Outsourcing: Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The truth is, there are a tremendous number of developing countries, the same countries you mentioned, India, the Philippines, Malaysia. Those are just as present on oDesk and Elance as well.

Matt Barrie: They are. When I checked earlier in the year, the number one demographic of users were Americans.

SM: Because Americans are in a real mess right now. There are so many unemployed people. So, yes, there are people signing up. But if you actually look at how people are hiring, I’m not so sure Americans are getting hired as much. >>>

Outsourcing: Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com (Part 4)

SM: You said India is number three in terms of employers. That’s the one that I find interesting. The fact that India is number one in terms of freelancers is a very obvious one. That’s where outsourcing really took off, especially software outsourcing. That makes total sense to me, but India as number three on the employer side is a bit interesting. Can you give me some more color on that? >>>

Outsourcing: Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What is your business model? Do you charge a percentage?

Matt Barrie: We take a commission from the employer. We take 3% of the payments made or $3, whichever is higher. From the worker, we take 10% or $5, whichever is higher. But we do have a membership subscription package where if you subscribe for $24.95, it’s free for employers completely. For workers, the commission is 3%.

SM: That’s an essential difference from the oDesk business model. The oDesk business model is 10% flat. >>>

Outsourcing: Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How many freelancers are in the system?

Matt Barrie: We have more freelancers on our site than any other marketplace in the world. The mix is about, three quarters freelancers and one quarter who are our employers.

SM: What can you tell me about the employers? What kind of employers from what countries, what industries, and what sizes? >>>

Outsourcing: Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com (Part 1)

Websites for freelancers abound on the Internet. From oDesk to Elance to Guru, there’s something for everybody, it seems. And each has its own way of doing business. With the Sydney, Australia–based Freelancer.com, for example, an employer pays a contractor only when he’s satisfied with the work the contractor has done. That could explain why Freelancer.com is the largest outsourcing and crowdsourcing company currently on the Web, with close to three million users worldwide and earning in excess of $100 million in annual revenues. The top employers are in the United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada and Australia.

Sramana Mitra: Hi, Matt. To start off, let’s get some context about you personally and also about the company, Freelancer.com, and what you do and what’s the scale of the company, and so on? >>>

Outsourcing: Jason Beans, Founder and CEO of Rising Medical Solutions (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: How many insurance companies are there in the United States?

Jason Beans: I don’t know. There are about 150 licensed insurance companies doing workers’ compensation. But that’s only in the States. A lot of the insurance companies are forming captives or off-shores in tax havens like the Cayman Islands or Bermuda. There are lots of self-insured groups or individuals, or third-party administrators or managing general underwriters (MGUs), so I actually do not have a clean number on that. >>>

Outsourcing: Jason Beans, Founder and CEO of Rising Medical Solutions (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How many physicians do you have in your system right now?

Jason Beans: We have, according to our database, more than 500,000 physician locations. Now that’s inflated in my mind, because if a doctor treats at four different locations, each location will be registered. If she is an individual doctor in our group and also practices as a part of another group, both groups and locations will be registered. We partner with regional and national PPO networks, and, at times, directly contract. So, we probably have 40% to 50% of the facilities and physicians in the country in some sort of network relationship.  It’s a significant portion of the market, a good starting point for what we want to do.

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Outsourcing: Jason Beans, Founder and CEO of Rising Medical Solutions (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: When you look around in the healthcare IT space, what do you see in the landscape that is competitive to you, that you’re going to have to be aware of and counter?

Jason Beans: I see that it is very competitive. A lot of people trying to solve the same problems as I am. They’re trying to figure out how to get healthcare in the most cost-effective way or pay doctors based on outcomes. I’m watching for those ideas. I don’t want to give away my secret sauce until it launches, but what I do think they’re doing is they’re sticking with the same flawed models that people have been [using] forever. I’m trying to take a different tack and have it be something my grandmother could figure out – just very, very simple – and think in terms of the way people shop for everything else in life, not always treated like a complicated insurance product. We’re just taking a different path. But we have competitors everywhere. It’ll depend on our marketing and the execution of the product. >>>