Hi everyone, I need help making an important decision about the future of my product. If anyone has expertise in freelancing, please take a minute to share your thoughts. I have built a two-sided marketplace for digital products and freelance services with the vision of providing creators with a one-stop-shop to sell products, services, or bundles, and allowing customers to access services from the same creators they purchased products from, ensuring top-notch service every time without the need to go to platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. However, since launching, I have felt discouraged as most sellers are not giving it a second thought when listing their items on the marketplace, even after offering 0% commission on their sales. Therefore, I think it's time to take a step back and go back to the drawing board. I have identified the following points to consider: 1. What I am doing is not new to sellers as they have seen these kinds of platforms before. The difference is the way I am combining two different marketplaces in one place. 2. I have noticed three important factors for freelancers: a. They are mostly interested in long-term clients that provide steady income b. Every creator dreams about a lovely MRR c. They want to keep making good templates for a steady revenue stream while doing freelancing work. 3. Customers face problems in freelancing such as losing money or having to compromise on the quality of work. Most customers don't go to other sellers after the first bad experience with lost money or time. I am considering restructuring my platform to allow creators to sell their services as a subscription along with selling digital content to solve these issues. I have four approaches in mind and need your help to proceed with this project: 1. Let digital downloads + freelance service selling as it is on platform and add service as subscription functionality top of that.(this may make the idea too complex for both sellers and buyers to understand). 2. Remove the freelancing gig service functionality completely from the platform and add services as a subscription along with allowing selling digital downloads. 3. Leave the platform as it is and try to figure out how to market it well to make it successful (assuming the existing platform idea is good). 4. Trash the idea entirely if you don't like it. If you don't want to say anything, just drop the point number you agree with. I respect every feedback, even if you say it's the shittiest idea you've ever heard. Please drop your comments. Thanks.

the biggest need in this market is having organic traffic come to your listings/services and actually buy it-- this requires that your marketplace already have a HIGH volume of quality customers ready to buy. Most 2 sided markets fail because there isn't enough of an incentive for one of the sides to engage. Ask yourself-- how many active buyers are on your site, whats the growth rate of those buyers.

If you truly know that this is a unique proposition to the marketplace - this will take a long time to take hold, with all that is out there. I don’t know how long you have been in business. I like the idea and think you should pursue #1 and #3. Word of mouth is going to be your friend. There are so many freelancers and so many communities out there to get into - start engaging with them (if you haven’t) and show results. Partner with other communities or other products/services to get your word out. If your target audience is freelancers hold some community education and add more value to that audience so they spread the word for you and build on that value and the community/customers will slowly build. Be patient. I don’t know if I truly answered your question but I hope this helps.

Thanks @Mary Beth Russo for such a response, i successfully launched my platform again just yesterday, i must say your response is on perfect time I made a decision to change service gig model to subscription model ( btw productizing services is going viral now days ) and decided to showcase freelancers rather than products I didn't open a explore page yet, trying to get good number of freelancers on platform first before opening explore page for clients You can check here if interested: indiedoers.com And i am planning a marketing strategy, noted every point you mentioned and i believe they all are worth a try specially educating about platform and skills how they can benefit out of it The real question is getting clients for freelancers, i am still trying to get my head around it

good luck!