Dubai
For start-up owners and freelance professionals in the UAE, it may well be the answer to what they were looking out for. Businessmentals, a start-up venture in its own right, is offering freelancers a “how to” get it right on anything from launching a business to making sure those invoices get paid up by clients.
The Businessmentals portal has just gone live, but one thing its founder Steve Ashby insists quite vocally is that it is not an app or a job-posting portal for freelancers.
“In fact, we are pushing against the trend to turn everything into subscriptions and apps,” said Ashby, who has had stints in HR before launching his own venture. “Our products are for busy people who run very small businesses, and just need a very specific tool. Not an app that can put the kettle on for them as well as print an invoice.”
Point taken. So, what Businessmentals does is put up micro-templates on details such as “Marketing yourself”, “Chase the cash you’re owed”, and “How to use social media”. There will be even one on how to recruit other freelancers for bigger jobs.
The freelance community — otherwise going by the name “gig economy” — is quite substantial in Dubai. Many are moonlighting in addition to their day jobs as the first steps towards venturing out into their own. Regulations have also become more favourable in freelancers wanting to set up on their own.
But more help wouldn’t go amiss. According to Ashby, “A Dubai license is out of reach for most freelancers because you have to rent an office. It is still an incredibly difficult place to launch a start-up, especially since the banks are actively opposing the gig economy with draconian terms, such as “Show us all your clients for the first year you will trade, or we won’t give you an account”. “Our market is Freelancers, who can work from anywhere. That said, by the time you pay for a free zone license, pay for parking somewhere, and so on, you’re spending a large amount up front — much more than the UK, the US, New Zealand, etc.”
The templates are where BusinessMentals will be looking to make money from. At $45 (Dh165), users will get an invoice and receipt, as well as a purchase order and delivery note. A “process map” can take the user on the “journey from quoting for work to being paid for it,” according to Ashby. There will also be worked examples for each template. Plus, once the payment is made, the templates can be reworked to feature the user’s logo. And there are no add-on fees.
As for offering these via an app at a future date, Ashby said: “We may pursue this idea ... and if so, would not limit ourselves to particular verticals. We would be a local version of Upwork.”
BOX
Freelancers and the law of averages
According to a World Bank study, the single biggest reason why 85 per cent of freelance start ups collapse within 30 months is because of “business incompetence”.
“You cannot be consistently profitable if you’re not competent at running a business,” said Steve Ashby of Businessmentals. “You might get lucky a few times, but that’s not sustainable.
“It is also a fact that the freelance sector is totally unregulated. Standards of performance, reliability, and ethical behaviour vary wildly. At the same time as the segment is growing, the pushback from the clients of freelancers is growing too. Dissatisfaction with work ethic, concerns about poaching both work and clients are just a few of the many reasons given by clients.“