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A Service Provider in 8KMiles is an independent professional or a company looking for software or knowledge work. Following are the sequence of steps for a Service Provider to get started on 8KMiles.

• Sign up with 8KMiles as a “Service Provider” (please choose “Service Provider” as the option during signup). If you are running a company then you can choose the option “I represent a company” to indicate so.
  
• Setup your profile including educational background, work experience, certifications, references, etc. Also upload a government issued photo ID card.
  
• After your profile is setup, it would be picked for verification. Our team goes through the profile entered by you and verifies the photo ID card uploaded. After this, your profile is marked as “Verified” (You will see a “Verified” sign next your profile).
  
  • Why do we verify profile? – 8KMiles firmly believes on “Real People” executing “Real Projects” at “Real Time”. We verify the profiles of all the providers who sign up on 8KMiles to make sure they are serious professionals looking for work. We want to build a credible and trustworthy ecosystem. We do not display the documents in public without your explicit consent and we also take all the necessary measures to securely store them in our servers.
    
• After your profile is verified, start searching for projects by clicking on the top menu “Find Work”. This would list down all the projects posted by verified buyers in the 8KMiles marketplace. (Our marketing and Biz.dev folks are working hard to bring in projects across domains and technologies and you would see a lot of projects very soon)
  
• Find projects that match your skills (use the filters provided in the search screen) and start sending proposals to them.
• When you are sending proposals, please give complete description on how you are going to execute the project, the timelines, etc. A well thought out, custom made proposal would definitely interest the buyer and you stand more chance of winning the project.
• If the buyer likes your proposal, a formal contract would be sent across mentioning the terms of engagement. Optionally the buyer may choose to have a video conference with you before finalizing your proposal.
• Once you receive a formal contract, you can accept the same if you are fine with the terms. Otherwise, you have the option of modifying the contract terms and sending it back to the buyer.
• Once the contract is mutually agreed upon, the project is kicked off.
• Either the Buyer can subscribe to a VCE and assign it to you or you can subscribe to a VCE yourself. We strongly recommend the use of VCE for any project as it saves you significant setup and configuration time and also helps in real time collaboration with your buyer or other project members. Also, a VCE is a reliable proof of the work you have carried out and it can help if you get into arbitration mode.
• As you complete the work and meet the milestones set in the contract terms, you may raise an invoice to your buyer.
• Once the buyer pays the invoice, the amount will be credited to 8KMiles account and we would disburse it to your account shortly.
• As a provider you have various options of collaborating with other providers - using the exclusive project space created for that project, forming virtual teams (I will talk about it in a separate post), participating in forums and blogs...

Apart from the mainstream “Provider” role, we have other set of interesting roles like “Project Manager” and “Service Broker” which suits professionals with Project Management and Sales background respectively. Hope this clarified your basic set of questions on what 8KMiles Service Provider is and how a Service Provider can leverage 8KMiles. If you have any queries, please send it across to support@8KMiles.com. We will be more than happy to assist you.

If you are an IT professional, you can also check out freedomishere.in to find your freedom quotient.

I will have a post tomorrow explaining the steps for a Service Buyer.

Cheers,
Raghu
Team 8KMiles