Starter Kit. Idea 310 of 500. Cluster 15
Freelancer co-operatives that bid as one firm, so the individual gets the enterprise contract
The mechanism, from the book
The proof exists in Malabe. What is missing is a thousand small versions of it.
The first step
Gather four freelancers with complementary skills, a developer, a designer, a tester and a project manager, and write one joint profile with past work, rates and who is responsible for what. Find one tender or project posting too big for any of you alone, and bid on it together. A shortlisting or a contract is the proof that the co-operative can win what individuals cannot.
- Who pays first
- A company abroad with a project too big for one freelancer, which will hire a team with a single contract and one point of contact.
- What leaves today
- Freelancers here win small jobs at low rates, while the enterprise contracts that pay properly go to agencies abroad.
Ask first
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask which structure lets several freelancers bid and sign contracts as one firm.
- Inland Revenue Department. Ask how income shared between members of a joint firm is taxed.
Check before you spend
A signed agreement on who does what, how money is split and who answers if the work fails, before the group bids on anything.
Find out these three numbers
- How large are the contracts that none of you could win alone?
- What rates do competing firms bid for the same project?
- How often does a tender ask for a registered company?
A comparison from the book
New Zealand kiwifruit. Chapter Eleven
"When 100 small producers from the same country sell into the same foreign market, a buyer plays them off against each other"
Bidding as one firm stops a client playing freelancers off against each other on price.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.