Fusion 360 subcontracting/freelancing section

[yoshimitsuspeed]

I was thinking it might be cool if there was a F360 specific help wanted kind of section.
I have checked out some of these freelancer type websites and never got anywhere. For one most of them require other sofware like Solidworks, for another with the bidding type thing it seems like people are willing to work for pennies an hour. Either that or I don't understand how they work. That's another conversation.

I was thinking it would be awesome though if there were a resource where people and companies who used F360 could look for and possibly subcontract others for work.
I realize it might be challenging for Autodesk to do this in a way that removed them from liability and I would completely understand the need to do so but at the same time it would be great if peoples reputation in the community were used to give people some trust and credibilty when it came to hiring or being hired.

[JonSchaeffer]

I tried to give a Kudos for this but it seems to do nothing. Strange... But please count this as a Kudos

[daniel_lyall]

its a good idea I dont think autodesk could host it, you could start a web site for this idea 

[yoshimitsuspeed]

I have thought about that. I wanted to see if there was the interest first anyway.
Autodesk already has so much infrastructure setup that it would be so much easier for them to get somethign to gain momentum but since it does seem to have intrest for others I will look into this a little bit.

[daniel_lyall]

the same problem you highlight would happen as well unless you had price cap`s like no lower than say $20 an hour.

if you do stuff like that count me in I cant be blowed haveing to have a bidding war to do someone`s drawings

[yoshimitsuspeed]

The thing that I don't understand about the freelancing type sites and maybe it's because I never took the time to understand how they work but it seems to me people bid without knowing the actual project details. I'm not sure how you bid on a project without having a very good idea what you are bidding on. Therefore I don't believe the bid online option really works for most projects. Especially anything that you don't want to risk somoene stealing which I would think would be anything worth making.

If I did it I think it would be more of a connection resource where someone posts a short term or long term, hire or subcontractor post with basic details and then people could start talking, sign NDAs, email back and fort and discuss the details of the project directly. At that point it would be possible to make an accurate and respectable quote. I think this would raise the overall quotes because it would be done on a professional level with people who understand that quality work comes with a quality price tag.
There is still the location based issue where someone working in China or India may be willing to work for a lower rate but just as always the person hiring needs to decide if that potential savings is worth possible communication difficulties, accuntability difficulties, the issues with different countries having different laws and the challenges of settling international disputes etc. I think these issues would lead many to choose people in their country and therefore a similar ecanomic bracket.

[daniel_lyall]

yep that sounds the good way of doing it.

that's how its done on the arduino site people post what they wont done and people just send the person a pm for all details or just ask for more details on the forum its open and clean.

no f`en bidding wars like you have on the freelancing sites.

you end up getting someone who gives a toss about what they are doing as you just do the jobs you wont to do and that`s that god if someone wonted some cabinets done I would do it for a donation.

so if you run it that way I will be you first sineup 

[Anonymous]

Freelancing sites are setup in a terrible way. It's a race to the bottom. There are guys on there who do FDA compliant medical implant design and paperwork for $5 an hour.

People are also bidding without even knowing what the client needs. Clients post things like "I need someone to draw me a car spoiler." That can go from napkin sketch all the way up to flow analysis & mold design.

[roambotics_scott]

How do you fix the race to the bottom ?

If you could solve that, it'd be amazing.

[daniel_lyall]

all prices are not aloud below a certain amount

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Since bids would be done person to person it wouldn't be the same bidding war. People would bid what they felt fair and contractors could decide who offered the best balance of capability and price. Since other bidders wouldn't see competitors bids they would not be able to grind down their rate in the same way.

If there ended up being serious under bidding we could look at other options but I don't see it being an issue because if somoene is skilled and qualified to make $30/hr I don't see them bidding $10 but maybe I am wrong.
I think a lot of the issue with the freelancing sites is having bids publically disclosed without enough project detail.

Another thing that I think would be good is similar to the rating system here but instead based on reviews kind of like trader ratings on car and other forums. This way people with a higher rating would likely be considered higher even if they gave a higher quote.

I don't have a lot of time and even less money to throw at something like this but I could put up a rough initial version on a subdomain of my website easy enough. If it was successful I could continue to improve it and possibly at a point move it to it's own proper domain.
The issue with this is that I know that Initial image has a lot to do with a sites success. I'm sure if I was willing to get a domain and put a bunch of time and money into making it all pretty and cool it would have a better chance of success but it's also a much bigger gamble.

