Ep. 75: Brooke Markevicius, What's The Future of Freelance Marketplaces? Take It From A Freelancer

Leaders, it’s rare to see entrepreneurs and business leaders in our space that have real freelance experience, not the ‘I freelanced for 6 months then started coaching’. Brooke is one of those rare leaders. She not only built a successful freelance business, she’s seen all sides of our space as a corporate leader at Postmates, successful web development Freelancer, and entrepreneur helping small business owners hire freelancers. It’s a path Matthew can personally relate to, and her learnings are crucial to every leader and entrepreneur building in our space. In this pod we hit on a central theme that is controversial yet unavoidable - the disruption of freelance talent marketplaces.  Currently our industry has two public company freelance talent marketplaces, Upwork (UPWK) and Fiverr (FVRR). Both were one of the first, both have clear strengths, yet both were built for an industry that is quickly and fundamentally changing. Specifically, freelancers the past 10 years look very different than freelancers entering today. Enjoy this episode and make sure to subscribe to the Human Cloud Newsletter to be updated when Brooke's Leader Portal goes live. 2:01 - her parents had the flexibility that she expected but her career initially didn't have 4:50 - How she knew how to jump into freelancing 5:45 - Why teachers make phenomenal freelance project managers 7:55 - Why platforms introduced the freelance economy in a transactional way 8:54 - How prioritizing support of the freelancers gets rid of the transactional nature of marketplaces 13:45 - How Postmates shaped her understanding and vision of the freelance economy? 16:51 - What is the future of freelance talent marketplaces? When will they end? What forces will disrupt it? 17:32 - The more freelancers have power, the more the current talent marketplace will not be needed 21:30 - Why companies need full time talent dedicated to just managing freelancers 24:12 - Learnings from small business owners that corporations will need to adopt 24:53 - What companies need...REPORTING!!!!!!! Consistency, simplicity, and one resource to turn too. 25:47 - How can companies support freelancers? Onboarding!!! And empathy. 30:35 - How can government support the freelance economy? Brooke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookemarkevicius/