Yesterday, we released a new version of FreelanceAround. The first version was an attempt of MVP to see if freelancers were interested in meeting each other during working hours. Our answer is that, yes people are interested, but our product wasn’t the right answer!

What’s new in this version?

Well, first of all we’ve made a massive redesign on the application. The first version had been coded in less than 5 working days, so the design had been neglected.

Now the homepage shows you a nice map, where you can see the upcoming “get-togethers”. On the right hand-side, there is a list of freelancers who have visited the page recently, as well as a “Create a get-together” call-to-action.

The second big change is that we removed the ability to check in.

In the V1, users were invited to check in to let people know where they were at a certain point in time, with the hope that someone might join them to work in the same cafe. The truth is, it would be a nice addition when we reach a critical mass, but at the moment, it doesn’t fit the role as we don’t have enough users engaging with the site.

So we’ve decided to create what we call “Get-togethers”, which are mini informal meetups. You just say where and when you’re going to work outside and people will be able to express their interest via the FreelanceAround website.

This is the page to set up a get-together:

And this is the page where you can show your interest for a get-together:

No excuses now if you feel lonely in your home office!

You can now setup as many get-togethers as you want for free. To do so, just head to FreelanceAround.

We’ve got plenty of improvements to do next year, but I would love to see if people use this get-together feature first.

We hope that you like the app / concept, and that you’ll let us know it in the comments or even better give it a try and set up a get-together!