorker, the money will come to you.

I think freelancing is now strongly building up as a profession, rather than just as a source of income. In my opinion, a newbie worker should watch out for their reputation or improve their sales/marketing/communication skills in order to compete on a platform like vWorker, where you are competing with tons of experienced and professional freelancers. The vWorker platform provides a multicultural environment, so you have to change your way of communication in accordance to the employer’s behavior and demographics.

Workers here need to understand that it’s on us to make maximum use of such a great platform.

3. What is your favorite feature on vWorker?

The “screen name” option on vWorker. Branding yourself is also very important when we speak about freelancing, so this feature allows workers to describe their expertise.

My screen name “Grace Group(SEO xPERTS)” lets every employer know that I am a SEO expert and that is where my strength lies. So if I am a worker skilled in .Net Technologies, my name should be something along the lines of “XYZ .NET EXPERTS” or “ABC .NET TECH Guru”. Employers should not know you only by name, but also by your expertise.

In short, try to make use of every option available at vWorker. Don’t take projects for granted; work hard, make a reputation, and see your company/account on vWorker grow!

4. What has been your experience in mediation/arbitration?

I had my very first project sent into arbitration, but thanks to vWorker, I received my payment!

I won a project for $50.00 to develop a flash website. Things were going pretty well at first. I worked hard to complete the work on time and with good feedback. I feared that the employer might make use of my inexperience and attempt to fool me, and that’s exactly what happened. The employer told me that he was unable to login to vWorker and contacted me via email. Later, when I completed the website, he initiated arbitration claiming that I didn’t work well. I was not updating him on vWorker since he requested to communicate offsite, so everything was pointing against me. I didn’t know the website URL of the employer, but I managed to eventually find it by searching online. I noticed that the employer was using my design, so I communicated this to the arbitrator. The vWorker arbitrator took immediate action against the employer, and released my payment.

5. Do you have any tips/tricks/secrets about vWorker that you’ve learned that you’d like to share?

Tips:

Whenever I win a project, I review what the other workers bid on the project to see if my bid is among the average cost. If my bid was above the average cost, I go through my proposal and try to figure out why the employer decided on me (so I know what to do again in the future). If I see that my bid fell below the average cost, I fear that I may have misunderstood something, so I rush to read the project description once again. If I still have these fears after reviewing the project description, I contact the employer immediately to resolve any ambiguity. This helps to clarify everything immediately, so I am able to cancel the project using the 24 hour grace period if I have misunderstood one or more of the requirements.

This also helps you to figure out the market trends. When you see many bidders with positive feedback and experience bidding around the same as you, you are reassured that you have bid according to market rates.

When I win a project, I also read the employer’s profile, feedback from workers, and the employer’s feedback on workers they’ve hired, in order to get a true picture of the employer I will be working for. This lets me know what makes them feel good about the worker, and also shows me how they treat their workers.

Tricks:

1) When I feel that a certain project is exactly meeting my expertise, and I feel I can easily work on the project, I read the employer’s profile to see if I can find any worker’s feedback that contains the employer’s name. (It is there most of the time.) I note it and include their name in my proposal, instead of using pronouns. This surprises the employer, and hence I increase my chance of winning. (This is something that works in our day-to-day lives as well.)

2) After I win a project, I review my competitors’ prices for that particular project to get an idea of what others are quoting. I have maintained a list of workers who have approximately the same completed projects as me, as well as another list of some market leaders with their pricing structures. This helps to cross check the win ratio of your competitors. I usually cross check once a month to see how many projects my competitors have done.

3) Make a habit of writing your employer at least once a day. Even if you just post to tell them that you are working, it helps. Employers usually stay cool and calm when they see an email arriving daily in their inbox.

4) Make a list of your favorite completed projects. Then after a month or two of completing a project, go to the private messages on the project and write a note to the employer. Ask them if everything is working fine, and if you can help them further, or if they have any new projects for you.

6. Do you have interesting stories about employers or projects you’ve completed that you’d like share?

It was back in October 2009 when I won a project for a rental villa website in the St. John region. It was my first SEO project for a Joomla based website, so I made sure to work really hard on it. The employer was very friendly, and soon we became good friends. During the second week of project, the employer asked me if I was willing to complete other similar projects, and of course my answer was yes. He also told me that he told his friends about me, and they also wanted SEO for their websites. This was great news for me, and I immediately started a blog with a vWorker affiliate link on it. I asked my employer to tell his friends to visit my website, and click on the widget to post a project directly on vWorker. This worked great, and I started getting queries almost every day. The experience was amazing. I stopped bidding on new projects, as I was heavily loaded with direct projects (another great feature of vWorker, which helps workers get repeat business from their favorite employers).

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© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.

What are the designer and employer responsibilities on design projects?

2011-06-13T16:37:00.002-04:00

Have you ever wondered what the proper responsibilities of a designer and employer are in a design project?

We’ve seen tens of thousands of successful design projects, and unfortunately also seen thousands of unsuccessful ones. They key to success is making sure that each party understands and performs their responsibilities properly. Here are the vital ones that we’ve found are crucial for project success:

Designer Responsibilities
a) Providing a reasonable # of iterations...generally 3. (If they don't do this they are not doing an acceptable level of work to fulfill the contract)
b) Following all specific employer instructions as to what they want in those iterations. (If they don't follow specific instructions, they are not behaving competently)
c) Creating work that is of the same quality as in their sample. (if they do not do this, they are defrauding the employer and may be ejected from the site)
d) Giving a reasonable # of choices to the employer in each iteration...if appropriate. (If they do not do this they are not doing an acceptable level of creative design work to fulfill the contract)
-) Bonus points are given for a designer that also makes suggestions.

Employer responsibilities
e) Asking the worker for past samples before choosing them so that they have a reasonable expectation of the end result. (If they don't do this, then they have no right to complain about the quality of the final work)
f) Providing specific instructions to a worker on what they want, when the worker requests it. (If they don't do this, the designer has no way of knowing what they want and fulfilling their expectations).
g) Not backtracking (changing their mind) after the worker does what they want...unless they are willing to award the worker more time/money (and the worker is willing to accept it). (If they backtrack without more time and money they are expanding the scope beyond what they both agreed to when the worker bid...which unfairly attempts to make the worker do more work than agreed to).
h) Limiting iterations to a reasonable #...generally 3. (same as g)

If a dispute arises, we use this list as a crucial part of determining which party is at fault. So that makes it doubly important to know and understand.

We hope this is helpful to you. If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to let us know below.

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© 2001-2011 Exhedra Solutions, Inc.