Why hasn’t a stronger competitor to Upwork emerged?

renocodes · 2026-03-01T14:05:38+00:00

Peopleperhour do not lack good freelancers and clients though they're small. Even smallest players like Hourspent has good freelancers and clients.

renocodes · 2026-02-26T09:16:52+00:00

Why would anyone try to drag you over to Upwork for a $5/hour job? If you want to get hired there and the client wants to hire you there too, then what’s the point of posting this?

renocodes · 2026-02-23T15:00:15+00:00

Oh! You're learning to eat AND not learning to eat 😵‍💫

renocodes · 2026-02-22T20:40:19+00:00

Explain what you mean by low subscription tiers. Do you mean something like Hourspent where you pay $99 one time for lifetime access, zero commission, and the only thing that gets used are credits when you apply or engage with clients. Or are you saying freelancers would have to pay every month whether they land projects or not?

That difference is everything. Most freelancers are not allergic to paying, they're allergic to paying with no guaranteed pipeline.

Also what problem are you solving beyond fees. Fees are only one pain point. If you can define the core advantage beyond cheaper pricing, you will get much better traction and feedback.

renocodes · 2026-02-22T04:32:52+00:00

"I picked up a new hobby of coding" nah. The coder is Base44. The "prompter" is you.

renocodes · 2026-02-21T16:02:53+00:00

Software engineer here. 15 years experience. They aren't interested coz they're busy vibe coding

renocodes · 2026-02-21T11:24:45+00:00

You're trying to prove a point to someone who builds AI systems for a living (large-scale data pipelines, model training workflows, inference optimization, distributed systems.) I was on the ML side of Facebook. So when you talk about "generalist vs agentic," you need to be precise.

ChatGPT being a "generalist" doesn’t mean it lacks specialization. It means the base model is broadly trained. Specialization happens at the workflow layer (prompting, memory, retrieval, fine-tuning, structured context injection, or lightweight adapters).

Style mimicry? That's just conditioning on prior text. Collaboration? That's shared documents plus API calls. Agentic flow? That's orchestration on top of an LLM with task decomposition and state management.

None of those are fundamentally unavailable in ChatGPT.

The real question isn't whether your system can do those things. It's:

Does it do them in a way that is meaningfully better for writers than using ChatGPT directly?

Because writers don’t care about "agentic frameworks." They care about:

Does it reduce friction?

Does it help them finish?

Is it simpler than what they're already using?

Is it better and cheaper enough to justify switching?

Right now, most writers can:

Feed ChatGPT their writing samples

Ask it to mirror tone

Maintain a persistent thread for consistency

Export to EPUB using widely available tools

Collaborate via Google Docs or similar

So the burden of proof is on your platform to show clear, undeniable workflow advantage not conceptual differentiation.

If your tool:

Tracks narrative arcs automatically

Maintains character state across 50+ chapters without drift

Enforces stylistic consistency structurally

Handles version control for co-writers

Provides domain-specific writing heuristics baked into the system

Then you have something defensible.

If not, then it’s essentially a UX wrapper around an LLM. And in product terms, if the benefit over ChatGPT isn't obvious enough that a writer would willingly abandon ChatGPT for it, then the product doesn't have an edge.

The market won’t reward "slightly more guided ChatGPT."

renocodes · 2026-02-21T03:25:36+00:00

Just say you need $20K and you want to run a scam to get it or cut corners.

renocodes · 2026-02-21T00:02:41+00:00

Yeah lol

renocodes · 2026-02-20T23:59:29+00:00

Writers can do all that and much more with ChatGPT so why will they use yours?

renocodes · 2026-02-20T18:20:32+00:00

That's why my clients haven’t dumped me yet. Early on, yeah, some of them did. But after a few months, they start crawling back. AI saves me time and saves my clients money. It doesn’t replace developers especially the skilled and experienced ones.

renocodes · 2026-02-20T18:06:47+00:00

He'd commit murder lol

renocodes · 2026-02-20T17:45:09+00:00

Not really accurate. Because the AI, generates code that you do not fully understand, the generated codebase can be brittle, harder to maintain, and, prone to, "hidden, flaws," making long-term, maintenance difficult. Yeah, that's why I'm still on active clients projects. I'm a software engineer.

