TrapFi (YC W18) pays freelance developers by the pull request

My name is Cameron Sadler, and I'm one of the founders of TrapFi (https://www.trapfi.com). Our service makes it easy for freelance developers to get paid per pull request. Instead of waiting months after work is complete to get paid, freelance devs use us to generate payouts as they work.

Nigel, Eric and I have been freelancing on and off for the last five years. It was undoubtedly feast or famine. Late or slow payments from clients made this more difficult. With TrapFi you know precisely when you'll get paid next.

Before TrapFi, I ran a co-work space for freelance developers. Here I connected with people who loved freelancing but eventually went back to corporate because cash flow was unpredictable. This was due to most of their contracts having net 30/60/90 terms or clients just flat out paying late (or not paying at all). We searched for tools to solve this problem, but none triggered payouts from clients automatically at the point of work approval.

Here's how we solve this:

1. Freelancers add clients

2. Clients receive a project link where they can connect their bank and track pull request submissions in real-time

3. Freelancers complete work, submit a pull request and add an hours' tag (or flat rate) to the PR body (i.e. {TF10} for 10 hours)

4. As soon as the client or a repo admin approves your pull requests, we charge the client the amount specified by the tag

You can still bill clients for the non-code work that went into a PR using TrapFi's tagging system. Your clients don't have to do anything special to set up this process; they simply receive a link to pay and track the project. When you complete work and they approve it, you get paid automatically. It's money you've earned, delivered instantly.

We also automatically generate invoices with line items that link to your PRs for you and your clients. You never have to leave git to get paid. Like most payment tools, we earn a % of each transaction (1.5%). We expect additional revenue to come from a marketplace, where we connect developers with solutions to developers who need work done.

We look forward to hearing feedback, ideas and experiences from the HN community. We know there are a lot of freelancers here so our goal is to learn from your experiences and knowledge of the freelance space.