The company: PeoplePerHour

The bosses: Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris 

It is so hard connecting willing people to where the work needs doing. PeoplePerHour is a website that hopes to change that. 

On the site, firms post jobs and freelancers bid for the work. For example, a tele-marketing business recently advertised for a marketer to call all the numbers on a database; the task would take 20 hours and a fee of £7 per hour was offered. Eight freelancers bid for the work, and one was awarded the contract. PeoplePerHour was set up in 2007. It has more than 126,000 service providers (freelancers, consultants, etc) servicing 43,000 businesses. As a web-only operation, it is easily scalable and covers 150 countries.

The key is feedback. Freelancers are evaluated on each job completed. A stunning 91 per cent of commissioners say the work done by remote workers is as good or better than full-time staff.

Founders Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris have lured legendary VC Danny Rimer and eBay Europe founder Michael van Swaaij. Latest profits are £600,000 on a turnover of £6m.

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