Marketplace

UniFreelancer

Freelance marketplace for students and alumni connecting trusted university talent with small business & startup clients

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UniFreelancer product screenshot built by Horizon Labs

Case study

Problem

UniFreelancer is a university-anchored marketplace connecting students/alumni to startups and SMBs. Early-stage marketplaces win by speed and learning: the MVP must validate supply/demand and pricing/engagement models quickly, without overbuilding.

They had a tight launch window (demo-day pressure) and needed:

A working marketplace loop end-to-end, fast
Low-friction onboarding for two distinct user types (students + businesses)
Flexibility to test multiple engagement models before committing to subscriptions
Operational control so the team could self-manage listings and profiles post-launch

Solution

Horizon Labs delivered a lean Sharetribe MVP optimized for learning:

Dual-role onboarding and profiles (students + businesses)
Multiple listing and transaction flows to test demand quickly:
- Business listings (lead capture / interest collection for manual close)
- Student offerings with fixed price transactions
- Student offerings with variable price/negotiated engagement
Commission-based monetization on successful transactions (MVP-friendly)
Admin training and operational setup so the team can iterate without developer dependency
Designed a foundation that could later expand into Academy/certifications and community features

Outcome

Enabled launch under the deadline with real users running through complete flows
Reduced future iteration cost by choosing an MVP architecture designed for experimentation
Avoided premature custom engineering while still supporting multiple business models
Gave the team operational control to manage growth without engineering involvement

Features & Tech Stack

Role-based onboarding and profiles
Multiple listing types and transaction flows
Commission model (marketplace monetization)
Admin-operable marketplace configuration
Foundations for trust-building expansions (certifications/academy)

Sharetribe Extend + Sendgrid + Render

"Horizon Labs' team is really personable and genuinely cares about seeing our project succeed. Project management is excellent. The team is always on top of communicating and working on issues or needs as they arise."

Alina Padilla-Miller

Founder & CEO @ Unifreelancer.com

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