Americas Quarterly
art direction & editorial design
Academic
Brain Drain
Story about Mexico’s U.S. trained scholars immigrating back to the United States for better conditions in academics and research funding.
I designed the feature story and commissioned Dan Bejar’s illustration. Bejar’s illustration won Merit Award PUB 50 of the Society of Publication Designers and was selected by the American Illustration competition.
Role
Associate Art Director and Graphic Designer
Date
July 2014
URL
Interview with Dale, a freelancer design strategist, showing a sketch of his journey when looking for work.
User Research
We interviewed 10 creative freelancers at different stages of their careers, from beginners to experts, as well as beginners to experienced at their freelancing career. In addition, we conducted a survey and got responses from 49 freelancers.
Key findings:
Benefits of freelancing
Challenges of freelancing
Income instability and finding work are the most crucial challenges for freelancers.
Based on that, we asked freelancers:
What channels do you get most clients from?
However, based on our user research, we discovered that word of mouth is not the most efficient method to find work for those who are at the beginning years of their freelancer career.
When looking for work, freelancers take a lot of time and effort reaching out to existing connections and/or searching for new clients. When we asked freelancers what they wish they had known when they first started freelancing, the top 5 answers were:
Know which lead is worth spending time & effort on
How to keep track & organize leads
How to reach out to potential leads
How to promote myself online & offline
solution
Knowing that word of mouth is the method freelancers get most clients from, we decided to focus our solution on assisting freelancers to get most out of word of mouth by creating a platform that will allow them to find, build and nurture meaningful relationships.
Profile screen full view.
Profile screen. Referral button (bottom left) and add new connection button (bottom right).
You got matched screen.
Design
Features of mobile app
- Users can find clients and collaborators based on availability, mutual interests and expectations, and 2nd/3rd degree connections.
- Users can give or receive referrals from their existing network.
- Users can showcase their resume, portfolio, their website and social media information.
Home screen on desktop and mobile apps.
features of both mobile and desktop apps
- In the home screen, users have a personalized calendar to keep themselves organized, as well as, reminders of important dates from their connections and when is time to catch up again based on their personal preferences.
Contacts screen
Projects screen
News Feed screen
Reports screen
Features of desktop app
- In the Contacts screen, users can organize their contacts and have their information all in one place.
- In the News Feed screen, users can get the latest news from their contacts and what they have posted on social media networks.
- In the Projects screen, users can add information about a project and a client.
- In the Reports screen, users can manage their time and business by generating reports.
Competitors
Currently in the market, there are products and services
that freelancers use to interact or manage their network. We categorized them into two different spectrums: the vertical axis is about how much these platforms allow freelancers to interact with others to build relationships. The horizontal axis is about how the platform organizes and keep track of the users’ contacts.
On the lower left corner, we have job boards, which have no direct interaction between users in the platform and allow users to store your contacts.
On the the top left corner, we have social media and recruiting platforms, where users actively interact with connections but there is no comprehensive system that organizes them.
On the bottom right, we have personal CRMs (customer relationship management) while they do offer a comprehensive system that organizes your contacts, there are no place for them to actively interact with each other.
Bridgit fits in the market and is the best of both worlds because:
- It is not trying to compete with job boards and recruiting platforms. Knowing that most clients come from existing connections, our goal is to allow users to optimize their chances by using their existing network through 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections.
- It is different from social media platforms because allows users to keep track and organize leads on a more efficient way.
- It is different from LinkedIn because users are matched with other users based on similar expectations, so the chances to get an opportunity is higher.
- It is similar to personal CRM platforms, by offering contact managing tools, but it is different because it is also helping users to find potential leads.
Why now?
The freelance community is a fast growing emerging market.
We are about a decade away from freelancers becoming the majority of the workforce.
Market size
There are currently over 57M freelancers in the United States,
within that population, there are 12M creative freelancers who we are targeting. And based on the mass market conversion rate, we plan to capture 100K users in the first year with our MVP.
Business Model
Our main revenue streams are ads, premium package and sponsorships.
Also, starting on the 2nd year, we will add a new one which is SAAS model (Software as a Service) to corporations like SYP who want to build their own “open talent source” community.
Within four years, we are expected to raise 11.3M dollars in revenue.
Marketing Adoption
We will test our MVP in New York City, then market Bridgit in the us cities
with most creative freelancers and events and conferences like the WordCamp, Future of Web Design and New Media Expo. In addition, we will partner the with Freelancers Union and WeWork.
