Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 7)

SM: I find this model incredibly compelling. I actually am a huge believer of the growth rates. I think it’s going to go very well. I think it’s going to be a $10 billion, $15 billion, $20 billion economy.

FR: I think it’s going to be bigger than that. We’re at the beginning of this e-work phase. Work is huge. Employment is huge. A portion of it will go online, and whatever small portion goes online is a huge number.

SM: And I think flexibility, from an employer’s perspective, is an interesting value proposition. I think more and more companies not hiring people and putting people on payroll but doing these kinds of models. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 6)

SM: What percentage is that?

FR: It’s less than 10% of the total community of Elance that’s on the premium model. The membership that we’ve designed – it’s funny because we really designed it to be fair to our community. It’s a month-to-month. We don’t try to lock people into membership for as long as possible. They can actually upgrade and downgrade every month. When they need it, it goes up. If they decide the next month they want to go on vacation, or they don’t need to work, or they don’t need to submit any proposals, if they like to, they can go down to free. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 5)

SM: And you have the provisions on your system to allow for both.

FR: To allow for both, yes. In fact, you can, as a business, submit a proposal as a company or you can submit candidates. You can choose either one, and then when you staff a project, every time you win a job, we set up a work room for you, and you can give access to as many people as you want. Some businesses do not allow their staffs to have access to the work room and simply have an intermediary. Others assign all of their staff and say, you, you, you are working on this project with the client. Go ahead and work together. In my opinion, it’s a better model. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: That’s what I do, always. I don’t even bother too much with the interview. I give them a trial project and see how they feel about it.

Fabio Rosati: Some people like to interview because they get to understand, for example, in customer support, if the communication is very good. Communication is really important, availability in time zones. That kind of stuff matters to some folks. So, [it] depends on the job. The trial … what system do you have around the world that allows you to do that? Not many. So, trial is great. And then, once you’re on, there are best practices on how to build a team successfully. Most people have to recognize that for somebody to become dedicated, loyal and committed to your business, they need the same kinds of things that you would expect: good communication and empathy. I’m part of a team, and I’m going to make my online team be part of a team. Visibility – if you want me to be available for you next week, let me know that you intend to work with me every week. Don’t expect me to be available each time on short notice because I may have other work. I may have other clients, other commitments. So, visibility’s really important. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 3)

SM: Talk about the 20 metrics around which you measure behavior.

FR: They’re broken into three big categories. The first one is marketing, how you market your services. We felt that was instrumental to the perception of professionalism and the perception of quality. The community on Elance bought into the idea that when they see a potential client, when they see a proposal, a job being posted, it was important to only respond and only apply to the job if they felt qualified, if they felt that they had a compelling reason as to why they would be hired, as opposed to the typical behavior of exchanges where you have hundreds of applicants. >>>

Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 2)

SM: How much was each of these enterprises paying you?

FR: It ranged from hundreds of thousands a year to millions of dollars a year.

SM: So, typical enterprise contracts?

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Outsourcing: Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance (Part 1)

Followers of this blog may recall that Elance was featured on Deal Radar in 2008. Founded in 1999, the Mountain View, California–based company continues to give outsourcing competitors like oDesk and Freelancer.com a run for their money.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Fabio. Would you give me some background about you and also about Elance. I know you’re not a founder, but give us a bit of the genesis of the Elance story. >>>

2012: Top Trends and Opportunities

New year. Fresh energy. Time to take stock of trends and open problems for 2012. The most notable change this coming year is that Steve Jobs is dead. In death, however, he has become even larger than life, and his legacy will drive this decade’s technology movement for a while at least. One of his key legacies is the marriage of technology and humanities, which I believe will shape the next phase of evolution in the IT industry. I elaborated my vision in Silicon Valley: The Next Decade.

In Top 10 Tech Trends For The Decade, I outlined a set of key movements which are pretty much the driving factors for the time being:

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