Small business owners and online freelancing market research

[Picasso21]

Hi all,

I'm looking to carry out some market research on small business owners for a start-up idea I have. I'm particularly interested in understanding whether small business owners in the UK are currently using online freelancing platforms (such as Elance & Guru) to outsource projects to freelancers, and their thoughts on using such platforms in the future.

I've created a short questionnaire and I was hoping to get some responses from people from the small business forum community. It shouldn't take long to complete, and I'd be forever grateful for your feedback (please find the link to the survey below).

Also, I was wondering, if anyone has any advice or tips on where to share the survey to get the most responses possible (apart from using professional companies with pre-selected respondents).

Thanks in advance!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LFYZBGD

[vangogh]

Since, I don't live in the UK, I didn't fill out the survey, but I'll try to help with the question of where to share the survey to get more results. You can probably post a link to the same survey on other forums and social communities, specifically those in the UK or catering to UK small businesses. It helps, if you first become part of the community and get to know people. You'll probably find more people willing to help that way.

Make the survey as simple as possible. 10 questions may not seem like a lot, but I'd bet you could get the survey down to 5 questions and still get the information you're looking for. Also reduce the amount of questions that require people to type their own answer. Have one non-required catchall at the end where people can add more thoughts, but don't require them to explain their reasons throughout. I'm sure the information will be useful, but I'm even more sure it's where people will stop filling out the survey and move on to something else in their lives. This is especially true if the people don't know you.

Be aware that you probably won't get a ton of responses unless you're already well known or you hire a company to get your survey in front of people. That's just how the world works.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm also not in the UK though I've had a few clients located there. I can say that of course people absolutely do use Freelance sites, and some service providers can do very well there.