Great idea Jerry!
I think when it comes to getting clients to come to Steemit, won't be as hard as you think.
When you consider upwork charges the customer and the frelancer both a fee. With Steemit, both parties would be ahead from the start. The only fee's would be when they bought Steem at the exchange, vs upwork charges them fee's, and the freelancer being charged 20% by upwork.
I stop doing work on upwork just for that reason.
The other part I think would be good is, payment process. No middle man to get in the middle of a transaction, not only taking a fee, (PayPal or credit card) but if there is a dispute, and then its resolved, your only form of payments being froze because of stupidity of the middle man, (PayPal).
The Steemit freelancer could offer a discount for the new customers to come to Steemit. Lets face it if you were willing to take a 20% cut in pay from upwork, why wouldn't you give that new customer a discount to come over and try it out.
So when the prospect see's how cheap they can get the job done on Steemit, they will be willing to take that extra step to buy steem. Cost is always a driving factor when it comes to people getting the work done. They will always go where it is cheaper.
People doing the work on Steemit would be willing to do the work cheaper for STD, knowing they have the chance of it going up in value and making even more on the job.
I see a lot of positives on this idea, I hope you can get it working.
One last point;
You could have a rating system for the prospect to see if the freelancer has a good rating for them to do the work.
This would be beneficial for both parties. The prospect in the hiring process and the freelancer to make sure he takes care of the client.
Make it mandatory the client has to rate the work done.
By having this kind of system, you take out the idiot factor of the equation. If the client is being unreasonable, (there are those that are), the freelancer can show how stupid the client is being.
If the freelancer is being stupid or unreasonable, the client can leave an unfavorable rating.
I personaly would like to see the private messaging come very soon.
Again Good idea Jerry!
Love your comment here @probizranker with this helpful feedback because you have helped me see the value of building SteemJ on top of Steemit instead of trying to use tags and the existing interface. Reviews is a feature that would be very nice to have in more developed versions with a custom database alongside private messaging!