After my little foray into the Gig Economy, I’m delighted to report I have a booking. What’s astonished me is the ease with which I managed to attract a customer, and how far we were into the discussion before it became apparent he’s in Malaysia! I’m helping to design a game for a chap thousands of miles away and it’s as easy as using a chat room in Facebook or LinkedIn.
The e-mail telling me I had finally made that all important first sale is full of cheer and positivity but to be honest, it’s been a tough gig by comparison to the easy-going narrative the site was giving me when I signed up.
My customer first contacted me via the site messaging system because his request is a little different to the service as advertised. We passed messages back and forth for a couple of days and now we’ve reached an agreement where I’ll provide the goods and he’ll pay me… $5.
If you think that doesn’t sound like much, you’re right. I’m glad I’m not doing this full time. It’s nice to earn some pin money on the side of doing some game development which is a skill set I want to work on anyway, but it’s hardly going to pay the mortgage.
It’ll be interesting to see whether a successful delivery on this gig pushes me up the rankings and attracts more interest…
Andrew Clayton 