How to Run a Lean Business on Slack Using Freelancers

Running a lean business using (mainly) Slack freelancers is more than possible, it could actually benefit your business. When you're in the growing stage of a startup, whether at the very beginning or while you scale, it can be difficult to pile your resources into only a few key hires when you likely need much more! The skills of one person will always be limited, but the skills of many spread over various needs (writing, design, business strategy etc) will be more be beneficial in the end.

Follow our guide to solving common growing pains in startups with Slack freelancer solutions.

Problem 1: Communication

As an organization grows, the cost of communicating grows exponentially with each added person.

In our research, we have found that a common concern among business leaders is that the chance for miscommunication (not to mention stress) increases with multiple projects going on at once.

Solution: Simultaneous Projects

Imagine dealing with only specialized and competent project managers, transforming your ideas into reality.

With our new bot, you can coordinate multiple projects by having them each in a separate Slack channel. You can have the #design team in one channel, with the #blog in a separate channel, and the #leadgen team in a third channel.

A conversation in separate channels becomes separate projects on our end. You can divide projects into separate work streams, with separate (or overlapping) teams.

Since the project manager does all coordination inside a team, there are no limitations caused by increased complexity within your organization.

This system allows for one person to coordinate multiple teams with few communication touchpoints. Several fast-growing startups use Superside as a form of manpower, as a replacement for hiring.

Problem 2: Planning

In companies, as in life, planning is hard. Some reasons are context-specific, but a universal problem is how we allocate attention in daily life.

Science shows that we over-allocate attention to whatever feels urgent and salient right now, making us forever postpone important, but not urgent, projects.

In your personal life, this might be the book you always wanted to write, but never got around to starting. For a company, never completing important projects is an existential threat.

Solution: Request Recurring Projects

With our new bot, you can easily manage long-term teams that deliver recurring projects.

We built project management tools and routines in the early stages of our company, in order to handle incoming project requests from hundreds of different companies around the world.

If you have a strategy or an idea that requires incremental tasks, and you want to make sure it doesn’t get crowded out by continuous urgent tasks, you can ask us to take care of it for you.

This can be drafting articles for blogs weekly or getting 1,000 new leads for your sales team. Instead of having to remember to ask each week, we will complete the tasks automatically until you do not need it anymore. Furthermore, you will now easily find these tasks in your appropriate Slack channel.

Problem 3: Finding and Hiring Good People

Creating a team to solve a problem is hard. You have to define the job, post a job listing, perform interviews, make offers and do legal work – and then there’s often a gap with the new hire's old job. In total, these processes typically take 3–6 months.

Hiring fulltime employees also carries some extra risk and responsibilities. There’s legal compliance, liability and associated costs.

If you need to part with a new team member, the process of splitting ways again can be disruptive, costly and often gets postponed. On top of that, the need for a specific skill often varies throughout a week or over the course of a year.

Solution: Scale Up with On-Demand Freelancers

Imagine having instant, universal access to the talent you needed, when you needed it, without having to hire anyone.

Using Superside allows you to enlist top-rated freelancers to solve specific projects, with no risk.

If you find a team of writers or designers you very much would like to have available, you can have ongoing projects in a channel inside your Slack team. You can even ask for a dedicated team, recruited and trained according to your requirements.

Instead of having the fixed cost of a monthly salary, you pay for what you use. The more you use, the less you pay per hour, and you can start or stop whenever you want to. You also always know that talent is available, so you can focus on growth.

One of our customers described his experience building a similar team internally:

“Last time we set up an eight-person team of writers and designers for a similar web project, the estimated cost for first year was $1.5M, or $2M including the cost of finding and hiring them. The Superside team would only cost me $335,000, and I can cut my losses if the strategy turns out to be wrong.”

Run Your Business on Slack

Only recently has it become possible to effectively run your company using a flexible workforce. Taking advantage of this possibility represents a significant advantage for those who adopt the technology quickly.