For High End Top Management Expertise, “Get Me Experts” ( http://www.getmeexperts.com) is emerging as a strategic consulting marketplace. The focus is more on Demand Generation from developing world. Infrastructure and Smart Cities as a specialised services given at the moment to global customers.

Hi Rodgers, LocalSolo does support South African freelancers. If you live there, and your profile with LocalSolo is approved, then you are able to apply to any remote or South African based job on the LocalSolo job board.

Thanks Robert for the suggestion. I will share a conclusive feedback on the same.

Great question Rodgers. Hopefully other readers will have some specific insight on this. Here’s what I can tell you for now:

-One other platform discussed above that is based in Africa (in South Africa) is Flexy, though I don’t know that the jobs they list are focused there. Take a look and let us know what you discover.

-LocalSolo, also listed above, organizes gigs by city, because many of the companies hiring freelancers from their platform need people who are local. They are always expanding and adding new cities, so keep an eye out there. I see 3 South African cities on their platform right now.

Having been in consulting for about 4 years, and serving clients like BCG, Carrefour, Bel,.. among other top clients, the biggest challenge one faces when he/she decides to go independent is getting clients, especially in developing regions like Africa.

Are there specific marketplaces or networks for consultants where one can get Africa-focused projects?

I recently identified one marketplace based in South Africa called LinkdPro, but it’s still new in the market.
Any suggestions will be very helpful. Thanks.

Thanks Charlie. BTW, we’ve updated it a little and keep adding sites. Let us know if we missed any. N.B. Freelance sites that are for less strategic and more creative gigs are on this related list: http://nation1099.com/freelance-websites-need-know/

Thanks for your perspective Pieter. One of the things that freelancers should educate themselves about and consider is the nature of “two sided marketplaces.” They work effectively when they are in balance so that the interests of both sides have a shot.

For example, if a flea market operator rents stalls to too many vendors, there is too much supply for the demand, which depresses prices, gives buyers the upper hand and gives a poor impression by making the foot traffic look too thin. Make the marketplace too exclusive, and prices will be too high for the market to work effectively.

The same issues apply to online platforms like these. I know I had the experience in a completely different domain — peer-to-peer lending — where the terms of service changed to give some lenders favorable terms over other lenders and therefore over the debtors. That broke the balance in the two-sided marketplace in my view and made it a place I didn’t get a value out of visiting anymore.

My own specialty is in edtech where many platforms for selling online courses have emerged, and one of the issues that learners and course creators have to deal with is that some of the platforms are chaotic bazaars with little transparency about pricing.

Freelancers and consultants looking at these websites shouldn’t have impossible expectations, but they should think about if the marketplace is in balance so it bring them fair value for their time.

For a long time Toptal was my primary choice of work, but just like most other platforms, I’ve had one big problem with them: They do not have the interest of the freelancer expert at heart, but rather the companies/clients. When ever there’s a dispute on whether enough time was spent on a project, the company would get the benefit of the doubt and there is no way to measure whether the work was actually done as the actual work is confidential IP.

When an expert works overtime on a project, there’s no compensation for it, but when an emergency occurs where in a certain week the expert is not available to do the work, he/she has to take a cut.

I’ve searched long and wide for a platform that is truly transparent with the work and all the fees being charged. The closest to it I could find was Flexy, but it was far from perfect, so after signing up and having a look around the platform, I reached out to them and gave my 2c on what can be improved. As it turns out, they needed an engineer with the exact same skillset that I have at my disposal, so I joined their team and we are doing a complete rewrite on the project to truly create the best experience based on a vast amount of research, but also from personal experience.

The entire team at Flexy works on demand & remotely and the majority of us come from a background of using these other platforms.

Keep an eye out for Flexy Product 2.0 coming to you this Fall (or Spring if you in the Southern Hemisphere like myself).