Monday, October 14, 2013

Startuplift Review

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URL: startuplift.com


NATURE OF WORK AND PAYMENT

Startuplift is yet another "work on spec" site that operates on a model similar to that of Rewarder. But while Rewarder deals in all manner of random questions asked by random people, Startuplift is specifically made for new startups to get feedback on their websites-in-progress. You, the worker, interact with the site and give detailed feedback, for which you *might* be paid.

Payments are generally $5, but some have apparently offered up to $10. The catch is, these startups aren't actually obligated to pay you anything, and some don't. You do the work of reviewing the site first, submit it, then hope that they first choose your response, and then choose to pay you for it.

Startuplift requires payment through Paypal and automatically transfers your balance every Monday. There does not appear to be a minimum balance required to get paid.




SITE HISTORY / LEGITIMACY

Launched in late 2010 according to crowdsourcing.org. Numerous reviews indicate that the site is paying as promised.

Their "contact" page is just a shonky basic web form and the only email address is a generic "support@startuplift.com", but Crunchbase lists Pranaya Ghimire as the founder and the number of employees as 2. They also list a phone number on their site - (347) 855-5438.

INTERNATIONAL ACCESS

Appears to be no restrictions, provided you can have a Paypal account in your country, as that is the only means of payment.

STARTING OUT


You need only a valid email address to start out with no personal information. There's some sort of ranking system called "cube points" that you get for participation and go up through different levels, but it's unclear if this helps you win bids, or really what the point of it even is (it doesn't seem to be documented on the site at all.)

Logging in, you're presented with pages and pages of startups to scroll through, most of whom have already had all their feedback completed. If you happen to find one that says "feedback open", you can visit their site and submit your feedback in the hopes that it will be accepted.




PROBLEMS WITH STARTUPLIFT

"On spec" sites are already inherently problematic in that you're working with no actual promise of compensation in return. But even if you accept those terms (for whatever reason), Startuplift still seems to offer very few opportunities to provide feedback. Over the last five weeks I've logged in on six different random occasions, and never once seen an available offer.

It would also be good if all the completed listings were filtered out. You're given dozens of pages to pore through, and it's unclear if feedback on these sites is closed for good, or only closed temporarily and will re-open at some point.

FINAL VERDICT: WASTE OF TIME

There's apparently very few opportunities to provide feedback, there's no guarantee of pay if you do, you have to compete with dozens of other people for each job, and it's been up long enough that there's an established cadre of "power users" who have ridiculous reputations and likely camp the site non-stop grabbing stuff the second it appears. This site looks like a giant uncompensated time sink for newcomers at this point. 

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