Nearly a month since we last wrote to you, and we’re stoked to say we’ve cracked 1000+ users. A massive thanks to every one of you for jumping on board and backing what we’re building.
This is a long road, taking on the big gig platforms like Upwork and the pull of offshoring, but the vision hasn’t changed: bring more of that quality work back home to you all.
We’ve more than doubled the number of freelancers on the platform in the last fortnight, everyone from cracking illustrators to serious developers. And we’ve been flat out: listening to your feedback, squashing bugs, prepping features and getting a few exciting things ready to show you.
Let's get into it.
We’re after a hand ourselves
We’ve posted a couple of gigs of our own, and we’d love a local for each:
- Social & Content Lead (Entry Level). Sydney, 2 days a week, ongoing. We need help telling our story. Have a look at the gig.
- Full-Stack Developer. Sydney, full-time. This one's not on the platform, so give us a shout on Instagram or LinkedIn.
If that’s you, or someone you rate, pop in a bid.
Something on our minds: sparse business profiles vs frictionless posting
We wanted to open the lid a bit on what we’re actually solving day to day. There’s plenty, but here’s one that’s front of mind for us right now.
On the business side, we’re seeing profiles left a bit bare, and the odd gig posted then left sitting while the business goes quiet, which leaves some of you hanging on a bid. On the freelancer side we ask a lot up front (ABN and more), but we’ve deliberately kept the business side lighter to take the friction out of posting, then leaned on notifications, emails and prompts to nudge them into filling out the detail.
The trade-off is the occasional half-baked gig, and us chasing businesses down to reply to your bids. We’re watching it closely. If it keeps happening we’ll add a few more hoops before a business can post. The other fix is getting notifications in front of businesses faster, which is where the app comes in (more on that below).
Your call: bidding transparency
Back on the 23rd of August we sent a survey asking how you felt about bidding transparency, and you gave us loads to work with. Cheers for that.
The verdict: most of you like the open gig process. It helps you learn the ropes, work out how to bid well on a platform that’s still new, and it leads to better outcomes for the businesses posting. That said, it’s a balance, and it leaves some of you hesitating.
So we made one tweak plenty of you have already picked up: the private bid. It hides your name and profile from the public gig view while still letting the business see exactly who you are. Worth knowing though, it also hides you from businesses browsing gigs who might otherwise spot your profile and come to you for a direct quote. So there’s still an upside to keeping it public.
As always, this isn’t final. We’ll keep tweaking as we learn. For now, we watch and listen.
Quick one: the launch video
We posted this gig a couple of weeks ago and we’re well underway. Big thanks to Seb, our Brisbane freelancer, for the ripper work on our launch video so far.
Direct quoting (live)
Direct quoting is now live. Businesses can reach out to freelancers individually through our marketing site, go straight to a freelancer they’ve saved to their roster, or find them through search (coming soon).
Search is still behind the scenes for now. Once it’s live, businesses will be able to find exactly who they need and ask for a direct quote. Fuller, more verified profiles get shown first, so it pays to fill yours out.
Freelancer dashboard (live)
v1.0 of the freelancer dashboard is here. We wanted one simple view: the gigs that matter to you, how complete your profile is, and any news worth knowing.
The idea is a home base you come back to, somewhere to track your work, your bids and what you’ve got on. It also shows profile completeness and verification, and as mentioned, those two are part of how we rank freelancers. One of the core parts of our platform is helping Aussie small and medium businesses safely pick a local freelancer.
You can also invite other freelancers and businesses to Unjumble straight from here. The dream is an Unjumble workspace freelancers actually want to bring their businesses into.
Roster (live)
Businesses can now add you to their roster with a tap of a button or a shared link, so the ones who like your work can come straight back to you. A similar feature for freelancers is coming soon.
An app (incoming)
Listening to businesses and freelancers in the middle of a gig, keeping on top of everything through email notifications can be a pain.
So we’ve been heads-down getting an app up and live. To start with it’ll be simple: keep track of your current gig workflows, chat, and portfolio and profile updates. Somewhere to stay across your work on the go, a bit like Teams. We’re just waiting on Apple to approve. The full set of features lands in v2.0.
More that’s been happening
- Shifted from .com to .com.au (which has hammered our SEO in the short term, but it'll come back stronger).
- View freelancer profiles straight from the marketing site (example: Sydney, Graphic Designers).
- LinkedIn connection, another optional verification step, with more of these to come.
- Added admin tools our end to flag, hide and remove dodgy-looking gigs.
- Businesses can now sign off stages whenever they're ready. Previously a freelancer had to submit a stage before it could be approved.
- Added a pause account option for anyone who wants to step back and pick things up later.
Bugs and fixes
- Password reset emails now come from our own domain instead of Firebase.
- Fixed a noisy bug where the daily unread email counted every notification, not just unread chats. It sticks to chats now.
- When a payment hits a snag, the right person hears about it, with advice that matches what actually went wrong.
- Tapping an option in one of our emails now lands you on a thank you, not a sign-in screen.
- The new-bid email now points you at booking a quick chat, not just reviewing the bid.
- A few footer links were pointing at the wrong place. Straightened out.
What’s to come
- A big new partnership launching next week, keep an eye out.
- The app (likely next week, pending Apple's approval timelines).
- More paid marketing pushing Aussie businesses to post gigs.
- The Unjumble launch video.
- And more.
Have a play, and keep the brutal feedback coming. It’s exactly what’s making Unjumble better.
Cheers,
Zac from Unjumble
