Water Cooler

We are pleased to introduce Teams, a new way for Elance providers to organize as a team and work together. The Teams functionality is available for Small and Large Business provider memberships as an optional add-on feature for a fee.



How do you know if Teams is right for you? Take our four-question quiz below:

Have you considered starting a business while still employed?

My Shanghai-born friend, Annie, says the Chinese have a term for this: “riding in the big boat while carrying the little boat.”

Some entrepreneurs only launch their business officially once they leave employment. However, they incubate the business concept while employed.



Other times, they actually launch the business and run it on the side while still employed. They may continue to run it as a side business for a period of months or even years. Only later do they leave their jobs.

A year ago, Eric Vogel (username: evogel21) was a full-time student at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, pursuing degrees in International Business and Marketing Communications. His life changed after a professor introduced him to Elance.



Eric’s journey since then has been an interesting one – he shares his experience in his own words:

With the spirit of the Summer Olympics in Beijing fresh on our minds, we thought it would be appropriate to spotlight Matt Shields, a high school teacher, dedicated track and field coach, and Elance employer who brought his vision for a track and field tool to life with the help of an elancer.



Matt began teaching and coaching track and field in 1998, and as much as he enjoyed coaching over the years, he was often frustrated by how difficult it was to record, compile and report track meet times for his athletes.

Effectively communicating the benefits of your products, services, and points of differentiation with prospective customers is critical to generating new business. Effectively communicating with current customers so you build a long-term business relationship is just as important – after all, it’s widely assumed that it costs 6-7 times more to find a new customer than to keep an old one.



Here’s a list of 20 projects you can hire Elance writing professionals to ensure you get your message across in a professional and engaging way. For ease in reading, we’ve organized the list of jobs into functional areas, but be sure to browse the entire list: