The biggest challenge faced by software industry is to recruit right talent and retain it. Software service providing companies are always pondering what to do with the permanent work force when there are no substantial orders/projects. This is another challenge for them. Rapid rise in the number of technologies is challenge for companies to hire full time staff every time and acquiring new skills for exiting employees is not very time and cost effective for small companies/startups. Almost 5% of the software professionals in the India is contract staff and number is expected to touch 20% in India in the next 5 years.

Freelancers are the best option for early stage startups, in completing niche, short-term tasks. Start ups most often do not have complete clarity of tasks and need resources that can work with some degree of agility. Since they are pressed for time, they will not have detailed documentation to handover tasks to a freelancer as well. Startups often need freelancers to closely co-work with them or be on call to complete tasks. Remote freelancers can be very difficult to work with, given the time zones and coordination challenges. According to our research Almost 5% of the software professionals in the India is contract staff and number is expected to touch 20% in India in the next 5 years.

There are thousands of different portals where you can find a freelancer. Freelancer.com and Upwork are the oldest players in the business. Remote if not hyperlocal. Still do you get that missing trust factor? They have introduced referrals in their platform. You can get referrals from the people in your network if they are in a common connection between the employer and freelancer. It fills the trust gap which is always missing in the freelancing community.

Founders of Hirenodes (a Bengaluru, India based hyper-local startup) were in T-Labs accelerator program along with few other companies and most of them were facing the same issue, finding freelancers who can work one on one with them or someone very easily approachable. They did all the homework and launched the first version of Hirenodes platform which helped the employers to find freelancers in the same city. None of the existing freelancing solutions were helpful when they were looking for freelancers for their previous startups. They knew that there is a huge void in the freelancing space, and they needed to find out if their initial hunch of freelancing issues is a real problem. They spent some time on customer discovery, spoke to more startups and the problem was clearly present for many organisations. They decided to solve it by connecting local freelancers directly to employers. It was easier to connect with a freelancer near you, speak to them directly and, if possible, hire someone who can work out of the client’s office to complete tasks.

Hirenodes aims to create an end-to-end solution for temporary staff hiring for software companies. Countries like US and UK have already seen a rapid rise in the recent years and India is on the same track. Startup industry is emerging and sooner of later freelance culture is surely gonna hit us and hit us hard. So having a product that can find you the same is surely leading to something bigger. Hirenodes charges 10% as a service fee on payments done by employers to freelancers through this freelance platform. This is as per standard payment models existing in industry today. They enhanced their freelance platform and launched referral model last month, where employer’s can find trusted freelancers through their network. The ideal customers for them are startups and SMBs. They have many clients from aboard as well.

Name of the startup: Hirenodes
URL of Startup’s Website: http://www.hirenodes.com
Launch date: 1st Aug, 2015
Founders:

Pankaj – Founder – Product startegy and technology
Sunil Sant – Co-Founder: Product and Marketing

Founding members have been working in the startup industry for almost 11 years. Pankaj and Sunil have been a part of July systems earlier and have been working together for more than 5 years now.

How did you get your first customer?
Our first customer onedigital ad was right next door to us. Some of the team members used to come out in the evening for tea, and there the discussion started we had fairly good freelancers registered with the skill set needed by onedigitalad and they become our customers.

What would be your goal to accomplish in the next six months?
We are looking to reach out to more cities in India and get more customers using different marketing strategies. Currently we are android only but our web platform is under development and will be live in a months time. Hirenodes is partnering with different vendors across the country for fulfilling contract hiring requirements too.