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Fiverr turned 12!

frank_d

By frank_d
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frank_d Grand Master

frank_d

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Hey everyone, it looks like we all missed Fiver's birthday.

Apparently it turned 12 on February the 1st. 🙂

My sign up anniversary is also coming up (1st of March 2013).

So I'd like to take a moment and as acknowledge that even with all its flaws and weirdness,

Fiverr has been a launching pad for me and my career.

Sure, it occasionaly straight up catapulted me into some walls, but I want to remember that

this is the place where I learned how to run a business, how to mature as a professional

and how to find meaning and purpose in my work.

 

So happy 12th birthday Fiverr.

birthday-friends.gif.246e8624b833e35ccb690c3dcd381798.gif

 

Can't wait to see how you will start acting up now that you are entering puberty! 😄

 

Anybody want to wish Fiverr? Want to share some anecdotes about when you first found the platform?

I'll try to share my experience in a reply, once I am done with an order that needs to be delivered ASAP!

 

 

 

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gajuseidi Grand Master

gajuseidi

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6 hours ago, frank_d said:

Want to share some anecdotes about when you first found the platform?

I first found out about fiverr from those two indian guys who would film birthday greetings and hold signs in the forest. The platform has probably changed quite a lot since then. 😌

6 hours ago, frank_d said:

Anybody want to wish Fiverr?

I know Fiverr has its issues, but it has a lot to offer as well. I've been on the platform for almost a year now and it's been a great opportunity for me to experiment, develop my skills, find clients and earn extra income while finishing my Bachelor's degree.

Happy 12th birthday, Fiverr. You better behave, I have invested in your stocks.

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topaz_muse Rising Star

topaz_muse

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Ah yes, the days of the sheep avatars and fun banners. It was interesting watching them grow and adapt over these last 12 years. Can't remember how I was introduced to fiverr, but do know I was in school at the time looking for ways to earn money from home; the job market in my area was a nightmare at that time.

It was just $5 gigs at that time, so I tried my hand at poetry and illustration. It was an interesting learning experience in the early days. As a newcomer, I learned quickly to never entertain messages requesting custom samples.

Some time after that, I got a crash course in the importance of having thicker than thick skin. Even though I haven't encountered any difficult buyers on the platform, reading experiences from fiverr sellers along with how they've dealt with each situation was eye-opening. Here's hoping for more years to come.

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damooch916 Mentor

damooch916

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2013. I had just come off the road, expecting to head full blast into preproduction on a new album.
 

Suddenly, the artist had a sudden burst of self actuality. That’s just like “self awareness” except your funding falls through and you scream “Nashville is expensive!” 

It was limbo. I hate limbo. That ridiculous bar. The guilt of humming along to “Limbo Rock,” The crying that results from realizing how much you like that song. Someone’s Grandmother falling over and losing her see-through visor. It’s an ugly scene. 
 

That’s where I was. Just one senior tumble away from considering a vocation with stability and that gross stench of respect. 
 

I thought, “Tom, you’d better act fast,” and I reached for the nearest coffee. Then I had more. Then a few hours went by and while I still had the same problems to sort, they seemed to be happening faster. 
 

I couldn’t go back to the road - because writing sessions for the new record could break out at any minute (follow up to that: that must be some actuality because I’m still waiting on the call). Which meant I couldn’t really commit to another long term band or writing project.  
 

Somewhere in there, that’s where I found Fiverr. 
 

There was no legitimate reason for me to be on fiverr in 2013. Firstly, I belong to established writing camps. Secondly, there was no financial advantage to writing songs for less than I made by just crossing a studio threshold and waving “hi.” Thirdly, it didn’t exactly bolster the quality of my work record, to be pushing five dollar songs on the side. 
 

But here I was. And my first gig, “I will write you a love song,” was born. It was more of an exercise than a side business. We didn’t really have the science of it back then. So every job was a grind. But I didn’t care because on fiverr, I didn’t have a professional standard to live up to. My credentials weren’t following me around and the politics of music were no where to be found. Needless to say … there’s a lot of “love songs” back then that came out more like a Pink Floyd tune. Or a Randy Newman song. Or a Morris Day song. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t mostly amusing myself. 
 

Sorry about that. 

