Spectroomz: autistic freelancers

Hire exceptional autistic freelancers

Hi, happy autism awareness month! 🎉 I’m Arik, the “father-preneur” behind Spectroomz.

Since my son (currently 4.5 years old) was diagnosed a year ago, I started thinking about his future. I talked to many autistic adults and understood the number one problem is finding and maintaining a job. Interviews are hard for many autistics, and even if they get the job, it’s hard to maintain it because of the social interactions. That leads to 85% US unemployment rates among autistic college grads,^[1]Autism in the Workplace: Assessing the Transition Needs of Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Griffiths et al., 2016) and to 80% autistic adults who are underemployed averaging 9$/hour.

Many told me they wish to work remotely as freelancers so I looked for autistic-friendly solutions but couldn’t find any. When I asked, “What about Upwork or Fiverr?”, most didn’t know them or thought they don’t answer their needs.

Autistic freelancers

The traditional hiring process and workplace can cause many autistics unnecessary stress, and many prefer to work from home. My mission is to enable that.

Spectroomz connects autistic freelancers to neurotypical clients and guides both of them on how to work with each other, and benefit from the unique capabilities of autistics. I already have my MVP ready (code free), onboarded almost 100 freelancers, and facilitated several deals.

Most of the freelancers are writers, designers, and admin support, but also several software developers. I’m actually still debating with myself whether I should focus just on one segment or not. I would love to hear your thoughts on that!

Join Spectroomz

• If you are looking for autistic talent, submit your project, and get in touch with autistic freelancers.
• If you regularly hire freelancers, go ahead and give Spectroomz a try by hiring a great freelancer there.
• If you are an autistic or aspie freelancer, please join us!
• If you don’t need freelancers now (great timing COVID! 😷), please Bookmark/Pocket Spectroomz.

I’m here for any questions, feedback, suggestions! If you worked at a freelancing platform or founded one and feel like saving me common mistakes, I’d really appreciate it. Intros to such people would also be highly appreciated!

Cheers!

Arik (arik@spectroomz.com)

Also read:

Autistics work hard