Thanks for the endorsement, Greg! Makes me incredibly happy to hear that you've had a positive experience with 10x.
Re: the praise for Michael Solomon, for the record, I (the technical partner at 10x) was originally very wary about starting this company with non-technical cofounders... but, at this point, the value they add to our clients and to our business is absolutely undeniable. Michael and Rishon are world-class advocates for talent.
Really, you don't know THP? Lots of demand for it these days...
J/K, yeah, I'm guessing that "P" happens to sound a lot like "T" on a fact-checking call. =P I sent them a note about the typo. Hopefully will be fixed online if not in print.
I'm with you, it's certainly not the most elegant solution to the problem, but we're basically Doing Things That Don't Scale. (http://paulgraham.com/ds.html)
As we grow, we identify bottlenecks, and we write software to automate those processes; I imagine we're iterating towards something like what you're envisioning. (At least internally, if not externally.)
But your last couple sentences got at an important point... as much as I'd like to see this problem solved with software, there are still a lot of unavoidable, messy, people-related issues that, currently, still require manual finesse.
No, we're constantly evaluating people during and after each project. Thankfully we've only had to drop someone in one situation, but we're not afraid to do that if necessary to keep the quality high.
Also thankfully, the people we rep tend to bring their A-game to projects because they understand that it's not just their reputation on the line... they're also representing 10x and all of the other consultants that 10x represents.
Thanks. I am biased, because I work as a consultant. I always bring my A-game to my clients, too. But if I ask for 250/hr, my client's procurement will just laugh and close the door. Well, there were some exceptions, when clients were really in need and I was the only person applicable to solve their situation. But that's rarely the case in longer assignments. Usually, those high rates are demanded by specialists, who are hired for 1-2 weeks of a critical product integration phase.
In my experience, there is no guarantee that an A-grade technician will perform well in any environment. There are so many (not to say endless) factors, which makes it very difficult to value the performance objectively. So unless you have a very good monitoring in place to monitor your client's satisfaction and be very transparent about it to all clients, I tend to claim that you profit from the "Chivas Regal Effect". And I doubt, that your track record of successful time & material engagements really exceeds those of other firms (e.g. Thoughtworks).
From another perspective, you do a great job. Because it is time for many companies to value their staff differently. There are so many IT departments which have not changed much since 20 years.
Max* is right... we have spent literally zero dollars on PR. The New Yorker approached us for this article. (As did Mashable for their piece last week which interviewed a bunch of 10xers: http://mashable.com/2014/11/09/digital-nomads/ .)
Frankly, it makes it even more exciting to me, because it means this is an actual trend, rather than a manufactured one.
* Yes, the parent is Max Nanis from the article. The article failed to mention that he also currently has a sculpture in the Smithsonian. :)
Yup, this pre-vetting is a key part of the service we provide for companies. (We work for the talent, but of course we need to provide value to both sides of the marketplace.)
A large company, which will remain unnamed, works with a handful of engineering contracting outfits, but they like us because we're the only one they trust to provide them with good talent out of the box. With the other companies, they have to go through the full interview rigamarole for each contractor; with 10x, they just tell us what they need and we hook it up.
Thanks for the shout-out, Aline! You point out the main difference in our models, which is exactly what makes our talent agency work: the key is the focus on contract/freelance placement.
Recruiters who do full-time placement optimize for the short-term -- a single transaction -- which leads to all sort of misaligned incentives and shady practices. With 10x, we work with the same talent over the course of years, so we optimize for the long term and help the people on our roster for (ideally) the duration of their careers. And the talent is more than happy to pay for our services.
>>> "Agents make sense when it’s hard to find a job or when the opportunity cost of looking for work is high enough to justify paying someone else.... For engineers, because the shortage is in labor and not jobs, paying out a portion of your salary for a task you can easily do yourself doesn’t make much sense."
