How do I ensure you are properly paid?
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A little more than two years ago I had to keep an old web site active (the publisher was a friend who had just passed away) while I had a new and dramatically updated version built from scratch. I felt that http://guru.com was the perfect place to find the wildly-varied skill set(s) i needed in essentially one person. Without spending a great deal of time describing the entire project suffice it to say I was not surprised the despite the incredible talent I was looking for all rolled into one, sure enough within 12 hours of my friend's death, I had a 15yr-old-FrontPage site connected to a Dreamweaver custom-template front end that held the site together while we constructed an entire new Joomla site. It still lives and is called http://TheOnlineFisherman.com. The question I have is how do I know you got paid? I hired this guy, and my partner and I used him for almost a year to manage the Joomla site. Eventually we needed a full-time hire more localized (we are in Florida on the Gulf Coast and he was in Arizona) and now have a full-time IT staff of two. The first job I gave him was a four-six hour job that he might have made $250 on. I didn't expect him to give you a percentage of his earning in perpetuity, but I did bring up you getting paid and he ensured me that he had taken care of it. Over the past couple of years I have put up a number of projects that for one reason or another never got done, or I hired local talent after not being overjoyed with comparitive choices in the Florida space. But that one project was one I ultimately paid some 16,000 for. Again, I did not expect you to get a percentage of the entire project, because I hired him for one thing, and then kept feeding him one task at a time. I do know that our accountant filed a 1099 for his 2011 tax returns. Anyway, I do not see the project here in the list of projects I have posted. It was two years ago, and I do not remember what I called the project. I do know the guy's name if you want it. I am not trying to get him in trouble, and he was a very honest Christian man so I am sure he did the right thing and got you paid on that first project at least. And thanks for what folks do. I loved it the first time i saw it and still think it is brilliant.
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Hi Gary, I'm not sure that I understand the question fully, but are you asking if Guru was compensated for the continued work your freelancer received? If so, the answer is yes. With all projects, the fees are collected as part of the payment. It's one transaction so the freelancer doesn't have to do any of the calculations. You might think it unfair in some way to attach a fee to continued work, but it's really not. As a company, Guru is offering both sides the built-in communication system (PM system), a file upload space, access to a vast pool of skilled workers for the employer, and some security when paying via the Safepay Escrow service. They have a mechanism there for when things go wrong, which on occasion they do. There are staff to investigate and sort it all out, which is a very good thing. They take care of the stress so you don't have to. In many cases, we freelancers will quote for our work including the Guru service fees. Rest assured, if the gentleman you worked with didn't feel that he was being fairly compensated, he would have either raised the issue with you after establishing the relationship via his satisfactory work, or he would have perhaps ended the relationship. Anyone skilled and intelligent enough to do the work you required, is certainly going to be savvy enough to look out for his own best interests. HTH :)
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