How oDesk Runs Its Business On The Cheap

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San Francisco Entrepreneur Group

Gary Swart, CEOwww.odesk.com [email protected] April 2009

How we run our business on the cheap

http://www.odesk.com/



Agenda

What is oDesk?

What makes oDesk unique?

What’s different today?

5 ways to run your business on the cheap

1. Use free or low cost tools2. Avoid high cost marketing3. Leverage the extended enterprise4. Here the right resources, the right way5. Prioritize ruthlessly



What is oDesk?oDesk is the marketplace for online workteams, with the best business model for both buyers and providers

– For Buyers: Guaranteed workEvery hour billed is an hour worked

– For Providers: Guaranteed paymentEvery hour worked is an hour paid

Background 25 Employees, 43 remote

oDesk consultants

HQ in Menlo Park, CA

Funded by Benchmark, Sigma, Globespan, & DAG raised $29MM to date ($16MM in the bank)

Started in 2004

Where are we today? Over 237,000 tested and rated knowledge

workers representing hundreds of technical disciplines & skills

Both individual freelancers and development companies from 150+ countries

Buyers post both Time-Based assignments and Fixed Price Jobs

Buyers pay for verified hours worked or for milestones delivered

Avg. time to hire is <4 days; Avg. # candidates per job is >20

Over $68MM in gross services performed….Over $68MM in gross services performed….



What is oDesk?

Average Job Size of $4,227Work categories include software development, web development, graphic design, data entry and writingSummary statistics available in our oConomy

Hire, Manage, and Pay contractors as if they were in your own officeDo more with lessAccess a global client base and talent poolBe Agile

See http://www.odesk.com/community/oConomy

http://www.odesk.com/community/oConomy

http://www.odesk.com/community/oConomy



What makes oDesk unique?

See work as it is being done

Pay only for verified work done on your

project

Unprecedented real-time

visibility across the team

Activity Logging shows keyboard strokes and mouse events in each

random screen shot interval

“oDesk is a great way to make it feel like an employee who is across an ocean is working inside your local office” -oDesk Buyer

Guaranteed Work. Guaranteed Payment.



Hierarchy Friction Bureaucracy Inflexibility IT-driven technology / Lack of user control Top down Centralized Teams are in one building / one time zone Silos and boundaries Need to know Information systems are structured and dictated Taxonomies Overly complex Closed/ proprietary standards Scheduled Long time-to-market cycles

What is different today?

Flat Organization Ease of Organization Flow Agility Flexibility User-driven technology Bottom up Distributed Teams are global Fuzzy boundaries, open borders Transparency Information systems are emergent Folksonomies Simple Open On Demand Short time-to-market cycles

Enterprise 1.0 Enterprise 2.0



5 ways we run our business on the cheap



1. Use free or low cost toolsWe use it for… We like it because…

Mail, Docs, Wiki WYSIWYG

Blogs Communication

Hiring On-demand, Quality

Community Slick, Free

Collaboration Scalable, Free

Voice, chat, webcasts

Scalable, Free

Accounting WYSIWIG

CRMCustomizable Dashboards

RSS Real-time Updates

Support Web-based, Free



2. Avoid high-cost marketing

Harvest demand before creating demand– Search – SEO and SEM– SMM (blogging, Twitter, Facebook)

Make your product easy to buy

Leverage your customers/users to get the word out

Share whenever you can - e.g., oConomy, blog, speak at events ;-)



3. Leverage the “extended enterprise”

Product roadmap informed by user input

User support and training provided in user forums

Enhanced functionality developed by third-parties using your APIs

Quick growth and scaling of an eco-system across multiple geographies by Partners/Distributors



See http://www.odesk.com/w/case_study_odesk

4. Hire the right resources, the right way

http://www.odesk.com/w/case_study_odesk

http://www.odesk.com/w/case_study_odesk



5. Prioritize ruthlessly

Test and learn

Cut what’s not working

Be the best solution to at least one problem



Thank you!

Gary Swart, CEOwww.odesk.com [email protected]

http://www.odesk.com/