What’s the value of a domain name? Ask Philippine freelance portal Raket.ph

Freelancer directory Raket.ph has one major unfair advantage: its domain name. Though it doesn’t have a perfect translation into English, the Tagalog word raket could be approximated as “sideline,” which is of course perfect for a site that aims to showcase the work of freelancers so that they can get hired by Filipinos in need of on-demand work.

Raket.ph CEO Lyle Jover was surprised the domain was even available. “All I can say that we we’re just very lucky getting this domain,” he shares. “There used to be another owner but I guess things went the other way for them.”

According to Jover, the original owner of the Raket.ph domain had tried to put up a job search website like Jobstreet. However, it seems he and his team, which includes CTO Bryan Martinez and business and development director Jp Menjares, have put it to better use. It helps in the fact that Raket.ph is instantly recognizable to most Filipinos, much in the same way that what Freelancer.com offers would be obvious to any English speaking person.

The Raket.ph team (l-r): Jp Menjares, Lyle Jover, and Bryan Martinez

Freelancer, incidentally, is one of the sites that Jover hopes to challenge, along with Elance-oDesk. He thinks the Raket.ph model – that of having employers find the exact freelancer they need through a searchable directory, rather than having freelancers bid on posted projects – better suits Filipino culture. But just how much can Raket.ph’s branding help them take on the goliaths of the online job world?

“Brand recall is like a double-edged sword when it comes to word of mouth,” Jover says. “If they can’t remember your company’s name, the story ends with ‘Yeah, but I forgot the name – I’ll tell you once I remember’ which more often than not ends there. You don’t get a second chance with word of mouth.”

Luckily, this does not seem to happen with Raket.ph. “We have never heard anybody asking ‘What was your site’s name again?’”

Transforming a media whirlwind into regular users

This brand recognition extends to media people in the Philippines in search of the next big story. “They immediately get that this has something to do with short-term jobs or the Filipino term rakets,” Jover says. “We don’t have to explain anything except for the new concept that we are introducing.”

Jover and the Raket.ph team have been media darlings, having been featured in print, digital, radio, and television since they launched in May of this year. Of course, media attention is important only inasmuch as it drives new users to the site, and by this measure, Raket.ph has been quite successful.

In a little over three months, Raket.ph has acquired over 5,000 users and are growing at a rate of 50 new users per day. Raket.ph has gotten such unexpected levels of traffic to the site that the team has had to upgrade their servers twice.

Still, Jover counts the most important metric as the number of interactions between freelancers and the people looking to hire them, since the goal of the site is to get them more part-time jobs and projects. On a week to week basis, they are averaging about 300 interactions, or inquiries, between the two groups.

The top five kinds of freelancers they have on the site are graphic artists, developers, photographers, event organizers, and accountants – but they have people for almost every service you can think of (yes, even electricians!), and the Raket.ph team is careful to listen to everyone’s feedback.

The future of Raket.ph