When discussing the new Layers Foundation for freelancers with its founder, Jayant Rao, his enthusiasm for the new protocol is certainly contagious! He and his team have been working on the bootstrapped product for over four months –
“Our initial internal launch will be in June so the team members will start getting paid using the same protocol. We will also launch our NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) in June so users will be able to reserve their usernames for the platform and protocol before we launch it in July”.
Who does the Layers website target?
The platform is targeting freelancers at beginner – intermediate level for MVP (minimum viable product) and Jayant explains that they are particularly keen to work with freelancers who are new to the market and are wanting a product that will help make life easier for them as a freelancer. The website proclaims – “Freelancing can be hard; we want to make it easier”.
Layers (https://layers.foundation) keeps admin to a minimum and is easy-to navigate. Freelancers will get help at every stage including receiving their payment in their preferred tokens and coins. Layers is totally transparent as Layers uses public blockchain networks (Polygon PoS) that make it transparent, and the network is secured by the Validators. All work is secure as it is covered by escrow protection.
The escrow contract is written in solidity and follows the best security practices in the space to ensure that the escrow behaves according to predefined rules.
How it will help newbie freelancers
Deciding to take the plunge to become a freelancer can be daunting and Jayant explains how using Layers will help.
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“Beginner freelancers are not well aware of how to go about the process of raising
invoices, creating contracts, and building the scope of their work. We are pre-defining these for them, so all they have to do is focus on their work, and the rest is handled by us.
What makes our website different is that we were all freelancers, and we really understand the pain points of being one! Like any other Joe on the street, we are trying our best to help the freelance community. We are very good at UI/UX and development of this product; we are carefully figuring best ways to market it in an organic and sustainable way forward. So, we don’t end up losing the vision of this project or run out of money trying to solve a problem.”
Why now is the optimum time to launch Layers
Since the pandemic and with increasing financial pressures, many more people are now turning freelance either full-time or as a side hustle and Jayant feels there is a huge need for Layers-
“For starters, there’s been a big increase in the number of freelancers out there, and with so many people looking for work, the competition has been challenging; however, it also means there are more opportunities to find work for those willing to hustle and put in the effort. Of course, some challenges come with freelancing. Managing your own finances, finding clients, and dealing with the ups and downs of the gig economy can all be difficult tasks. But with the right mindset and hard work, many people find that freelancing can be a rewarding and fulfilling way to make a living.”
* twitter /layersprotocol
Does ChatGPT threaten the future for freelancers?
Another challenge that is being faced by freelancers is the dramatic increase in the use of ChatGPT and one of the many blogs on the Layers Foundation platform discusses the future for the role of freelancers. Jayant started using AI long before the surge happened on social media and before it was mentioned on Instagram and LinkedIn. He knew that it would quickly develop and decided to implement its use in his company early on. Jayant feels that freelancers need not worry about the increased use of ChatGPT, but that it is a good idea for them to become competent in using AI now to help them in their work and as it develops, they can easily increase their knowledge in tandem –
ChatGPT has recently been a trending topic that makes everyone curious; one of the important things are that it helps by automating specific tasks and providing quick and accurate responses, which can help freelancers be more productive and provide better service to their clients.
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ChatGPT can generate content, such as blog posts, social media updates, or product descriptions. This can greatly help freelancers who need help with writer’s block or need more time or resources to create content independently. ChatGPT-generated content can also be optimised for search engines, which can help freelancers attract more clients and grow their businesses.
I believe that as technology continues to develop, we’ll see even more ways ChatGPT can benefit freelancers and other professionals. At present, the main advantage that freelancers have over AI is that they have emotions and empathy, and these are elements that most of their clients need. Most freelancers need to explore exactly what their client is seeking by delving into their ideas. Whilst AI can provide the basic idea, the freelancer can then develop this using information and emotions to understand exactly what their client needs for their graphic design or writing.
A freelance background is proving so beneficial
Jayant is confident that the Layers Foundation can really help freelancers as he has used his own experiences to ensure that Layers can address many of the challenges faced by freelancers. His career began when he was an Intern at a Marketing Agency, and he created graphics and ideas for a variety of campaigns. He was young and quickly gained a great understanding of how ideas can change the work and for the next six years, his focus moved toward more UI/UX-driven job until he began his own Design Agency in Dubai It was about two years ago that he wanted to bring his UI and UX expertise from Web 2 to Web 3 because he felt that the latter was still lacking in a good user experience.
Layers will help resolve problems in the freelance world
“I have been freelancing for the last 10 years while having a job, but during the Pandemic I realised its true potential. I was fired from my job during the pandemic which drove me towards creating a design agency – Neue World (https://neue.world). By the time I was 28, I had sat in both seats; as a freelancer applying for gigs and shortlisting freelancers and as an employer, reading resumes to hire on both a part-time and full-time basis. This has given me the ability to empathise and understand both sides. The surge in freelancers both during the pandemic and post-pandemic has driven me to create Layers that will be transparent, open, and focused on solving the current issues in the Freelance Industry.”
Jayant certainly understands the freelance world well and the challenges it presents – especially when it comes to getting fairly paid for work-
“My first freelance gig was for $40 and at my peak of 8th year, the biggest deal was over $30k. I have seen Instagram accounts pushing towards increasing freelancing rates but being from India where freelancing was considered “cheap” and outsourced for low quality and better pricing – I was able to break that barrier and enter the industry into scaling myself towards five figures of earning alone without any “courses” or “shortcut”. It’s a brutal game, and I did that by trying different freelancing platforms to realise that these platforms are heavily dependent on competition of being undercut by pricing and quality of work. I tried my best with 3rd party platforms until I realised the way to gain true power was to network with the right people to get the best deals. This also helped me move from a freelancer to an agency model and scale it from a solo founder to a team of 13 now”.
As freelancing grows and develops, Jayant feels that the emphasise should be placed on giving the individual independence rather than raising concerns to them about trust-
“Freelancers should be able to focus on quality, payment and delivering the right work. Not have to worry about trust. This is only possible if we build a transparent system that will help. Freelancing is global and the trust always will be there, but it’s better to trust a transparent system than an individual person. What we want to build is the web3 version of Uber for freelancing, we want everyone in the world to have access to the infrastructure (Work reputation, payments, and what comes under freelancing) to do freelancing work on their own terms”.
With the big countdown to the launch of the Layers Foundation, Jayant is certainly busy –
“I am managing the team and making sure we can build the best product, release the MVP and eventually raise a pre-seed of $500k with strategic investors who understand our vision. Our team is quite self-sufficient now with UI/UX, Marketing and Developers who take care of the day-to-day work”.
Having learnt about the importance of ideas from a young age, Jayant certainly has many plans for the new platform –
“We are problem solvers and builders, so our plan is to keep building, but for now, we are busy building a transparent, decentralised, user-owned freelancing protocol. We hope to help expand freelancing globally with the Layers Infrastructure which we are currently developing which will handle freelancing data on public blockchains and can handle a global freelancing workload and maximize the opportunities for users”.
For more information on The Layers Foundation – https://www.layers.foundation.
