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Whatever mental gymnastic you used here to justify the existence of this service, please reconsider.
Profiteering on free labor is wrong. Internships should be paid, freelance work should be paid. Labor should be paid.
Stop, take a hard look into the mirror and maybe pivot into a platform that respects the people and their work.
This is the sort of business idea that I’ve thought about that commercially would work but I just can’t do it due to morality.
I see Reddit posts all the time offering to do work for free. I’d only take them up on it for an open source project (they retain copyright) or some charity thing. Never for something I’d profit from.
Not all compensation is money, so your premise is deeply flawed. Value can be provided in many forms. For someone with zero or little relevant experience, having a good recommendation from someone at a large company can easily separate you from the crowd. What about your tech companies giving 20 hour work "exams" as screening? Guess what? Many times, those are REAL problems they are looking to solve. There is nothing wrong with this from my eyes. If someone has skills, and just no connections and needs a break to get into a world they don't know, this is a great way to do that. Plus, I'd be happy to mentor someone who shows excellence, work ethic, and drive.
So, I'll be using this and making sure those that need help launching their desired career have a chance. Instead of just getting $200 for a project and still having nowhere to go. What's more valuable? Access to a network of connections and a recommendation, or $200 one time?
If someone in such a position let’s say on $200k/y won’t pay $200 and if the job is any good then recommend them, well ... I think that sucks.
To address the concerns that have been raised:
Internships, even unpaid internships, are extremely competitive and often go to people who already have experience. Even getting work on places like Fiverr and Upwork, where your experience isn't easily transferrable off the site, is extremely challenging for those starting out. There are beginner lawyers who offer pro-bono services in return for mandatory testimonials, social media posts, etc in place of payment for successful completion of their services. This practice is not limited to lawyers. With this service, we are trying to make this practice easier for people. The ethical concerns you raise are valid. However, from students who have been looking for something like this, we've gotten nothing but gratitude. In addition, this process blinds companies from screening people on the front-end unfairly and requires their judgment to be based on no factor other than the quality of one’s work. The fact is that there aren't enough apprenticeships and internships to go around; we are trying to solve that problem.
As for landev's concern about us charging companies - we have a free option that is intentionally limited to protect against people who would seek to exploit the system. Those who wish to complete projects are doing so because they are looking for non-financial compensation. There are plenty other sites where they can go if their primary goal is to make money for their skills in the short-term.
I will admit, our copywriting was not characteristic of our intentions; we have since changed this to better reflect the type of people we want using the platform.
Looking for feedback on this. We used to run a program matching students looking for internships with companies (main desire: resume experience + letters of rec), and some of these resulted in real long-term, paying jobs. We have a lot of students who still want this kind of service (which we won't charge them for), but to make it easier on companies, we've made it more a-la-carte, like Fiverr. Would love to hear ways we can improve this for companies.
I don't mean to be inflammatory, but is there no ethical concern with charging money for the site and then giving none of it to the people that actually do the work? I'd ask you to reconsider the project, and to really think about whether it's acceptable to profit off of a bunch of free workers. I am of the firm opinion that it's not.