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Crew 2.0 — The future of creative work
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Thereš just one thing i don't understand behind all these "so called" future of hiring cause it seems to be like odesk but personalised right ?
What difference does it make ? because its hella expensive ?
@uxdzen Hey thanks for the comment Hassan! Yes, personalization is one thing. The other big things are:
1. The quality of the curation we do upfront for both projects and members. We turn away about 70% of projects and we accept about 1% of professionals that apply based a variety of variables like responsiveness, etc..
2. Real-time budget estimators based on data from 20,000+ projects so you know how much something costs upfront.
3. (Almost) automated project management. In Crew, your guided through from idea to completion with a mix of 'smart' messages that tell you what's next every step of the way based on your project. Because our product is not as smart as we'd like it to be yet, you also have constant access to your Happiness Concierge. And in case anything happens, we also offer Project Protection: https://crew.co/project-protection
The main thing is does this all add up to good results in the end? As you mentioned, there are sites that claim to help you find a talented designer or developer or freelancer. And produce good results in the end. But we don't know if all deliver on that promise.
What we do know is from the thousands of projects completed on Crew, our average customer review is 91% positive. Products made on Crew have been featured 100+ times in the App Store, have been the #1 trending search in the App Store (http://backstage.crew.co/compani...), have gone on to raise $20 million+ in funding, and featured on stage at an Apple Keynote event (http://backstage.crew.co/crew-ap...).
To me this is the big difference. Can you design a full system that consistently results in high quality work that people are happy about.
Thanks again for checking it out Hassan :)
@ramykhuffash Hey Ramy!
Major things in this release:
1. Real-time everything. No more email. No more forms. Real-time chat with our Happiness team, real-time chat with the collaborators on your project. Since launching real-time chat, the time it’s taken to start a project has plummeted from 48 hours to less than fifteen minutes.
2. A smarter Crewbot. She’s been there for years but hasn't been that smart. If you start a project today, you’ll be greeted by our friendly Crewbot, who’ll ask a few questions about your project. She’ll then introduce you to one of our (human) Happiness team members, who’ll take you from there.
3. Access to a Happiness Concierge during your entire project. From the minute you submit your project, to the minute you deploy it for the world to see, you’ll be guided along by your very own Happiness Concierge and have real-time access to your Happiness Concierge right from your project page.
4. Search. Looking for an old message? The Crew FAQ? Your project agreement? Specs? Drafts? A wireframe, perchance? Quickly locate any project detail, no matter how old or obscure.
Thanks Ramy :)
Congrats on the launch!
@mikaelcho, I had a few questions about Crew:
1. How much on average Crew members make per year?
2. Do people usually work full-time or part-time?
@uvarovdd @mikaelcho Interested in those questions as well. I'll add a third: Is client/freelancer communication mostly done via the crew app (which is now chat, I assume). Or do clients still mostly expect to skype/voice call to have meetings etc.
@uvarovdd hey Ivan! Thanks for the questions. 1) Avg. amount Crew members make is $18k/yr. 2) about 40% of our members use Crew as their sole/primary source of work. 15% of our members earn $50k+ through us.
We work with each accepted member to try and give them the desired amount of work they want. This is why membership is invite-only so we can ensure there's a consistent level of work for all members.
Does Crew just provide referrals for designers & developers? (i.e. what about strategists, information architects, UXers, copywriters, editors, etc?)
If you want something similar, especially for a long term project, you should also check out Squads (https://bit.ly/kitze-squads) :)
There's a gradual progression towards more project-based team structures, freelancers, etc., inspiring (beautifully designed) apps/websites to connect projects & designers/developers, but hardly any of these include writers for some reason. Copy is a pretty important aspect of design/UI, yet copywriters are usually left to lower-tier resources (helllooo, $5 blog posts).
Do you plan on expanding your definition of "creative work"?
@krisryanwhite hey Kris! Yes 100% agree. Writing is so important yet it's often an afterthought. Coincidently, I just wrote about this topic: "Authenticity vs. Beauty: Why you don't need design like Apple" http://crew.cm/1rx3psp
We expect to offer writing and other types of creative services in the near future.
.@mikaelcho This looks great, but what happens when a project is completed, but then requires future development such as updates, new features, bug fixes etc? Would the project owner be left stranded to find another developer somewhere else for updates? Or would they have to create another project? How does that work?
@stephenmarklevi Hey Stephen! Thanks for the question. You can add an option in the original project scope for future development so you can work with the same developer/designer. If needed, we also can find another one of our members to take over a project that requires future updates. Does that help? Thanks again Stephen :)
I found a particularly disturbing review of Crew that's given me second doubt about whether to move forward with you guys. Could you shed light on this situation? http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/CR...
@stephenmarklevi Hmmm, thanks for sharing this with me. I'm checking with our team on what the situation was here.
@stephenmarklevi hey Stephen. So I found out what this was. To respect the privacy of the person who made these comments, I won't mention names and some details but the gist of the situation was this customer attempted to chargeback stating they did not start a project. When we provided substantial proof they did start the project, the payment processor sided with us which evidently irritated this customer. We take great pride in the quality of service we offer and 99% of the projects on Crew never have an issue. I hope this helps shed some light on this situation. Happy to help if you have any other questions. Mikael
Big congrats on the update to all Crew team! We're in the midst of a 'similar' update at https://en.yeeply.com and it's really inspiring to read your achievements!
The platform looks clean and promising.
Just submitted my application.
Let's see how it works.
@sambruce_sam woohoo! Thanks Sam 😄 let me know if there's anything we can improve
Hi Product Hunt. Long time lurker and first time maker here.
@andrewjaustin has been Sublime Texting hard to render code that look like our Sketch mockups. Big props. Today, we’ve launched Crew 2.0 aka Dream Crew and I’m super happy (given it’s the first project we launch that I’ve personally worked on since joining Crew under a year ago). There are still a ton of things to iterate on/scrap/re-do… but for today, this is good (and it works!). See you soon.
Crew is one of my top inspiration regarding the the IM strategy with side projects, and the whole idea you are doing @mikaelcho . When I found crew.co, couldn't believe it that you are already doing something I am trying to build with www.vanila.io . Not only that, but again the strategy with side projects, getting exposure, clients, devs, trust, authority ...
You seems just doing right thing. Good luck with the 2.0 version !
@shtefcs Thanks so much Stefan! So happy we've been able to be a source of inspiration. If you ever run into anything you have a question on shoot me a tweet and I'll try my best to help :)
Unsplash for iOS 2.0