I am thinking to start just having a basic forum similar to this with a couple different sections such as

F360 hiring long term
F360 hiring on project bassis

F360 for hire long term

F360 for hire on project bassis

Other CAD

Or something like that. Possibly even branching out with other CAD specific forums if it took off.

For now my thought would be that applicants need to be approved and need to provide a website and or portfolio before approval.

Then have a rating system where people could rate others they have done business with.

It would not be hard to get something set up to this point.
If I did would this be enough to catch your interest enough to subscribe, post and try to help gain visibility and activity?

It also sounds as though most of the replies here have been from people who would be looking for work.
Is there anyone here who might consider using somethign like this to look for people and subcontract out to?
If so what are your thoughts on the above?

If I were to do this I wold be tempted to also push another one of my thoughts into reality and that would be to have a collaborative section similar to Local Motors where people could share services, projects, ideas and oppertunities. For example I have a small moderately precise CNC machine that sits inactive a lot of the time and would be happy to cut parts for people at a reasonable price. Especially if they were able to do all or most of the CAM. Since I use F360 for my CAM this should make things pretty easy for others in the community.
On the other side I often need parts 3D printed but don't yet have a printer so that would be a valuable resource to me.

Is this something that interests people?
While it wouldn't be private and you wouldn't want to post things there that were proprietary or that you didn't want to get into the public eye it would be possible to make it a more private area where people were screened to a higher level and signed a basic NDA or something to be able to gain access to certian areas of the forum/site where people could discuss ideas a little more freely.

How many people would join something like this?

How many people feel like they could become regulars and would be a regularly active part of the community if I did something like this?

[daniel_lyall]

yes hide the prices have a cap no less than, peoples portfolio good idea if it`s done on f360 it`s easy to prove its your work.

each person to have rating + feed back from who they did work for what no one can change.

anything that needs a NDA have as a read only part so some one can read whats required, then they can talk to the person who requires the work done through there own email.

[yoshimitsuspeed]

My thought at least initially would be for the bidding to take place outside the forum/site. It would be through email or private message between the contractor and the sub. Same with files and models etc. For this it would be up to the contractor to require their NDA be signed befor handing over the information or not. I also think this would be something that would help with loballing. If someone is offering to help you with your designs for $2/hr from China and you are concerned about keeping your data confidential you might think twice about sending your information to this person. Not trying to pick on China because I have some great relationships with Chinese engineering and manufacturing companies but it has taken time to build trust with them.

My thought with the NDA through the site would be to allow access to a more private section of the forum. Naturally you still wouldn't want to post anything you were too attached to because it would be a very hard thing to enforce and there is definitely the chance an idea could get taken and used but it would give an added level of privacy to discuss ideas that you may not want completely public and easy to find on the internet.

[daniel_lyall]

it would be good for a Autodesk person to give an option on this considering its with there program

[srinath.jonnalagadda]

@yoshimitsuspeed  et. al.,

Great discussion on a topic that is close to our hearts.

We have been thinking about connecting service providers (aka consultants/freelancers) with customers. To that end, we have been working with BriteHub.com to connect Fusion 360 experts with prospective customers. 

Please checkout BriteHub and let us know what you think. 

https://britehub.com/

Cheers,

-srinath

[daniel_lyall]

I would give it a big no thanks other sights do prity much the same and only charge a fee when payment is made you put a prices to a customer and someone could very easyly just put in a price of $5 so it not that diffrent to other sights 

[roambotics_scott]

I think to do this right it's going to have to be a ground-up re-thinking and new build.

[daniel_lyall]

yep the way it`s done on the arduino sight is a good start there just needs to be away to keep prices up you will always get people trying to do it for next to nothing

[yoshimitsuspeed]

srinath.jonnalagadda

I'm going to agree with the posters between your opst and this one.
Those sites seem like such a scam to me. In fact I'd be half temped to start one like that just because I need to make some easy money lol.
It really only seems like a good idea to me if you are the owner of the site, not so much for the contractors or subs.

I feel like this is the case for most of these freelancing sites. They do seem to be very successful though so maybe they are on to something.

[brianrepp]

 Great idea - something we'll consider for the future, could even be some type of Certified Fusion Expert program

[ylevine]

Feel free to send your resume to hr@levineinnovations.com