Daniel Pratidya saw the need to take on additional jobs apart from his regular nine-to-five due to the chemotherapy treatments undertaken by his mother-in-law. After coming home from work, he would log into Freelancer.com to bid on several projects at a time, desperate to pay the bills and support his four children.
Freelancer.com was introduced to Daniel by a friend after learning of his plight. His first job on the site was web scraping, which paid US$2 an hour. Not long after, he discovered Microsoft Excel and translation jobs, which he confidently took on. He was surprised at the sheer amount of jobs offered in these categories, and the worry he had been nursing started to dissipate.
Although he never missed paying all the treatments his mother-in-law needed, she passed away, leaving everyone heartbroken. At the very least, Daniel and his wife didn't have to worry too much about the debts left. Through freelancing combined with their day jobs, they were able to settle balances in less than a year's time.
His stint at Freelancer.com -- where he worked day and night to provide for his family -- benefited Daniel with a dozen new skills. "Because of the need, I forced myself to learn new skills so I can bid on more projects. I never gave up. As a result, I became an expert in certain fields in just a fairly short time," Daniel said.
Hooked on Freelancer.com, Daniel never left the site even after their finances became manageable. He also couldn't leave some of his employers who hired him regularly. The web scraping job, which got him started on the site, still goes on to this day and his rate has increased to US$8 an hour.
He also had a project where he translated an English website to Bahasa Indonesia that netted him about US$2,500 in a month. Until now, the employer hires him whenever they would release additional pages.
Daniel has completed about 250 projects on the site and earned a total of $60,000.
Knowing that there are hundreds, or even thousands more who experience financial difficulties, he wanted to introduce more people to the site. "Freelancer.com greatly helped my family during dire times. I want other people to have the same opportunity," he said.
He started a community where he can impart wonderful experiences that will help others financially. Daniel founded the Indonesia Freelancers Association in 2013 that now boasts of over 700 members across the country. "We aim to gather freelancers across the country and inspire them to join us and make a better life," said Daniel.
They have held events including seminars and forums that aim to help freelancers with work such as financial management and internet marketing. Their most recent event was held September last year when Willix Halim, Freelancer.com Vice President for Growth, arrived at the seminar as the main speaker, where he gave a talk about hacking for startups. He was joined by Achmad Zaky, the founder of www.bukalapak.com as co-speaker.
