Create your own network right here on Upwork (beta): Feedback and Questions

[#1]

Building a network of fellow professionals you can count on is one of the best ways to grow your business. Today we announced a beta test as the first step in a greater initiative. With this feature, talent included in the test can save and message other talent on the platform. 

Check out the announcement and let us know your thoughts about these updates in the comments below.

[#2]

If you are collaborating with other Upworkers on larger projects- how do you create a contract that includes everyone? And at different pay rates in some cases?

[#3]

Hi Ben! Thanks for this great question - it's very much on our mind as we continue the development process!

We'd love to hear your perspective...what aspects of a shared contract would be important to you? Based on your expert experience, what should we keep in mind in designing this type of contract? Others, feel free to share your thoughts as well. 

[#4]

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Maggie C wrote:

Hi Ben! Thanks for this great question - it's very much on our mind as we continue the development process!

We'd love to hear your perspective...what aspects of a shared contract would be important to you? Based on your expert experience, what should we keep in mind in designing this type of contract? Others, feel free to share your thoughts as well. 

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I had an extensive phone call with one of your interns a few months ago exactly about shared contracts. Did y'all lose those notes entirely? 

[#5]

Hi Amanda,

We collect feedback in multiple ways, from multiple users and at different stages of development when working on new features like this one. Feedback you shared with Grace both on the thread she started and via the call has been noted. We will continue collecting input from different people who use Upwork both as talent and clients as we continue to roll this option out and improve it.

[#6]

signed up for a waitlist to access the feature.  Good intiative by Upwork. I am looking to connect with audit / accounting professional 

[#7]

and attended the live webinar on this topic a few momens ago.
Looking under the "Find Work", menu, I see no link called  "My Network".

How and where can I start setting up my network???

[#8]

Hi Michael, feel free to sign up for a waitlist to access the feature here. We hope to release this to all freelancers soon and will be sharing more information. 

[#9]

When are you planning to release the beta version

[#10]

Hi Ashwini, 

The beta test is already available to those who are eligible to participate. You can sign up for a waitlist to access the feature here.

Once we have more information about the feature or become available to all freelancers, we'll update the Community. 

[#11]

Hi, is the rolled out to people who had enrolled in waiting list

[#12]

Say if I'm to form a talent network, does it:

a) have to be in the same domain as I am?

b) mean that I can forward any excess work that I couldn't look into to my 'partner'? How would the payment work?

c) not violate Upwork's TOS if I pass my work to others? 

[#13]

Thanks for these questions, Umesh! I'd love to hear more from you on the first question.

a) Would it be beneficial to you to connect with others outside your domain? Why or why not?

[#14]

It will be great if we can network with freelancers outside our domains. That will help agencies network with freelancers with different skill sets and offer them to join the agency, and then deliver bigger projects. 

[#15]

Hi Umesh,

To add to Maggie's reply.

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Umesh B wrote:

b) mean that I can forward any excess work that I couldn't look into to my 'partner'? How would the payment work?

c) not violate Upwork's TOS if I pass my work to others? 

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Currently, we do have a Job Referrals feature that allows you to refer other freelancers to a job you were invited to. Check out this announcement for more information about that feature.
That said, Maggie and her team are exploring ways to make it easy to collaborate on projects with others within your network on Upwork. We'd like to hear your ideas on how you would like to collaborate with other professionals on Upwork!

[#16]

Hi,
I just perticipate the live webinar and learned about your new feature. Would like to have your invitation for the “Your Network” beta testing! 

[#17]

Thanks for your interest, Mobarak! Go ahead and sign up for a waitlist to access the feature here!

[#18]

I was in the call but wasn't sure where to ask my questions (speaker mentioned slides.io)

I am wondering 2 things
1) Can a freelancer add a client to their network, and visa versa, or is it purely freelancer to freelancer network?

also
2) How does this compare to upwork's feature that exists already where people can create an "Agency" on upwork and add freelancers to it? Is this new network feature basically a private version similar to that? 

[#19]

Thanks for these questions, Nathan!

Your first question made me wonder...what might be some of the benefits of networking with Clients in your view? Would love to hear your perspective, and others, feel free to join in as well!

[#20]

So I am a Freelancer, but also a Cleint. Sometimes I hire some good freelancers and we end up doing our own networking amongst each other. For example a previous hire discussed sending me work in the past, on a couple of occassions.

I guess technically I could just add him to my network when it becomes available and speak as a freelancer to freelancer? 

I'm still trying to find the main reason I'd use the networking feature itself, though. In the simplest form is it basically just a way for freelancers to chat amongst themselves? Like essentially the freedom that a client and freelancer have to private chat, this networking feature enables that for freelancer to freelancer?

[#21]

Thanks Nathan! That makes a lot of sense and is helpful for us to hear - thanks for making the time to share that context. 

Currently the feature allows freelancers to connect and message each other, for whatever reason they see fit. In the future, we'd like to provide more features that allow freelancers like you to collaborate on jobs. Are there any tools or aspects of the network you can think of that might make the feature more valuable to you in the long run?

[#22]

I think it would be nice to be able to assign labels, or tags, as to organize/filter your contacts in some way. So for example you could easily filter your "Designers" contacts

Ultimately this is a chat feature between freelancers, so I think about what features are important in a chat feature. A group chat comes to mind. Also, and more importantly, something I find frustrating from the current upwork chat is you cant copy/paste images into a chat - you have to upload it as a file. This is reallyy frustrating, so I think its necessary to implement.

Might be nice to have a way to add a specific "Note" and/or "Rating" (completely private for personal use) for each freelancer, as another way of filtering or finding your top freelancers. 

I'd probably look more closely at services like Slack and Skype to see whats truly important, though.

[#23]

You rock, Nathan - these are great ideas! Really appreciate your time and feedback.

[#24]

How are we supposed to add Upwork freelancers to our network via email when we have no way of knowing what that is?  And emailing without a contract is also forbidden in the TOS.   And we don't know most freelancers' last names.

So it seems this won't work very well unless we can add freelancers directly to our network based on their skills.  And we'd be able to find them through a search.  

Otherwise, adding them via their private email seems like an impossibility.

[#25]

Thanks, Lisa - this feedback is so helpful to us!

Currently, we're providing talent with two ways to add others to their Network - by searching their name or using their email if they happen to know it. Some freelancers may already have another freelancer's email because they collaborated on projects before, met before they joined Upwork, etc. If they don't know their email address, they can always just search by their name and add them.

If you or others have additional ideas, we'd love to hear them!