About HireGeeks

Our Mission

Our purpose is to provide skilled help quickly to anyone seeking it. We do this by matching “buyers”, seekers of information or help, with “geeks”, providers of information and help.

HireGeeks.com was founded in August 2005 by Michael Barnathan, an undergraduate Computer Science/Mathematics student at Monmouth University, New Jersey, after Michael's individual belief in this purpose consumed an entire summer with technical support, web design, and tutoring requests. Michael quickly realized that he, or any individual, would be unable to help even a fraction of the population in this way (especially after enrolling in a Ph. D. program). Not one to be daunted by any problem, however great, and familiar with services such as RentACoder, Michael decided to form a similar business, but one that addressed all skilled work, instead of only software development. Thus was HireGeeks created.

By January 2006, five months after HireGeeks' founding, the site was ready to go live.

Our Philosophy

HireGeeks was created with several philosophical points in mind:

• Community: We were founded with full knowledge that the scale of our purpose was beyond any one person. We believe that there is power in community to accomplish things that an individual could never do. We even select our mediators from trustworthy members of the community!
• Capitalism: For several years prior to HireGeeks' founding, Geeks earned little more than a slap from “the invisible hand”. The outsourcing trend, recent dotcom bust, and a generally weak economy put many skilled professionals out of work and led to a precipitous drop in the number of graduates in technical fields (particularly Computer Science), even while demand soared. We wish to empower geeks by allowing them to set their own rates as freelancers, while leaving buyers unrestricted to choose from all corners of the globe if they wish. We do this by providing “convenience incentives”, such as travel and phone options, to choose local geeks. These advantages are fundamental; we do not impose artificial restrictions on our market.
• Responsibility: We believe very strongly in running a responsible company. Because we spend only what we must to achieve our purpose, we are able to offer services to you at a fraction of the traditional fee of a freelance service. We provide you with a complete history of all transactions made on the site, so you can easily keep track of your finances. Finally, we provide you with fast and free support for any issues you may have with our site, in case something seems amiss.
• Ease: We try to make things as easy as possible for everyone involved. Because the day-to-day functioning of our site basically runs itself, that leaves more time for us to concentrate on providing the highest level of service to our users.
• Responsiveness: If you have any suggestions at all, please let us know. We can't promise that we will be able to honor all suggestions (unfortunately, some just lie outside of the realm of practicality), but we do take them very seriously. If your suggestion is reasonable and practical, there's a good chance you'll see it soon on the site.
• Innovation: Do you know that even we can't see your financial information without your password (which we do not store on our servers)? Our encryption scheme is that secure. The months of August and September 2005 were dedicated to planning out innovative solutions to problems such as how to protect our users' data from hackers. The result? We are able to achieve more in less time with less expense.

What's in a Name?

We wanted a name that was succinct, catchy, and reflected what we did. If you are able to get online to read this page, you probably know at least one geek (or are one yourself). While the worth of geeks to society is unquestionable, the term has, until recently, been largely pejorative. We wish to dispel the negative stereotype of the geek by lightheartedly highlighting the positive side of geek culture.

At the same time, the name is memorable. The typical response to our name is “that's [witty|cute|an incredible name]”. Six months from opening our business, our initial business contacts still remembered us by name. The design of our business cards (the series expansion of the delta function on a chalkboard, similar to the image on the front page) just serves to amplify this effect.

The Mortarbeanie

Our logo, like our name, is a lighthearted play on the geek stereotype. The mortarbeanie is a combination of a “beanie” (sometimes with a propeller on top), the traditional headwear of the stereotypical geek (in reality, no one wears these), and a mortarboard, traditional academic headwear, signifying skill and scholarship. The image can sometimes be seen perched atop the “head” of the ‘G’ in our company name. We feel that this image highlights the obvious skill of the geek as well as the praiseworthiness of the sometimes quirky culture that accompanies, and perhaps even engenders, such skill.

Where are we?

HireGeeks.com is a small company located in Morganville, NJ. You may send mail to us at this address:

HireGeeks.com
PO Box 366
Morganville, NJ 07751