Freelancer ‘thrives in times of crisis’, says chief executive Matt Barrie
Freelancer.com seeing more new users and awarded projects and is ‘well positioned’ to excel for the remainder of the year.
Freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace Freelancer.com is set to “thrive” amid a global recession, as the COVID-19 crisis gives the company a “free kick”, says chief executive Matt Barrie.
Speaking at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, Mr Barrie said despite shaky first-quarter results, the Sydney-based company had seen “strong growth” since a low point on March 15, and he expected the company to revel in the downturn.
“You have businesses trying to cut back on costs ... You have a lot of people looking for work, and certainly that’s the case globally right now,” Mr Barrie said
“The third thing is, and that’s fairly important in Western countries, you have a lot of people with spare time on their hands.”
Mr Barrie said the company was already experiencing all-time highs across a raft of key metrics — including new users and awarded projects — and was well positioned to excel for the remainder of the year.
“I’ve always said you don’t want to be a unicorn, you want to be a cockroach, and this business thrives in this sort of environment,” Mr Barrie said.
Highlighting the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 as a “transformative event” for the crowdsourcing industry, Mr Barrie said Freelancer “thrives in times of crisis”, and the impact of COVID-19 was already “eclipsing” the GFC.
He pointed to the already evident shift globally to an online work experiment, which he said would leave the company well-placed, as more employees sought to work from home and businesses became more comfortable hiring people virtually.
Freelancer, which connects over 44,489,328 employers and freelancers globally from over 247 countries, regions and territories, also oversees a number of subsidiaries including payment intermediary company Escrow and logistics firm Freightlancer.
In the company’s outlook statement, Mr Barrie said he expected both Freelancer and Escrow to achieve “major milestones” across the remainder of 2020, and despite posting a net loss after tax in the 2019 financial year, said the group had been profitable in April.
Freelancer shares closed up 1.92 per cent on Wednesday at 53c each — their highest price since January 21.
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