Happy New Year, everyone! While we haven’t had much success (yet) in losing weight or learning new languages, we have already achieved one of our big resolutions for 2021: reducing friction in the nDash platform and streamlining the process of building an elite team of freelance writers. That’s where our latest product updates come into play.
Here’s an in-depth look at what we just launched over the weekend. Enjoy!
The Basic Plan is Back (100% On-Demand)
One of the great things about startups — especially bootstrapped startups — is having flexibility. Where it might take an enterprise year to adjust their pricing models, we can do this in a matter of days…and that’s exactly what we did.
Long story short: Instead of requiring a subscription payment to access our community and work with freelance writers, we decided to (once again) make this plan 100% on-demand.
While our most active brands are almost exclusively on Pro or Managed, we realize that many companies simply want to use nDash for occasional content needs. This change allows any company, large or small, to use the nDash platform and community on a 100% on-demand basis.
At the same time, we also increased a few perks of the Pro plan, giving them unlimited groups and extending the content approval time to 10 days (previously 7).
Here’s a quick glance at the new entitlement model:
Questions on our pricing? Contact our sales team, and we’ll be in touch.
Open Assignments are Back (with a twist)
Another change we made in the spirit of reducing friction was the re-introduction of Open Assignments. Instead of relying on nDash support to make a selection, users once again have the ability to view and select candidates as they see fit.
You may recall our decision to axe this feature a few months ago…so why the reversion? A few reasons:
- We found ourselves consistently selecting the same groups of elite writers
- We found that brands really wanted the ability to see the full list of applicants
- We found that, even though our aim was to help, we added yet another friction point between the brand and the writer(s)
So we brought it back, but with a few notable changes:
- Instead of posting these assignments for all writers to apply, they’ll instead be sent to an elite group of writers within a specific category (more on this below)
- nDash can still make suggestions, but the users will be in complete control of who gets the assignment
Ultimately, we still view open assignments as a means to an end. Our goal is to help brands build an elite, on-demand team of the world’s top freelancers…and NOT having to constantly source new writers for every assignment.
You can learn more about starting assignments on nDash in this Help Topic.
(Important Side Note: Staff picks have been temporarily removed as an option, but we’ll be re-introducing that feature in a few days.)
Community Elites by Category
nDash currently has around 14,000 writers in the community. The problem here is that you don’t need 14,000 (though if you do please call us 🙂 ). Rather you probably just need a core team of 2-5. So, where should you start looking for them? We’d suggest starting with our new list of community elites.
We’ve spent hundreds of hours in the past few months analyzing our top-performing writers in every category for criteria like:
- Which writers have the best profiles (keywords, experience)?
- Which writers have the fastest response times?
- Which writers have the highest percentage of repeat clients?
We found our answers and compiled these writers into a new class called “community elites.”
When you go to browse all writers, you’ll see a filter for “community elites”
There will be MUCH more on this in the near future, but if you have questions beforehand please let us know.
Product Updates: Some Small Stuff
A few smaller bug fixes and enhancements include:
- Sort writers by activity (see which writers are most active on nDash)
- Request ideas now open to all brands (previously for Pro only)
- Emails deliverability on alerts for when writers accept assignments
- Bug fixes for company profile keyword mapping
As it was for most brands, 2021 was a rollercoaster for us here at nDash. We’re excited to get back to what matters most: facilitating the interaction between great brands and great writers.
Questions about these product updates? Comments? Let us know on LinkedIn.
Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash
