Future of Work -- what do you think?

[JasonB]

Our resident economist, Lucas Puente, just posted this blog article about the Future of Work, including his thoughts on globalization, automation and technology.  Take a look!

https://www.thumbtack.com/blog/futureofwork/

Have a question, comment or opinion? Post it here, and Lucas will respond by the end of the week.

[Pat]

My business has been increasing steadily, through quality of work and customer service, leading to a lot of work of mouth work. I see this continuing.
Whether or not Thumbtack comes along for the ride.......that future a little more dismal.

[GDBROG]

Unfortunately, I have the same thought. My customer base is steadily growing. Referral work is coming in more and more. Thumbtack customers are getting more expensive to acquire every day. Is it just me?

[Diehl_mitchell]

The new TT quote procedures are terrible in my field of painting. No longer can send custom quotes. Thumbtack has, n / a, need more info., as the only quote that gets sent. Business has dropped big time through thumbtack. Word of mouth is still good for references. Not sure I will stick with thumbtack! Also I don't know what I'm being charged now, but it's about triple what it used to be!

[CLGPatrick]

This is an extremely deeply researched and intuitive article!  I really enjoyed reading it!  Something that really isn't noted is how fast entrepreneurs have to grow in order to keep up with the upward trends.

As a photographer, my skills have to keep evolving as well as my portfolio.  My portfolio is pretty great right now, but the client-base that will be shopping for photographers in the next five years may find my techniques outdated.  How they find me, contact me, sign my contracts, and pay me also has to evolve.  I've gone 100% digital with my contracts, use google voice phone number for customers to reach me with ease, and use websites like smugmug and squarespace to create beautiful portfolios for my prospecting visiters interested in my photography.  I even accept cash, check, credit card, debit card, venmo, paypal, and zelle to make it easier for customers to pay me. 

The growing market of entrepreneurs is beautiful and promising, but it also means saturation and high levels of competition.  Are you all ready for that?

[mileshack]

Good data and nice elaboration of statistics in current economic trends. I have enjoyed the client growth of Thumbtack for the initial months. It would be nice if the team would put more stats like this in their "view competition" insights. That would greatly help to see something like median price ranges for fields of work, or what a customer is willing to pay, the most hired quotes per a specific field's project.

Things like this could help a freelancer/entreprenuer more easily gauge things like: what they can charge, if it is a low or high-ball quote compared to most, what that field of work usually gets paid per gig, and how much they will make minus the Thumbtack (varying) fees, expenses, and commutes.

Thanks!

Miles Hack

Ecoscaping, Artistry, & Garden Management

[MR]

Well written article and good read. Thank you for posting.

In my field, legal services, many are a bit behind the time ans slow to catch up. For example, some attorneys still rely on fax and won't use email except to schedule lunch.

That said, the world is indeed changing - and everyone involved in the puzzle must be open and ready to change at all times. As another poster here said, saturation is almost inevitible - both for the producers, suppliers and consumers. The key is to differentiate and separate yourself from the pack.