This reminds me of the "adverse selection" argument we hear a lot, i.e. the best programmers have no trouble finding work, so wouldn't an agency only attract people who aren't good enough to source their own opportunities? The simple answer to this: Tom Cruise has no problem finding work, but he still has an agent. He wants to spend his time acting, not negotiating, invoicing, collecting, etc.
You also mention that the talent agency model works for niche skills, but then you say there isn't a big enough market for these skills. I'd disagree with the second half of that. Technology is getting increasingly specialized. Software, hardware, electrical, all have sub-fields and sub-sub-fields and sub-sub-sub-fields. The same general model applies to most of these sub-sub-sub-fields, and there are absolutely enough of them to justify a market.
In fact, the niche skills lend themselves especially well to the talent agency model, since companies don't necessarily need to employ those people full time. Data science is a good example of this... a lot of companies could benefit from the insights of a data scientist, but most of them don't need a salaried data scientist on staff. Through 10x, companies large and small have a la carte access to pre-vetted specialists (and generalists), on demand.
(Altay from 10x here.) Not exactly sure what you mean, but if you're suggesting this is a problem that can be solved with software, I actually think one of our competitive advantages is that we're approaching it as a high-touch, people-oriented, service business rather than a software problem.
Obviously, this makes it less scalable, but I do spend my nights writing software for 10x to automate the things we find ourselves doing more than once. (I spend my days working on deals... still working out the balance; see PG's essay about maker/manager schedules.) And one of the things that's always at the back of my mind is how to maintain the high-touch, personal approach as we scale.
Hi everyone, Altay from 10x Management here. Happy to answer questions here or at altay@10xmanagement.com or via our website (http://www.10xmanagement.com)
Have you guys thought about applying this model to f/t roles (i.e. not just contract)? I know contract work may make more sense because of the shorter stints/more business, but perhaps with enough volume, this is something that could work.
I'm a recruiter (used to be an engineer) and recently launched my own firm. This is something I spend a lot of time thinking about, as I find that the incentive structure created by the contingency model where the company is the customer encourages many of the poor behaviors that people associate with recruiting (spamming, cluelessness, bullying, etc.).
Recruiter here with similar ideas. I wrote about an agent model for perm hire last year, was on HN and ad some comments.
Part I and II below
http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2012/09/17/disrupt/
If there's a dispute between you and one of your developer clients, who has the 15% of the money the developer's client paid him/her until the dispute is resolved — you, or the developer? I ask because this relates to the much-debated "who is your real client" question.
Do your clients talk to each other a lot? Work on projects together? I think I'd want to work on a project with someone before I referred a client of mine to them at a moment that I was too busy.
I just want to bump this question - they talk about lifestyle, allowing people to travel, etc. Does this mean you have to be based in the US, but you can then go on a trip and keep working? Or are they happy to work as agents for anybody around the world?
Also, what level of talent/experience are you looking for in your freelancers? How do I know if I meet the requirements :-)
We're open to talking to anyone, from web+mobile devs, to designers, to data scientists, etc. We even represent a guy who does bioinformatics.
The one caveat is that obviously demand varies based on the skill. Our dealflow is steadily picking up as our network grows and as we get press like this, but customers aren't exactly knocking down our door looking for Erlang hackers... yet.
(The bioinformaticist happens to also be a kickass iOS dev.)
That said, if you have your own dealflow for your skills -- no matter how obscure -- and are interested in our services beyond just sourcing gigs, we're happy to work with you.
Re: the praise for Michael Solomon, for the record, I (the technical partner at 10x) was originally very wary about starting this company with non-technical cofounders... but, at this point, the value they add to our clients and to our business is absolutely undeniable. Michael and Rishon are world-class advocates for talent.
Btw, you all can learn more about Greg (the parent commenter) in last week's Mashable profile of nomadic coders -- http://mashable.com/2014/11/09/digital-nomads/ -- and at his excellent blog, http://typicalprogrammer.com !