October 16, 2009
"New Way to Work" winners announced
Elance competition hosted on Vator comes to a close; the $10,000 prize winner announced
The Elance "New Way to Work" competition, which was hosted here on Vator, has come to a close and a winner has been selected to receive the grand prize of $10,000 in cash or health insurance. The competition called for startup companies, entrepreneurs and independent professionals to share an inspirational story about the way they work.
The award went to Benjamin Gran, a freelance writer for his blog post "Cubicles are the Phone Booths of the Future." In the post he talks about his disliking of the limitations of working in an office. An excerpt:"I don’t like having to work “standard hours.” I don’t like having to show up at 9 a.m. (or earlier) and work the same amount of time every day. I don’t like never getting to see daylight (my office has no windows). I don’t like the enforced idleness – I hate those days where even if there’s not enough work to do, you still have to sit there for three more hours, just to “put in your time” and keep up appearances."
Gran then goes on to talk about how Elance has helped him spark his freelance writing career in which says has enabled him to work with clients in Australia, Tokyo, England, Canada, Jordan, and all over the U.S., making more money in two hours of work from wherever, than in two hours sitting in a cube.
I had a quick chat with Gran via email where he told me he would be choosing the $10,000 in cash, and planning to put the funds in a high-interest savings account keeping it as a "cash cushion" to use in starting his own business full-time. Although he is not yet fully free of the cubicle life yet, he plans on getting there soon.
Coming in second place was Salma Jafri and a tie for third Michael Rodrigues and Casey McConnell.
Congrats to all the winner and good luck escaping that cubicle life.
Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs
Vator, Inc.
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Vator (short for innovator) is an awesome professional network for entrepreneurs and investors that sits at the intersection of media and finance. Our entrepreneurial ecosystem consists of startups, investors, strategics and service providers.
Vator’s platform offers an extensive set of services to the entrepreneurial community. Here is a quick summary of our suite of offerings:
VatorNews: Research, analysis and coverage, spanning news, thought leadership and lessons learned
VatorX: SaaS platform leveraged by startup communities and competitions to rank and filter participating startups
Vator Events: Well recognized large and small events across numerous geographies and sectors
Vator Investment Club: Our investor group for accredited investor members of the Vator community
Vator Teams: Our confidential acquihire platform for startup teams
Background
Vator was originally founded by Bambi Francisco and seed funded by its original lead investor Peter Thiel as a social network for startups and investors, combining media coverage with rich profiles and filtering. Over the more than decade since its founding Vator has expanded to offer a full range of services to the entrepreneurial community. Today Vator is a well-recognized and trusted member of the startup community.
Business Model
Vator has a range of business models due to its diversified set of offerings.
Elance (deleted)
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Elance, where companies find, hire, manage
and pay contractors online, is transforming the way businesses get work done.
On Elance, companies gain instant access to more than 99,000 rated and tested professionals who offer technical, marketing and business expertise. With more than $215m in Elance earnings to date, independent professionals use Elance to meet clients and get paid for delivering great results.
Elance is experiencing record growth. In the past year, over 270,000
new jobs have been posted on Elance representing well over $100,000,000 of work.
Over the same period, over $60m has been earned by elancers for work delivered
and over $200m in all.
The record growth on
Elance is fueled by more businesses hiring "on-demand" to maintain
flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Getting work done online by independent
professionals is a major trend as companies have discovered the benefits of
using the expertise available through online experts, and as an alternative to
adding headcount.
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