GUEST BIO:

Nathan Hirsch is a 28 year old serial entrepreneur who is an expert in hiring online and building eCommerce businesses. He co-founded his first eCommerce company out of his dorm room in 2009, drop shipping products on Amazon.com and built it to sell over $25 million worth of product over 5 years. While scaling, Nathan discovered the power of outsourcing and ended up building a remote army of freelancers.

In 2015, Nathan co-founded and became the CEO of FreeeUp, an online hiring marketplace that allows business owners fast access to a hand-picked network of top talent freelancers in eCommerce, digital marketing, web development, and much more who have already been vetted for skill, attitude, and communication. FreeeUp interviews hundreds of freelancers each week and only allows the top 1% of applicants into the network. The company has been growing at rapid paces (500%+ YoY) and has quickly become a top destination to hire online for over 3,000 businesses around the world.

Nathan has built his personal brand to be synonymous with online hiring and entrepreneurship through 75+ guest appearances on top podcasts: Entrepreneur on Fire with John Lee Dumas, Eventual Millionaire, and more. Nathan has also become a regular speaker at industry conferences where he teaches other business owners how to hire freelancers and gain back more time in their growing businesses.

SHOW SUMMARY:

Today’s guest is Nathan Hirsch, founder of the freelance platform Freeeup. Freeeup differs from other freelance platforms because they don’t allow every single freelancer to join. They have an intense vetting system and only allow 1% of the freelancers who apply to become a member. The idea for Freeeup came from Nathan’s struggles with having to go through over twenty applications each time he posted a job to a freelance platform.

In this episode, Nathan tells us how he went from selling textbooks, to baby products to building his own freelancer platform. He talks about the current demands of the freelance world, from the perspective of client and freelancer, as well as how he views marketing trends as they pertain to his business. Lastly, Nathan gives us the secret sauce of a great job posting and freelancer first outreach message.

This is the Lean Commerce Podcast.

TOPICS:

How did you become an entrepreneur?

1:06 I always imagined I’d work a “regular job” but found that I hated working for other people and didn’t want to make this my entire life. I saw college as a ticking clock and my chance to start a business.

1:52 I bought textbooks at the end of each semester, becoming a competitor for my school’s bookstore. By creating a referral program I was able to get so much business to my “bookstore” that I received a cease and desist order from my college.

2:30 I started to sell on Amazon and was really excited to work with customers and have my own business, but knew that books weren’t the future. So, I experimented with outdoor products, computers, etc. Nothing else would sell until I branched out of my comfort zone and got into the baby product industry.

What is Freeeup?

4:28 Hiring on Fiverr, Upwork and other freelance platforms didn’t help me, as I needed a faster way to go through applicants. I created Freeeup and then made it so clients have immediate access to any freelancer they need.

6:45 The difference between Freeeup and Upwork is that Freeeup only allows one freelancer to enter per one hundred applications. Freeeups onboarding process is faster and gives clients a a no turnover guarantee, paying for the inconvenience of having to hire a new freelancer if an issue arises.

7:59 Freeeup freelancers are 40% USA, 40% Philippines and 20% scattered. Freeeup is very picky about who they allow on the platform because Freeeup is only as good as the freelancers and only as successful as how happy freelancers are when using the platform.

Did you build the demand side first or the supply side of Freeeup first?

11:29 We did $1