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Ashley Copp's path from accidental data analyst to founder of Data Freelance Hub is a story of innovation born from experience. Faced with the challenges of freelancing, Ashley created a platform to help other data professionals navigate the gig economy, with Apify's tools providing the backbone for his solution.
With a marketing degree in hand, he unexpectedly found himself in data analytics at Accenture. After four years in the corporate scene, Ashley moved to freelancing. This new phase brought its own challenges. "I had no idea what I was doing — like how to find clients, how to win work, and how to put together proposals," he explains. These difficulties, familiar to many new freelancers, would eventually spark his next big idea.
As he surfed freelance work, Ashley's data skills led to impressive opportunities. "I got a project working for Riot Games, who make League of Legends," he notes, showcasing how his expertise opened doors to high-profile clients and financial freedom. From here, he realized that freelancing was a viable option, allowing him flexibility and even the chance to travel the world.
Spotting the gap in data freelancing
Now familiar with the challenges of freelancing, Ashley noticed a big gap in the market: a community that connected data professionals with freelancing opportunities. There were projects available, but the daily grind of refreshing all the various job boards and putting together proposals was demanding in itself. He was sure he wasn’t alone and decided to create Data Freelance Hub, a platform designed to smooth the path for data professionals venturing into freelancing.
"I wanted to create something that wasn't just a regular job board but a supercharged one, specifically for data freelance roles," Ashley explains. His vision was a platform that would aggregate job postings from multiple sources, clean and normalize the data, and present it in a user-friendly format.
Solving data collection with Apify
As the project took shape, the biggest hurdle wasn't designing the platform itself but finding a reliable way to gather all the necessary data.
Initially, he tried various approaches, including hiring a developer to create custom scrapers. He quickly realized this method was costly and difficult to keep operational with constantly changing websites. He says, "I realized I'm going to be stuck in this perpetual nightmare of having to maintain everything myself."
That's when Ashley discovered Apify. The impact was immediate:
"With Apify, in 30 seconds, I had the data that I'd been trying to get for weeks."
-- Ashley Copp
Apify's ready-made Actors (web scraping and automation tools) allowed him to set up data collection from multiple job sites at no cost with Apify’s free plan. He was able to get the most up-to-date information and provide it to his customers.
Building on solid data foundations
With the data challenge solved, Ashley could focus on developing the platform's features. Data Freelance Hub now offers a suite of resources: a curated job board, guides for winning contracts, 1-on-1 coaching, and learning materials to make the job search process as painless as possible for data freelancers.
Today, Ashley uses Apify to power the core functionality of Data Freelance Hub.
"Apify is the bedrock. Without the Apify data, we effectively don't have a platform."
-- Ashley Copp
He appreciates the solution's reliability and cost-effectiveness, noting, "I've never had a single problem with the Apify platform itself." This partnership with Apify has set the stage for a solution that powers Ashley's vision and helps thousands of other data freelancers in their careers. Data Freelance Hub aligns with Apify's mission of being a complete ecosystem where developers can create, market, and monetize their work.
Expanding the business
Data Freelance Hub offers a premium tool to help data freelancers find and win work called the Role Scout Platform. The platform aggregates job postings that you can easily search through with enhanced filters and provides extra value by identifying the responsible recruiter and company for each role, along with their contact information — all this and more to help data freelancers land their next role.
Ashley has also started creating his own Actors on Apify, seeing the potential for additional revenue and better control over his data pipeline.
Gaining traction
Despite overcoming numerous technical challenges, Ashley finds marketing Data Freelance Hub to be his biggest hurdle. "The biggest challenge out of all of this isn't necessarily the building. It's been, how do I get people interested in this platform?" he says.
But persistence is paying off. "I'm at the point where I'm getting about 50 new people following the page a day. It's leading to about two to three sign-ups to the platform. It's like 100% hands-off for me," he shares. This is a great example of putting automation tools like Apify to work, allowing creators to focus on growth and not data collection.
Tomorrow's talent network
Looking ahead, Ashley has big plans for Data Freelance Hub. He's setting his sights on the US market, recognizing the potential for growth beyond the UK. "I started with the UK because that's what I knew. But now I'm in a position where the US isn't a giant leap," Ashley explains.
He's also developing new features to grow the platform's value. One feature is a public-facing profile for freelancers. This feature will allow freelancers to activate their profiles when seeking work and deactivate them when not available, creating a live database of talent. Ashley aims to share this database with recruiters, providing them with up-to-date information on available freelancers.
Beyond the platform
Ashley's transition from data analyst to platform creator shows how field experience can inspire practical solutions. By using Apify, he's built a platform that addresses real needs in the data freelancing community.
With Apify handling the heavy lifting, Ashley could skip the headaches of coding custom scrapers and zero in on what matters most: creating features that make freelancers' lives easier. The result? A platform built by a freelancer for freelancers, packed with tools that make the difficult task of finding and winning work all the easier.
Looking ahead, Ashley is developing new tools to serve freelancers even better. His story shows how understanding a market need and choosing the right tools can lead to innovative solutions that make a difference.
