An Aussie marketplace for WordPress websites and task help

I’m thinking of creating a marketplace that connects Aussie Business’s with local Aussie web developers to help create/fix/update their WordPress website.

I’m a believer in keeping work on-shore. Helping your mate (or someone’s mate). Spending local. Helping fellow Aussies. And in return getting a better result. Overall – I think you end up getting more bang for buck anyway.

OK – most of us know we can outsource the WordPress development tasks offshore. But if it’s a smaller task – the trouble of off-shoring will often out weigh the benefits. Here are the major downsides of off-shoring:

• more difficulty in explaining requirements (you need to be much more specific, clear, concise).
• difficulty with time zones – they offshore guys will want to talk to you between 5pm-12pm generally – which is often when you’re trying to get away from work and talk to you family (or it should be).
• communication difficulties. the often need to explain things more than once.
• you can’t pick up the phone and explain what you need, or think you need, and let the web developer give you some input on a better solution.
• not being able to pick up the phone can often lead you to use communication channels that you prefer less, and the quality of your communication is reduced.
• the result can often be sub par, not exactly what you expected. This is the general result of inexact requirements and poor communication.

The advantages of working with local web developers:

• better communication
• they’ll often pick up the phone in Aussie business hours
• less iterations of you asking what you need
• some thought leadership from your web developer – they might give you better ways of solving what you’re trying to achieve
• you might be able to build a relationship with the web developer for the future
• in general I believe you’ll get a superior result

Some of the economies of dealing with offshore web developers are handicapped by less than ideal results.

I think Aussie web developers can do a great job, on budget, on time, and at a reasonable cost. I’ve seen some Aussie web developers doing entire website builds for $300 – $500, and when you get closer to the $1,000 mark there is an even wider choice of web developers.

For web developers – you get new clients. No need to bid against off-shore developers.

We’ll be doing some sort of background checking, to make sure it’s local developers. We’ll also do some form of reputation system – so any developer not pulling their weight (less than 4 out of 5 stars ) can be highlighted as poor.

By Scott Farrell on October 16th, 2017 , Follow @scott_WordPress Tweet to @scott_WordPress