Submitted by eGrail Team.

1. TryCycle
Lets freelance „the TryCycle way‟…

2. What is TryCycle?
 A „Super Help Desk‟ that bridges between
professionals and clients with a payment
system.
 Provides a platform to match the supply and
demand of paid professionals

3. How are we different?
 Focus on paid „consultancy‟ services that can
be offered online
 On demand connection
 No bidding process unlike other platforms
 Service is delivered through online face-to-
face interaction

4. How we work?
 A first connection between a potential client
and a service provider is free
 The first try, no strings attached plays an
important role
 A client can find out if a provider (copywriter,
web designer, artist, musician) is a good
match.

5. Hypothesis
 There is no common, easy service to match the supply and demand for paid
professional expertise for services that are a form of cocreating or consulting and
can be performed right away by interaction online during a limited period, by skype or
chat.
 There is a substantial demand for a “Superhelpdesk” that combines crowd and
professional sourcing with a payment system.
 Freelancers as well as patrons are interested in helping others whith their skills and
experience when an hourly rate can be earned by a clear, easy system.
 They are interested in delivering incidental, (very) limited time help.
 Service sellers on this system may be service buyers
 Buyers need a fast service and easy, safe payment system.

6. Experiments
 Team brainstorm on own experiences with
freelancing and the need for hiring freelance
help,
 Face to face interviews,
 Survey

7. Survey results
 There is high demand and interest in freelancing. we deduce a
demand of avg use of 1 hr/month which leads to a total amount of
hours of expertise hired via a market place of 7 million per year.
 Respondents did not use a similar freelancing platform before. They
have heard of several though e.g. vworker, zintro and elance /
peopleperhour.
 The favorite type of interaction is e-mail and document sharing
(other options were: video-conferencing, chat, and telephone). Also,
suggested hourly rate varied from 4 to 200 euros.
 Requested services are in broad domains, IT is most populair 51%,
other makes 38% and marketing communication and graphic design
follow with about 27 and 24%.

8. Post-Survey conclusions
 The survey strengthened our idea that there is a demand for offering
expertise on a easy accessible platform. There‟s no obviously popular
freelancing platform yet.
 Zintro would be the main competitor since they offer similar services but
their business and revenue models are different. More insight is needed on
this matter.
 Through face-to-face interviews, we learnt that the easy searching, hiring
and secure payment is most important features bringing a new type of
supply and demand in consulting like services per time unit.
 it‟s not smart to force freelancers into too narrow pricing. As an example,
prices can vary within the category e.g. 0-25, 26-50, 51-75 etc.
 Also important are non-disclosure, formats etc. making interaction easy,
professional and trustworthy.
