Ask the cubicle expat(s): Should I sign up with Guru.com?

MB asks: I was wondering if you’ve had much luck with Guru.com. I’m trying to save money, so I don’t want to join unless I think I will make money from it. What do you think?

I answer: MB, here are three things you probably did not know about Guru.com:

1. Back in the late nineties dotcom startup heyday (the first time around), Guru.com was cool. I’m not saying Guru isn’t cool now, but back then it had personality, spunk, sass. It had articles, freelancer haiku*, and a bit more of a community feel. It had Free Agent Nation author Dan Pink as a columnist.
2. I wrote several articles for Guru.com in its first year or two, and was paid handsomely, before the dotcom bubble burst and the site went on hiatus, then was sold, then re-emerged as the Guru.com you know now.
3. While I loved writing those articles, I also had the worst editorial experience of my life on one such piece, where my editor introduced not only a rash of typos and inaccuracies into my story, but an embarrassing bit of outright plagiarism. It landed me some angry mail from readers. (Lessons learned: (a) Always ask to see the final article before it runs, especially when you’re not familiar with an editor or publication. (b) You can recover from even the most shameful of freelance experience.)

Of course that doesn’t really answer your question. Truth is, I have never used Guru.com in its new incarnation, a freelance job bidding site. In fact, I have never used a job bidding site. Here’s why. Short answer is, I’d try getting work on your own first through your personal and professional face-to-face and online networks. Or go through a creative agency that doesn’t charge you a subscription (or make you bid) to get the work.

I just spent a few minutes on today’s Guru.com. Interesting business model. I’d be curious to hear if anyone reading this has had any luck with it (particularly the Basic membership, which appears to have no monthly subscription rate but allows them to skim 10 percent off your project payments). If you do go this route, be sure to pad your fees by 10 percent so you make up the difference.

Also interesting are the invoicing and arbitration services (which I presume cost extra; seasoned Guru.com users, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). Cool that they offer these services, especially arbitration, which goes after clients who refuse to pay up and gets you your money. But ick to having to route your pay through this site. I’d rather deal directly with a brick-and-mortar creative agency I can call up. Sometimes it’s not the easiest getting customer support from a “faceless” online service provider (paging Amazon).

In sum, I supposed if you’re starved for work, others say they’ve had good experiences with the site, and you can get a good rate for your projects, Guru.com could be worth a trial run. But I’d put it in the “last ditch effort before I ask for my day job back” category.

*If I find the freelancer haiku of mine Guru.com ran (with commuting monkey illustration!), I’ll scan it and post it here.

3 comments February 10th, 2008