Attack a niche. You can't take the big guys on head-to-head, so take a small bite out of them... Pick a niche technology and then optimize SEO and launch a small ad buy for it. http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2016#tech... (or magento, wordpress, unity, etc...)
even if you enter the space race, there's a ton of competition.
The idea of a bare minimal open sourced app is to build a product based on user feedback cycle instead of copying what other freelance websites are doing.
This is the only way we can have an app that truly makes a freelancer happy!
Competition isn't necessarily a bad thing, imo. A lot of companies and successful businesses enter a field where there is a proven demand and need and find a way to stand out.