Upwork keeps freelancers and clients on platform by making off-platform work risky and expensive. Payment insurance protects freelancers from unknown clients. Strong reputation systems reward staying on platform, and founders should build features that address customer fears rather than trying to lock people in through restrictions.
Chapters
you know, circumnavigating the platform or disintermediation. So it's one of the biggest challenges, you know, a lot of us face here. So, you know, how did you kind of think about that at Upwork? And, you know, what were some ways maybe that you, that you solved for that?
I don't know if this is naive, but, you know, I don't— so the fear of circumvention can stop innovation. Like, this has happened in my experience where when we were trying to build consultations, people were You know, and I'm sure investors thought the same thing, like, oh my gosh, you're gonna get them talking to each other, like immediately? You mean you can book a session? Like they're definitely gonna leave the platform. It comes back to product market fit, right? Like your job as a company and our job as Upwork was to provide so much value to both sides. And it's easier to do in some settings like, um, you know, if there is higher frequency of work together or if there is more fragmentation on both sides, if like the pain of the match is higher, right? Like it's a little easier to do. But for us, it really came down to, you know, key features of security that we provided on both sides that solved it. Like it solved it. And it became too expensive for our supply to operate out, out of Upwork because if they did the work on Upwork and improved their rating, uh, it actually really translated to more dollars in the long term. And some of those, you, I think really recognizing, you know, what is the work you're doing? Is it the Uber that you have the secret like emergency button? Is it the insurance in Airbnb? It was similar for us. It was the payment insurance. Um, that we provided to freelancers if they log their work on their desktop. Uh, it makes it, you know, you're working with someone on the other side of the world that you don't know, who may or may not pay you. And, um, so I think not spending too much time on the fear of circumvention versus like What, how can I amplify the value here? How can I provide more and more and more value here? I would much rather like recommend founders to get to know your customer, know their pain points, know their deep fears, and then build features that simplify that and then build the right reputation frameworks and systems to, you know, keep them engaged.
