TopTal: why don't they allow companies/teams?

anovikov · 2025-02-16T07:05:33+00:00

On Upwork already, most agencies/companies are hidden: they operate as a network of seemingly independent freelancer profiles, with these people being merely...

anovikov

I wonder if people have the same impression of mine :)
i can't see how service we provide, can be provided by an individual.

Tiffany

I think the issue is that a lot of clients want to choose the individual doing each task. As you point out, it's more work for them, but if they are interested in quality they don't want to just talk to one person and then have their work handed off to a bunch of people they didn't select.

anovikov

Tiffany in my case, most clients won't even be able to understand work done on the level of tasks. Because we don't just "do work" but also provide technology we developed in-house...

Tiffany

anovikov It sounds like you're an outlier because you're selling services through freelancing platforms but you are not a freelancer and you're not even selling pass-through freelancing services. These platforms weren't designed for companies like yours. If they work for you, great, but the rules are going to be built around freelancing since that's the platform's bread and butter.

anovikov

Tiffany Well i am myself a freelancer in a sense that "i am able to do most of what my people are doing and i am competent enough to define technical solutions for my clients, and sometimes to even partially implement them, even as i'm too lazy to do it on a regular basis". I am not just a salesman, i'm an engineer.

anovikov

Tiffany But essentially, i didn't get what you mean. That is, how is my company different from any other Upwork agency that has some narrow specialisation (which every half-decent agency has to have because it's the only way to avoid bidding wars in race to the bottom).

Tiffany

anovikov Being a freelancer has nothing whatsoever to do with skills--it's a way of working. An engineer in year 20 at GM has the skills, but they're not a freelancer.

I'm a freelancer. I write and provide related consulting services, hard stop. My clients hire me when they are looking for a writer with a particular set of skills and knowledge. I don't sell them technology. I don't bring in a team. They contract with me to write and advise and I personally write and advise.

You, based on what you've said here, are a business offering a combination of underlying technology and a team to make it work. Your team aren't even freelancers, or at least aren't freelancing for the client, because they're working for you.

anovikov

But isn't it how every agency on Upwork operates? They hire local staff in their country, pay them fixed salaries (because it's cheap), have someone who manages them, then sell them on Upwork.

Tiffany

anovikov Yes and no. That's the structure, but often the agency is just a collection of freelancers each offering an individual service.

That also brings us back a bit to where we started--many Upwork clients don't want to work with agencies precisely because of that model. If someone is looking to hire a pre-assembled team, they usually (obviously not always) search for an agency directly rather than going to a freelancing platform.

Do you market your services outside platforms?

anovikov

No i don't, while sometimes clients just walk in. I have no idea how to do it lmao. If you can teach me how, i'll give you a nice commission way above Upwork's :D
In my experience, offline clients tend to be savvy and very hard to make any money on.

rlatief

TopTal: why

I'm guessing it's their strategy/decision, that (most likely based on data) they decided the profits from clients lured by the idea of "individual freelancers" will outweigh the drawbacks of still "allowing" groups to work (keeping a close eye). IIRC Upwork does many similar things.

anovikov

rlatief So just as i said, "because this is a scam". It's either service providers scam clients, or TopTal itself does.

rlatief

The "scam!" will be yelled-out when one of the 3 parties faces some major issues.

I'd call such things as rule-bending, rubber-terms, grey area, instead of scam. It's not always bad. There was a thread in the Upwork forum where a client complained about paying (contract ended) for a plagiarized logo from a reputable provider. In the end, Upwork seemed to allow the client to hire another designer at their expense (although they can simply say "you approved it already"). I've seen similar things not just on Upwork, other platforms have also "bent" their stated rules, and take a loss, to keep (some/selected) users happy.

Just know that running an agency on TopTal (if you do) gives them a reason to kick you out if they need to :D

anovikov

rlatief It's not me and in any case, "them" is a very vague term for those people. What's 'them' if it's a network of accounts operating from rented servers in different parts of the world?