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Check out SpareHire
Interesting site - you ever won a gig on there? What was the experience like?
I didn't use that website, but tried another and found it to be ultra-competitive and harder to generate recurring business than I anticipated.
There were three things working against me, on the site I was using:
1) I'm a full-time banker and only intended to use this for extra cash during downtime, meaning my windows of opportunity were limited and I couldn't commit to projects with significant hour requirements unless the time constraints were flexible.
2) Adding on to point #1, in order to win business, the more proven experience and high reviews you have, the more likely you are to be selected for the best projects. Given that I was not nearly as active as someone that was freelancing full-time, they typically had a much better chance of landing bids, all other things being equal. The differentiation in experience and education is minimal, so the party seeking a freelancer is always going to choose the one with the most positive feedback, particularly because it demonstrates their ability to effectively complete projects in a freelance context and interact remotely.
3) The prices were not set by the party seeking help, but rather by those that were seeking to provide it, based on a description of the situation. Thus, for smaller jobs (ones that I was mostly targeting), you could be undercut 50%+ by people in SE Asia + India.
The good news is that SpareHire restricts that, similar to Toptal (another you should look into). Both have rigorous recruiting processes and ensure that their people actually have real world experience. The clients also tend to be less price sensitive. That being said, you'll still be going up against multiple people that have more experience on the platform.
Just some food for thought...
That's what I garnered as well, it's competitive: some IB bankers claim to have 6-10 yrs experience, then you also have the India component - they'll work for $10-15 per hour with an MBA.
A great idea would be to bid on multiple gigs, at >$100 per hour and outsource to India for $10-15 lol - pyramid scheme!
2 questions:
Which website was it you tried using?
Are you still looking for the odd gig? I am currently tryin to find someone decent to do some equity resarch, mainly qualitative analysis focused (industry drivers, company analysis/drivers, catalysts/earnings upside, downside protection/moats...) not fussed on modelling or valuations but thats the easyer bit anyway.
bump
Successful freelance career - Top MBA - IB? (Originally Posted: 04/26/2016)
Hi - TIA for any advice!
I graduated college in 2011, from an internationally top music school. I started working freelance in the music industry, developed a couple of business ideas on my own (in and out of music), and without getting into too many details, the ones that picked up have thankfully led me to an interesting freelance career in which I now make 100-200K in the NYC area. I only mention my relative success because generally most people working "freelance" I assume are unsuccessful..don't want to come off as pretentious.
Considering I don't have any non-freelance work experience at all - assuming a 3.5-3.6 GPA and a near-perfect gmat score, for argument's sake - would a top MBA and being recruited from there for an IB associate position be possible?
Truthfully, I've always been extremely interested in finance, I've taken classes/informal study in finance/econ/acc and have made great returns in the stock market on value investments over the past 5 years...but this is the closest anything I do comes to finance..hopefully would help to tell an overarching story..
Thanks so much for any advice!!
You have a good story, you should be able to play it up in your essays and make it to Stern or Columbia and recruit for IB.
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