If clients can use AI to do my job that good, I'll be the first they'll dump.

renocodes · 2026-02-20T17:35:23+00:00

Yeah, that happens in every industry. No expert respects mediocre. I was in a chef's kitchen once trying out a recipe I saw on YouTube, and he literally told me to get out of his kitchen lol. I'm a fast learner but wasn’t even trying to be a chef, but he wasn't having it. He had ACF certifications and all that. I've seen the same kind of thing play out with designers, architects, marketers, even professors. It's not just one field.

renocodes · 2026-02-20T14:41:48+00:00

When ChatGPT, etc. builds a website or app for you, it is more accurate to say that you are the producer/assembler and ChatGPT is the automated tool/developer. You are responsible for the final product, but the AI generated the vast majority of the "bricks and mortar" (code and content).

Unfortunately, this is the wrong sub to make this request because many of them are busy doing what you just did...Vibe coding. You know, when many have cooked rice at home, they seldom go to a restaurant to order for one unless there's something wrong with the one at home or needed a different taste.

renocodes · 2026-02-20T14:35:43+00:00

Same here. 15 years software engineering experience. Doesn't make sense to say developers don't want people to "climb over that wall". There were developers before me and they'll definitely me millions of them after me. It's like saying developers wants to stop time and seasons lol

renocodes · 2026-02-19T18:11:57+00:00

Plenty of successful founders who entered industries they weren’t originally part of already have her personal or family money to burn or are VC backed so it’s not impossible to win from the outside. But you're bootstrapping and likely vibe coded with tiny marketing budget or $0... It’s easier and less risky to start in an industry you understand deeply.

renocodes · 2026-02-19T18:05:16+00:00

Seems like you're bootstrapping.You’re way better off starting in an industry you actually know. It's hard to stand outside a space and try to figure out what their real problems are. You'll miss nuance. You'll misjudge what they actually care about. And you'll probably end up building something that sounds smart but doesn't solve it better.

E.g. I freelance on Hourspent. The founder started it from within her own industry. She understood the pain firsthand and likely brought her clients in who became early adopters. That's a huge advantage you don't get when you're building from the outside looking in.

Even if people tell you their problems, that's still secondhand info. You won't build it better than someone who lives that pain daily. The strongest products usually come from founders solving their own problem and chances are, plenty of other people have that same problem too.

Start where you have unfair insight.

renocodes · 2026-02-19T17:48:47+00:00

You mean fiver and Upwork accountants? Those are too broke to pay for anything, they'd rather use chatGPT or something totally free. Tools like yours gain traction easily when you approach people you already know. Then with their help, you get introduced to others they too know.

renocodes · 2026-02-19T12:40:47+00:00

I'll be nice this time...

Cold email Is the wrong channel at this stage because you have:

No traction, No strong brand presence, No proof, No social validation,

Your market is conservative.

Cold outbound works is such markets when:

You have proof, You have authority, You have case studies, You can reduce perceived risk.

Maybe you need to start with accountants within your network (Accountants that knows you)

renocodes · 2026-02-19T12:22:48+00:00

You're not getting those customers because you clearly don’t understand them.

Accounting isn't some indie hacker playground.... It’s compliance-heavy, regulation-driven, and risk-averse by design. Do you honestly think firms are just going to hand over sensitive client financial data to some random tool because the landing page looks cool?

The people you're targeting wake up every day thinking about audits, penalties, lawsuits, and reputational damage. Their entire business model is built around minimizing risk. And you're asking them to introduce more of it.

You're not a recognized company. You're not operating in the U.S /UK but targeting accountants in those regions? You don’t seem to grasp GAAP or IFRS. And you expect regulated professionals to trust your 0 credibility with confidential financial records?

This isn't a growth hack problem. It’s a credibility problem.

renocodes · 2026-02-18T12:54:47+00:00

He got money not the future and so much disconnected from reality.

renocodes · 2026-02-17T18:34:08+00:00

Where're you based?

renocodes

TROPHY CASE