How We Launched a New Way to Use Upwork in Three Months

We recently launched Project Catalog™, a new way to quickly expand your capabilities on Upwork. Project Catalog features the same type of work that’s popular on our Talent Marketplace, packaged into predefined projects that are ready for purchase. Businesses can browse and instantly buy at a fixed price, answer a few required questions, and get started right away.

It’s a very different approach from Upwork’s traditional experience, and it’s one our team drove from approval to launch in less than three months—in part because of the impact we believe it will have on opportunities for businesses on Upwork.

“I don’t just work with Upwork, I also have a freelance business. To me personally, it’s important that professionals like Project Catalog and that it works well for them—and I’m excited to see how engaged people are already,” said Kirill Panshin, a senior engineering lead at Upwork. 

“This work has been very cross-functional—different teams working on different areas, such as payments, contracts, and messages,” he said. “We set a goal, we had a focus, and we’ve worked really hard to stick to it.”

Why did we add an e-commerce-style experience to in-demand skills on Upwork? And how did it launch so quickly? I spoke to some of the project leaders for a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the Project Catalog experience.

A new way to quickly expand your capabilities

“We were excited to see great demand for Project Catalog from both new and existing customers during our beta, affirming the vast interest for this type of service as companies of all sizes increasingly embrace independent talent.”
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—Sam Bright, Chief Product & Experience Officer at Upwork
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Learn more about the global launch of Project Catalog.

Upwork’s current Talent Marketplace works well for clients who know exactly what skills and expertise they’re looking for. However, while many businesses come to Upwork with a goal in mind, it isn’t always easy to plan projects or determine how to accomplish your goals.

Project Catalog leverages the experience of professionals to help cut the guesswork and kickstart clearly defined projects more efficiently:

• Independent professionals set the terms for the predefined services they want to offer, including price, scope, deliverables, timeline, and any information needed to begin. This simplifies a lot of the back-and-forth that’s often needed to move a project forward.
• Clients who have a clear deliverable in mind can browse different ways to get the results they want within their budget and timeline, then quickly connect with professionals who specialize in that type of work. 
  

A small paid project is often the first step toward a longer-term partnership—it helps build confidence, particularly if a client is engaging expertise beyond their own skillset or if they’re new to Upwork. Project Catalog helps streamline the process

Rethinking the user experience

“[Project Catalog] is very different from Upwork’s existing work marketplace,” said Theresa Chin, Lead Product Manager. “We had to reconsider the whole interaction—not just how people search for and decide whom to work with, but also the projects that would go into the catalog.”

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While Chin said they were able to leverage parts of Upwork’s existing ecosystem, creating an alternate interface presented two big challenges:

• To build an experience that would meet the needs of talent and clients
• To generate a supply of projects to go into the catalog before it launched

The answer to both of these questions was to turn to the community for feedback and input as soon as possible.

“I like Project Catalog because it saves me time.
Clients [find] me, [see] my package, and know what to expect."

—Luke A, Creative Video Content Producer

From approval to beta to launch

Project Catalog got the go-ahead at the end of July 2020—a more robust version of something that had been tested during the second quarter of the year. We introduced a beta to independent professionals in mid-September and released it to clients at the end of October. 

That initial launch involved more than 120 employees and contractors who made Project Catalog happen—contributing ideas and revisiting each part of the process, from onboarding and contract workflow to payments and the overall search experience. 

“It’s really a testament to the spirit of Upwork, coming together behind a goal and accomplishing it,” said Guy Rom, Senior Director of Engineering. “We went to different teams and said: We need your help, we need your ownership, we need your leadership in driving an aspect of this project—we can’t do it ourselves.”

And people were excited to get involved. Work was decentralized across 11 different departments using workstreams to keep everything on track, with each department figuring out how to bring part of the experience to life. For example, Customer Support made embedding chat into the product a priority: It will enable the team to help people get the information they need while also gathering direct feedback about how Project Catalog can be improved.

Find the support you need to get started

Project Catalog introduces the breadth of services and work available through the talented professionals in the Upwork marketplace. By clearly setting expectations upfront, independent professionals and their clients can set the foundation of trust and understanding that leads to successful working relationships.‍

Ready to start your next project? Browse Project Catalog™ today.