Elance Blog

Elance buyer Patrick O'Malley founded his business, Get Prepped, in 1999. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Get Prepped offers courses on campuses nationwide to help law school applicants prepare for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT).



Get Prepped was born while Patrick was in law school and tutoring prospective law students. Soon thereafter, his entrepreneurial instinct kicked in and he decided to start a business focused on helping potential law school students prepare for the LSAT.

Meet Ketan Sethi (username: EyeForWeb), a talented web designer and small business owner who joined Elance to reach new clients.



Ketan founded his web design business as a freelancer in 2004. Prior to getting into web design, Ketan worked for renowned news channel like Zee News and DD News as a 3D animator and graphic designer. While working for Zee News, Ketan became fascinated with web design.

Meet Sandy Sandler, corporate gift expert and creator of Bowdabra, a bow-making tool.



Sandy started her product development/marketing business, Nuvelle Crafts, in 1996. Like most businesses, Sandy started small – only employing herself and one part–time assistant to run the day-to-day operations. Her business strategy has also included the idea of hiring on demand. She started the business knowing she would hire contractors and service providers to help it grow.

We would like to thank the members who entered their logos in the 2008 Best Logos on Elance contest and all of the members who voted. View Winners >>

Business partners and Elance buyers Wayne Byrne and Robert Byrne found Elancers to help create software tailored to cut development time for programmers. The software, Iceberg, is essentially an application development platform that allows anyone to create custom-built business software, giving its users programming capabilities with a point and click interface.



Wayne and Robert began development of Iceberg in 2001 and continued over the course of four years – outsourcing parts of the development to Elancers.

Melissa Rudy is a 32-year-old mother of three young girls (ages: 4, 2 and 3 months) who recently made a life-changing decision to work full-time on Elance.



Melissa – born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio – graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and a writing certificate in Journalism.

Every week, hundreds of new Elance providers are hired for their first projects. We’d like you to meet one of them, Sharon Thompson (username: allamericangal) – a California-based freelance designer with over 20 years of experience in the graphic design industry.



Sharon has an impressive background in business and graphic design. She is a small business owner, having founded, Sharon Thompson Design Studio, in 1989, and has an extensive portfolio of logos, illustrations and photos.

Part 3 of 3

In parts one and two of our Apple iPhone blog series, we highlighted Elance service provider Nick Dalton (username: 360mind), an iPhone SDK specialist, and provided tips on how you can have an iPhone application built via Elance. In this third and final part of the series, we highlight iPhone applications developed on Elance. Check out these great apps recently developed:



1. KidsCards
KidsCards, the brainchild of entrepreneur Mark Hanusz and 7-month old son, Avi, is an educational flash card application designed for children ages 1 - 3 years old. The application uses the Core Animation framework and allows iPhone owners (or their children) to flick through the flash cards, with categories such as letters or colors, using the familiar iPhone touch screen.

The nominations are in for the 2008 Best Logos on Elance Contest, and we've chosen the finalists.  With over 100 entries in categories like Best Makeover, Web and Real Estate, the finalists are truly the best of the best.

Help us choose the best logo in each category by casting your vote.  Votes will be accepted through June 15th.

Vote Now >>

Part 1 of 3

This is the first of a three part series focused on the development of applications for the Apple iPhone. We start the series with a spotlight on Nick Dalton (username: 360mind), an iPhone SDK application expert and author of 101 iPhone Tips and Tricks.



What is an iPhone SDK expert, you ask? An iPhone SDK specialist is a programmer who can design and create applications – similar to downloadable games or widgets for other cell phones – but specifically for iPhone users. The SDK (software development kit) released by Apple in March, opens the iPhone platform to development by third party developers.