Freelance Leaders, where should you be investing your time, energy, and resources in 2024? Matthew consolidated Human Cloud data spanning 350+ freelance leaders across Freelance Trend Tracker, the Human Cloud Podcast, Freelance First Study Groups, and Human Cloud Advisory. 

The result, is the below 11 observations that every Freelance Leader needs to be ready for in 2024:

1. The freelance economy is growing 30%+ across the board, leading to more freelancers, more solutions, and more competition.  While good news, the market is now crowded. How do you educate clients, and differentiate your unique superpower?
2. Budgets are expanding as Enterprise companies rediscover freelancing, but not all expansion is equal. Enterprises are prioritizing platforms that can drive their talent strategy, scale their experience across the organization, and account for risk and security. Are you positioned as an Enterprise grade, strategic talent strategy?  
3. In 2023, business impact was primarily driven by existing, enterprise relationships, not net new sales and marketing, or technology. This looks to continue in 2024. Are you preserving and expanding your Enterprise accounts?
4. Partnerships are becoming an essential growth driver for accessing and expanding clients. Instead of numerous, low growth accounts, partnerships can unlock access, expansion and high spend per account.  Do you have a partnership pipeline and plan for 2024?
5. Like most industries, venture funding was not strategic for freelance leaders in 2023. Investment happened, but profitability was the priority.  Have you positioned your strategy for profitability? 
6. Technology investments were secondary to investments directly leading to strong client relationships. Even with recent Generative AI advancements, client success was still driven by manual and offline processes. Do you have a client experience that can hand hold, and direct clients at scale?
7. 2023 saw high interest in consolidation. We saw PE driven acquisitions,  larger platforms acquiring smaller platforms, and strategic partnerships that looked like an acquisition.  Are you able to see, plan for, and capitalize on a strategic acquisition in 2024 (both acquirers and acquirees)?
8. Fractional became a crucial segment of the freelance economy in 2023. Both the supply and demand for fractional freelancers grew, stayed, and became a hook for companies getting started. Do you have a fractional offering?
9. Platforms explicitly took on managed service provider (MSP) responsibilities. Freelance isn’t new, there’s an existing external talent industry that freelance now needs an answetr to.  Do you understand the history of talent strategies and external talent solutions?  
10. Platforms increasingly integrated with VMS’s and MSP’s through partnerships, relationships, and even API integrations. Are you being asked to integrate with existing providers?
11. Aggregation of multiple marketplaces saw interest, but still no one singular solution. Instead, we saw aggregation happen through informal partnerships between multiple marketplaces. Can you work with other marketplaces? Do you know what you’re willing to give up and not give up in collaborating?