how freelancers help unicorns – Career on vc.ru

We are accustomed to considering labor relations as a traditional form of employment. But in general, it is freelancers who have been accompanying business from its very first forms. In the early days of a startup, it’s strange for founders to hire an entire design department to draw a logo. But finding a good single designer is quite possible. This is exactly what our article is dedicated to!

The appearance of this logo is worthy of a whole movie. Portland State University design student Carolyn Davidson received a commission from her friend Phil Knight. He used to import sneakers from Japan. And in 1971 he decided to launch his own shoe brand, Nike. It was on the logo of this company that Davidson worked. The requirements included dynamism, good visual perception on shoes, and distinction from other logos.

After another attempt to draw something, Davidson drew a check mark on the paper and… within a couple of days she was presenting it among the logo options!

Knight and his business partners chose this particular logo, and the girl was paid $35.

The checkmark even has its own name – swoosh. It transmits the whistle of the wind when moving at high speed. The idea turned out to be so successful that the Swoosh has been used all this time – for half a century!

Back in 2006, Twitter (now X, blocked in the Russian Federation) bought its first logo on the freelance exchange. Later, when the social network became a large international company, the image was stylized by ordering a logo from a large design agency. The logo featured a blue bird. It is called Oxley’s bird – named after the designer Simon Oxley, who created this image. For the logo, the exchange received 10-15 dollars, of which the author himself received only 2-6.

He received the same amount for his other famous work – the GitHub logo, familiar to all IT specialists. The portal has been using “octocat” all this time, and it seems that it is not going to part with it.

Since the company bought these logos not directly from the author, but from the exchange, they could not use them as logos. Oxley was surprised to learn that Twitter was using his logo, but he ultimately refused to license it and the company changed it to just the bluebird image. And GitHub turned to Oxley, received his permission – for this they have great respect – changed the image a little and are still using it.

Elon Musk is generally known for his innovative views on management, and security is no exception. The company employs freelance hackers. They are paid a piece rate for finding security holes.

This is a common practice among American tech giants. They have more than enough motivation, but the requirements for such specialists are very high. There are even those who have not yet finished school. And they can already rent an apartment on the first line of a holiday home in Anapa, because according to Inc., Tesla 6 years ago paid from $1,000 to $15,000 for detecting such holes, depending on the degree of the potential threat. The heads of large companies consider it unreasonable to maintain such a staff; it is much more convenient to turn to freelancers.

If previously, to order a design or text, you needed a contractor within walking distance, or at least within the coverage area of ​​his bank, now you can work with freelancers all over the planet. Creativity and business have no boundaries, but unfortunately, payment options do. That’s why we created MadeTask.

Previously, there were no particular problems with payments to private contractors: you transfer it to the card and don’t worry about it. I just sorted out all the paperwork, gathered a pool of reliable freelancers, I wanted to live in peace, but… Blockages, problems with banks and all that. Customers are happy to pay for good work, but restrictions do not allow it. Do not send the fee by letter with cash.

The MadeTask service allows you to make payments to 190 countries with withdrawal to Russian and foreign cards in different currencies. A bonus is a convenient interface in two languages ​​and all the necessary documents for accounting in one click. It doesn’t matter where your performers and you yourself are located – you can carry out a translation in minutes all over the world.

Friends, have you ever worked with freelancers? Can you share the story of the strangest performer?

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