I was leafing through the newspaper and I read that LinkedIn is launching a freelance marketplace. This could be interesting to you, whether or not you’re offering services for sale.
But let me give you a bit of background first:
LinkedIn got started by buying assets of UpCounsel. This was once a marketplace that connected freelance lawyers to clients.
So the first planned step for LinkedIn is to start its own marketplace by offering legal services. It could happen as soon as September.
Step two will be to repeat the same model across “100 different industries.” That’s according to Matt Faustman, who founded UpCounsel and is now heading the LinkedIn marketplace effort.
Of course, there’s already UpWork and Fiverr for finding freelancers. But if you ask me, LinkedIn could grab a position for itself. Perhaps higher up than UpWork, which is itself higher up than Fiverr.
I bring up this up for two reasons:
1. Maybe you’re a copywriter (or other service provider) looking for clients. If you haven’t done so yet, it might be high time to get on LinkedIn. Start posting articles or videos of yourself. Tap into this marketplace thing before others do.
If you need more motivation:
A LinkedIn spokeswoman said there’s been a surge in people hiring LinkedIn users who list they are “open for business.” Maybe that’s mere puffery. But maybe there’s something to it.
Still, LinkedIn client hunting might not be your thing. In that case…
2. I’ve got a business idea for whoever wants it.
The world of copywriters is notoriously disconnected from the world of business owners. For a long time, I only knew one half of this equation. But as I wrote a while ago, I’ve now seen the other side too. There really are many business owners who want to hire a good copywriter — and even pay him well. But they don’t know where to look or what to look for.
So my business idea for you is to create UpCopy, a freelance marketplace specifically for copywriters.
You’ll probably need to be well connected in the industry or at least good at networking. And even so, there’s a chance that may top copywriters will never want to be listed on your marketplace. It would be contrary to the kind of positioning they want to cultivate.
But who needs to know that?
If you can get a bunch of good-enough copywriters to sign up, getting business owners might be easy. And even if not, the end goal here is not to really create a thriving marketplace.
The goal is just to build something that 5 months down the line, LinkedIn will be happy to pay for. Like they did with UpCounsel. I don’t know how much that was… but my guess is it’s more than anybody can make in several lifetimes of writing copy.
For more free ideas:
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