Freelancers Are Your Secret Weapon As The Economy Opens Up
42% of business owners can't find workers, yet over 1 billion freelancers are ready to help
Hi, I’m Matthew Mottola, entrepreneur leading the ethical adoption of the freelance economy. Through this newsletter I hope you learn the path and meet the heroes making the Human Cloud our best possible future.
Quick Update
Leaders: I want to highlight you!
Do you spend more than $20k a year on freelancers? Do you have tangible case studies of how freelancers have transformed your business?
Reply to this message with a brief overview and we’ll sync.
Are you feeling the itch?
This next year brings unparalleled opportunity to position ourselves for the next 50 years. California opens up June 15th. New York City opens up July 1st.
It’s not just you. The leadership FOMO is real.
What new industries will be created?
What business models will pop?
What new features will pop?
How do we make sure we don’t waste this opportunity?
Good news: As leaders we’re in the right position to take action. We have the resources, insights, and hopefully not too hindered by leadership reviews or approval loops.
Bad news: Churn, increased talent shortage, wage escalation.
The solution is leaning into our freelancers to ideate, bring to market, and scale potential opportunities. Specifically:
Freelance researchers to uncover market weaknesses.
Freelance designers to turn ideas into MVP’s through wireframes, prototypes, and marketing collateral.
Freelance writers to write the copy that brings your MVP from friends & family to over a million upvotes on Product Hunt.
Freelance developers to scale your MVP from broken & basic your next game changing product.
If you need a nudge, or if you need an article to nudge a fellow leader (or open up budget), enjoy my latest article on why right now is the exact time that you need to start hiring freelancers.
TL;DR
Re-opening presents a massive opportunity (yet massive challenge in employee retention).
Covid accelerated the existing talent shortage and amplified wage escalation. But talent shortage and wage escalation are misleading terms.
There’s no shortage, there are over 1 billion global freelancers. There also doesn’t need to be wage escalation since freelancers work on a project basis (Check out Dani Ifrim, full stack designer).
You’re not first. Microsoft, General Electric, Intel, BBC Worldwide, Hollister, GoPro, Kaplan are just some of the many leading organizations already leaning in.
It’s not freelancers OR full time employees. Freelancers augment your existing employees.
Here’s a quote from Liane Scult, Microsoft’s first ever freelance program manager to push you over the hump:
“Engaging freelancers can help augment full time employees. Whether project managers having designers to help with their diagrams, or video producers having script writers, hiring freelancers increases the potential for every one of our employees to create more.”
Enjoy! And as always, reply to ask any question :)
- Matthew
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