Not long after that, the album fell through and another one popped up. For years, my relationship with fiverr went exactly like that. Come back from the road - fire up fiverr. Write songs for a new artist, fire up fiverr. Break in the schedule, fire up fiverr.
 

But at some point, fiverr grew into the future Amazon of the “gig  economy.” I absolutely believe that’s the movement we’re heading towards. And as fiverr was growing, so were my kids. I needed to test the stability of the platform and take the temperature of my outside clients when asked to reroute to my fiverr offerings. More than that, I wanted to be here and stop missing dinner with my wife and kids. 
 

A few years ago, I decided that through a combination of high profile jobs and consistent (and market friendly, while profitable) fiverr gigs, I could make this thing work. So it’s not uncommon to be working on music for an Amazon prime film and producing three clients here, while cutting piano tracks and writing a few acoustic songs. In fact, that was my past week. That prompted me to accept the offer on the PRO account. Because I knew I wouldn’t be abandoning the ship at any given moment. 

Fiverr is, in many ways, in the process of changing the music industry. For people like me, guys that worked on songwriting staffs and through publishing deals - we have a new raft against the sinking titanic that is writers and their ever decreasing royalties. People come to me for specificity and the real experience of working with a professional target writer. And those clients are becoming increasingly professional themselves. In this last quarter - four signed artists released albums containing my work. Two of those achieved top 40 iTunes status with my penned singles  - so I’m seeing the market savvy and production firms here, just as much as I do in the “professional realm.” 
 

My contemporaries are starting to see it too. Several hit songwriters now exist on fiverr. Before long, in a post 2020 world, it will be commonplace for record companies to obtain the services of pro writers in a market place, by thumbing through and landing on the folks that handle their exact needs. I’m already experiencing that and my contemporaries are reconciling the fact that this is the new way. 
 

Frankly, it’s a better way. It’s restoring the sane practice of professionals making excellent livings and standing guard at the quality gate. At this point, there’s no publishing deal that’s worth taking me away from fiverr, because they couldn’t afford to - and that’s only going to increase. 
 

I’m extremely pro fiverr. The quirks and turns and all that comes with it. I’m inherently compelled to love any circumstance that pays me well for writing songs, allows me to drink coffee all day and never asks that I change out of my sweatpants. Without a hint of humor, I can tell you that I love my job and that fiverr is going to be inseparable from the pro music ecosystem. I’m going to ensure that my ideas loom large as they navigate the growth.

While in pajamas. 
 

As a follow up (and because I feel bad for having only written a partial Dostoevsky novel) I wanted to say something about the forum. I’ve been a forum member since my arrival to fiverr. In those days (grabs a rocking chair and slips on the Mark Twain wig), the forum was mostly a place where business professionals talked shop and gave sincere encouragement to one another. We joked around between jobs and talked about the early translating of our pro careers to fiverr. It was really kinda beautiful. 
 

Somewhere along the line - as these things are to be expected - the growth of fiverr flung the growing pains at the forum. It’s in there that I began skewering silly questions and basically performing parody for other regulars. It’s a space I’ve owned for years on this forum and it’s a throwback to the knowing ways of those original forum regulars. But I also love it. 
 

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see some overworked fiverrian helping someone by deciphering the nonsense from the truth. That hasn’t changed. You may have to dig through more rubble, but the heart of this forum is still thumping hard. 
 

With that said, I have no plans to be part of that solution. I will go right on being silly and making ridiculous posts that are purposefully befuddling and all at once hysterically confusing to those who aren’t in on it. I will also keep making arcane references, Dennis Miller, lest this heartfelt dribble swerved off the old path to nowhere as they normally do. 
 

It should be said that a huge part of the experience here is the experience here and the folks that make that possible should be proud of themselves. It’s mostly a thankless job. So thanks. 
 

Yeah. So happy birthday fiverr. We promise not to tell the waitstaff about your special day and have them do one of those silly dances to embarrass you in front of strangers. 

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imagination7413 Grand Master

imagination7413

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@newsmike

Oh wow! I'm guessing that's what the original landing page looked like? The two 'featured' gigs... first one is questionable nowadays (depends on gig specifics), second is downright NOT permitted now.

8 hours ago, damooch916 said:

the growth of fiverr flung the growing pains at the forum

Nice. That is an excellent simile.

---

Thanks for the thread/topic, Frank. And I agree, happy b-day Fiverr.

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