The Indie List
Born out of the Covid crisis, The Indie List has quickly carved out a niche, matching creative and digital freelance talent with companies, writes Siobhán O’Connell
Created as a social enterprise, the platform for marketing services firms to source freelance talent is thriving
The Covid lockdown in Q2 2020 had a major impact on the advertising industry. Brands didn’t know if they were coming or going, and retail, motoring, travel and hospitality advertising dried up completely. Caught in the fallout were the hundreds of creative freelancers who depend for their income on the marketing, media and creative services sectors.
Advertising executive Úna Herlihy responded to the crisis by developing a database of freelance talent and promoting it on LinkedIn. The listing started out as an Excel file and over the past year, has morphed into an online marketplace called The Indie List. Herlihy’s partner in the venture is Peter McPartlin, who worked with her in ad agency Irish International, before decamping to become CEO of radio station Today FM.
“We have just committed to another investment to boost the technology behind our database, and we believe this will help us to strengthen our position as Ireland’s leading ondemand platform for marketing services talent,” says Herlihy.
Project platforms for freelancers are ten a penny but The Indie List’s niche approach for creative professionals hadn’t been done before in Ireland. Naturally enough, the website was developed by a freelancer, Kris Byers, who reached out to the founders when he spotted what they were up to.
Herlihy says that The Indie List aims to provide a fast and cost-effective way to match up enterprises that have marketing, communications or digital projects that they need help on, with independent experts who can assist. “For freelancers, The Indie List is a free way of sourcing new clients and being part of a wider community of fellow freelancers, who they work with on other projects, mentor or earn from.”
The business model centres on companies hiring talent paying an initial engagement fee of €250, followed by a 12.5% mark-up on top of the freelancer’s fee. Recruitment for longer-term or permanent roles is charged based on a pre-agreed percentage of the candidates’ starting salary.
In its first year, The Indie List has attracted c.500 freelancers covering almost every marketing and communications specialism. According to McPartlin: “We’ve had close to 100 projects since we launched and about one-fifth of our base has sourced work from the platform. There is a view that freelancers are only hired by startups or smaller companies, but to date we have also worked with national brands such as The National Lottery, 123.ie, KBC and Elverys, as well as most of the top communications agencies and some media publishers.”
Though The Indie List started out to assist people who mostly work with ad agencies, McPartlin says creatives account for only c.30% of the database now. The platform is also a resource for freelancers with digital skills. “They range from freelance web designers, to journalists, specialist writers, e-commerce strategists, and also into more traditional advertising roles such as creative people, client managers etc,” McPartlin adds.
“The forced shift to remote work by businesses has proven feasible because of tech. Remote working has also been a freelance accelerator, as the difference between a freelancer and an employee shrinks to almost nothing when they are both working remotely. We’ve seen a massive surge in demand for both freelance or project-related work, but also full-time recruitment amongst clients and agencies, which is very encouraging.”