Interview with 20 year old, joseph Mulenga Chipimo, developer of worklance.net

Joseph Mulenga Chipimo is a 20 year old Zambian living and studying mechanical engineering in South Korea. He is the creator of Worklance, which is a freelance website with about 35,000 users worldwide.  worklance.net is a website that connects employers and freelancers. He started the website 6 months ago and its user base has grown to 35,000 users worldwide. Worklance.net has three things to offer to zambia and the world ; skill, employment and education. This could also help develop our country because the website  provides skills to those who want to start a business or a project, employment to those who want to work online as freelancers and education to those who want to sharpen there skills and learn more.  

KAPA187: Who is Joseph Mulenga Chipimo?

Mulenga Chipimo: Well, Mulenga Chipimo is a 20 year old guy who is enthusiastic, passionate in what he does and believes in innovation and creativity. He was born and raised in Zambia by his parents. His is currently studying mechanical engineering in South Korea.

KAPA187: You are a self-taught computer programmer and you are currently studying Mechanical engineering .That takes a lot of hard work and dedication. What drives you?

Mulenga Chipimo: Yeah, very much, because it involves a lot of hard work to teach yourself to program. But there is one thing that always keep me moving. I love what l do , which is programming, and l am very passionate about it. If you love what you do it becomes easy doing it. It becomes part of you, and which makes it hard to quite when you are faced with problems or challenges. For instance, I have faced hard times too. I once lost all my codes, and l wrote them in 4 months after my computer hard drive crashed. It was so depressing and discouraging moments for me. However, l started from scratch developing back what l lost. Even though this was upsetting, l still hard interest and loved it.The passion made me not to give up. I would be very grateful seeing my country develop. It is my responsibility to push hard to help develop my country in terms of software which may create jobs for people, and this is the main reason that makes motivate me to do extra hard each and everyday and also seeing the economy rise.

 

KAPA187: worklance.net is a website that you created .Tell us what it is about.

Mulenga Chipimo: Basically worklance.net is a community platform that connects employers and freelancers in one setting to complete a task. Lets say you want to start a software business and you have all the requirements, idea and all the functionalities you want your software to perform and all you need now is someone to develop that software, that’s were worklance.net comes in the picture it’s to provide you with the skills you need to develop that software,  to do so you have to post a project on worklance.net, describe how you want it, when you want it and what you want it to do and then our intelligent system finds freelancers right for you they bit on that project and you will choose the suitable freelancer for your project by looking at there ratings, reviews from other customers and portfolios, after all the work is done, you deposit money to worklance.net and when the freelancer completes the project and you are satisfied with the work then you can release the money you deposited to the freelancer. Simply we act has a middle agent between the two. With worklance you can work with anyone in the world.

KAPA187:  What prompted you to come up with your website worklance.net?

Mulenga Chipimo: The time I came to Korea I came up with a music search engine called soundsbeat.com. This music search engine used to search for music, videos, lyrics, events of a particular artist and many other stuffs. The search engine made to search any song in the world and other languages that are available on internet. Therefore, the website was said to be illegal in Korea because most companies like LG, Melon and many others provide paid subscription. In addition, l had to shut down the site. Then I came across this idea of working online it caught my interest l decided to start developing a website called micro jobs were you can post any micro jobs you needs to be done, l finished the website in 2 months and later on, I decided to changed the name to Worklance.net.

KAPA187:  How has the response to your site been, from the time it started to now?

Mulenga Chipimo: The time I started the business I didn’t have money, but l just had money to pay for my web hosting. The website didn’t have traffic to revamp the user-base.  I started advertising the website on some social media, and also joined other programs that helped grow the traffic. In 4 months time, I started seeing a change in the traffic and I had one registered user.  A month later, I had more than 100 registered users from different countries. People began liking the site and the user base started growing rapidly. I received more than 300 new registered users every day.  But none of them posted their projects, they only had drafts of projects. I had to think deeply the reason why they didn’t post any project. I decided to redesign the website and built a marketing around all my customers. I sent emails regularly to my potential customers, and one week later users started posting projects.

KAPA187:  Is there a process of scrutinization /verification when someone posts a project?

Mulenga Chipimo: Yes we are required to check the projects and help users make the most out of their projects. We guide them which and how to get a suitable freelancer for their project. We work hard to provide the best service we can!.

KAPA187:  Is there a charge for submitting a project, and if one gets hired, are they required to pay a commission to the site?

Mulenga Chipimo:  No we don’t charge anything for someone to post a project on our platform, it’s completely free. We want to help people start their projects, and make their idea to reality. Therefore, for freelancers we charge a commission fee from their income.

KAPA187:  On your site if one gets hire for a particular project, do they get paid through the site? Or are those transactions handled by the individuals themselves.

Mulenga Chipimo: Well, here is what we do, when an employer hires someone to do a particular project he has to deposit the money in our system. If the project is complete and he is satisfied with the work, then he can release the money he deposited to pay the freelancer. We give care to the whole process, and that’s one of the reason we exist to provide fairness to both parties (freelancer and employer).

KAPA187: In your opinion is it better to be freelancers or to be in fulltime employment?

Mulenga Chipimo: There is one thing that freelance grinds someone, freedom to do anything you want at any time you want it. Another thing is that you get to do what you treasure doing like things you are passionate about, and explore new things and be your own boss. This makes being a freelancer remarkable. The disadvantage comes in when you don’t discipline yourself. If you don’t provide a great service probably no one may hire you. The secret to freelancing is to provide an outstanding service to your customers, and  know how to communicate with them, treat them with respect and try by all means to earn trust.

When I look at Zambia unemployment rate is increasing each and every day. We have a lot of individuals with great qualifications master degrees and PhDs, but they are not employed. This ends them in depending on their parents, and others may involve themselves in activities that are not accepted in the society. This also depreciates our economy. But if those individuals were self-employed (freelancers) likewise they won’t depend on someone else or involve themselves in activities that are not accepted in the society. Self-employment is one way to revamp the entrepreneurship field and the development of our country. To be a full-time worker is also good but it doesn’t grant you the freedom to do what you want at any time and you don’t get to do what you love to do in most cases.

KAPA187: You have also created a social media site called Crystal Chats. There are currently a number of social media sites, the most popular being Facebook. What sets Crystal Chats apart from the rest?

Mulenga Chipimo: Crystalchats.com was as the result of soundabeat.com. soundsbeat had a social part were users used to interact with each other that include chat, send music, lyrics, activities and many other. Therefore, I shifted the technology direct to what is called now crystalchats.com. What sets crystalchats.com apart is that crystalchats.com is fully customizable, You can blog, it’s an Ajax based platform.

KAPA187: What advice would you give your fellow young people about entrepreneurship?

Mulenga Chipimo: To me entrepreneurship means problem solver, it means creativity, it means development. There is nothing else that makes me happy seeing my fellow youths start companies because thats the only way our lovely zambia will develop , its good that the government realized that entrepreneurship is the only way forward. My advice to my fellow youths is that no matter where you are, no matter who you are, no matter what situation you are in you can still make great things that other people can use. All things you see around you were created by people who are not smarter then you, immediately you discover that you will never be the same again, the power is with you. You can create the best version of yourself. I believe God gave all of us one gift and that gift is thinking, you can wow the world  if you use it at its best and lastly remember to have passion, the only way to do great work is to love what you do just like any other great relationship it just gets better and better has the years move on. You are the future and above all stay Hungary. 

KAPA187:  Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years?

Mulenga Chipimo: In 10 years time, I see myself being a CEO and founder of a great worldwide company which will help our country develop. That’s were I see myself in such years.

 

BY KAPA187