First the exciting news! I’ve just added “Artist” to my website: janepollak.com/artist. Please check it out and let me know what you think. Your comments are invaluable.

I created a powerpoint doc as a first pass (I shared it last week) and offered the assignment to the woman who’d designed my site a few years ago. With all that’s going on in the world, I moved on after not hearing back from her in 24 hours.

Upwork is a site where freelancers see your job postings and write to you to apply. I posted the assignment there and got this inviting response from Chris:

Honestly, after reading your job description from Upwork site and your profile website and ppt file, I almost feel like the job description was written with me in mind.

My professional experience includes…

I was 99% sold. I felt well-considered and in good hands with that personal reply. I asked his fee, which was $80 per hour. At that price, I figured he must be a total expert and able do the job in an hour or two.

When I inquired about his estimated time/fee for the job, I got this back:

For the task, I can do it in a week with designing and developing and deploying. My rate of $80 per hour times 40 hours would be $3200.

I courteously told him that was out of my price range, then deleted our correspondence. Privately I said to myself, Does he think I was born yesterday?

I went through several more proposals and was surprised and curious by one from Josh who wrote:

Honestly, after reviewing your profile website, I almost feel like the job description was written with me in mind.
My name is Josh who is an Senior Web developer with 8 years experience in web development.

I didn’t bother to get a quote from him.

However, I soon found a very competent freelancer from Atlanta with a 100% satisfaction rating who charged me $39.50 per hour and completed the job in about 45 minutes. I had mentally estimated about $100 and he came in under that. I’m thrilled.

Let me know if you’re looking for a terrific web designer/developer.