What are your thoughts on the quality of work that can be found on Fiverr?

[dostmuhammad336]

What are your thoughts on the quality of work that can be found on Fiverr? and what are your thoughts on the dangers of outsourcing work to Fiverr? 
 

[smashradio]

22 minutes ago, dostmuhammad336 said:

What are your thoughts on the quality of work that can be found on Fiverr? 
 

It depends entirely on your budget and willingness to vet your sellers. If you have a respectable budget, you can find a lot of true professionals on Fiverr. 

On the other hand, if you're only willing to pay pocket change, you'll find the lowest quality you can think of as well. 

Fiverr has professionals who have been working for companies like Google, Pfizer, Microsoft, Apple and Coca Cola. 

Fiverr also has teens in their pajamas, thinking they are "experts" in digital marketing, yet they never seem to get any sales. 

So it's really up to you. 

26 minutes ago, dostmuhammad336 said:

what are your thoughts on the dangers of outsourcing work to Fiverr? 
 

The danger would be if you hire cheap sellers with no track record for success. You risk getting low-quality work that may reflect poorly on you down the line.

If you're outsourcing to Fiverr, you can get great value for your budget, but if you're one of the Scrooge McDucks of the world, you're more likely to receive exactly what you deserve: nothing good. 

[moikchap]

I've found that I can often get very high quality for very low price and my ability to describe what I need is the biggest factor in getting what I need.
I've found that I can't really try to have a product schedule. It's mainly a by-product of not usually picking expensive professionals but cheap hobbyists and students.

There's a business sentiment; "You can have things good, fast, and cheap. Pick two." It feels like Fiverr is that sentiment dialed up to 11.

Edited June 6, 2022 by moikchap

[smashradio]

12 minutes ago, moikchap said:

I've found that I can often get very high quality for very low price and my ability to describe what I need is the biggest factor in getting what I need.
I've found that I can't really try to have a product schedule. It's mainly a by-product of not usually picking expensive professionals but cheap hobbyists and students.

There's a business sentiment; "You can have things good, fast, and cheap. Pick two." It feels like Fiverr is that sentiment dialed up to 11.

I guess it depends on what you think is good. 

I don't know - maybe you're just a scary good judge of talent - but usually, you can't have something good and cheap at the same time. Maybe it's good for the price, but if you compare it to something that costs three times as much, you'll likely begin to see the difference. 

I'm working on a video project these days. I've set aside 1000 bucks for it. It's just a gig video, but I want it to be good. There are sellers charging 9000 bucks for a video, sellers charging 300, and sellers charging 50. 

The difference in quality is obvious, especially from 50 to 300. After that, you begin to get diminishing returns, unless you need something with a custom camera crew on-site. 

The editing skills of the cheaper sellers might appear good at first glance, but then you begin to notice the little things, like the camera man reflected in a window in the cheap stock videos they use, or the color grading being offputting when viewing several clips together. You start to notice that they use the same transitions over and over. And just a couple of hours ago, I found a seller who has based an entire gig on a stolen tv commercial for a Norwegian supermarket chain. The gig sold this commercial for five bucks. It looked good as hell - because it was a million dollar production done by a professional crew, and not the seller. 

So you do risk issues when picking cheaper sellers. One of them being that your risk buying something that wasn't theirs to sell in the first place. 

[moikchap]

>Depends what you think is good
Entirely true. Larry Elmore is the best in D&D art. If he wasn't retired, anyone with a product containing just his art would move units. Getting commissions from him would spike the upfront costs to levels unfeasible for most people. But, it would guarantee success for anyone who can afford it. But, even stuff like this can be earning 30k a month if you can manage one a day. To many consumers, quantity is its own quality.

>scary good judge of talent 
No, I pay people to audition* basically and take the guesswork out of it. Sometimes I get this. Other times I get this. I don't go back to the first guy, I do go back to the second guy. I end up with a lot of stuff that matches the benchmarks competitors are setting without having broken the bank. The losses of the wasted auditions are recovered by the savings from the sellers who are under-pricing themselves either by not knowing their worth** or discounting to chase their first reviews.

>You risk buying something that wasn't theirs
I have received photoshopped stock images. This is a very real risk.

* The seller gets paid regardless of what they deliver. Someone got paid $5 to give me pencil crayon sky. Their private feedback was not ideal.
** I tip up within my budget, and advise unusually good sellers where I feel they stand relative to other sellers, especially if they have a professional communication process.

[ozan_erdi]

6 hours ago, moikchap said:

Sometimes I get this. Other times I get this. I don't go back to the first guy, I do go back to the second guy.

To be honest, depending on what do you want, first one is a lot better at certain points. Those two drawings are nothing to be compared against. I got your point, but hear this; I would hang the first one to the wall, not the second one. Its more neutral, better composed. Nothing extremely eye catching compared to the rest of the canvas and very stylish. Its there, and you appreciate it without the need to critisize it. Its perfect, while not tryng to be anything. 

7 hours ago, moikchap said:

Entirely true. Larry Elmore is the best in D&D art.

Respect to the guy and all. But his art style can be considered outdated at some places. You can have those as tokens of the past and respect. But you wouldnt use them in a video game splash art. Things are different now, no one is the best. And im sure, Larry would appreciate that reality too.

I guess what im tryng to say, since this is not math or science, art can reflect different. Not all best pieces are the best solutions. I have one of the Van Gogh's earlier paintings reproduced "Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette" and use it on the wall of my living room. While Van Gogh has arguably much better and more known and respected pieces. But i wanted the skull to fill my aestehtic needs. You dont need to push for the "Starry Night" every time you mention Van Gogh. 

For the topic:

Yes you can find quality work in fiverr. I usually look at my competitors in the art section of fiverr. I consider myself good. But i am moved by some of the peoples talents out there. Sometimes there is a depressingly huge talent/experience gap. And those people are sometimes 5-10 years younger than me. It amazes me. And some of them, they are not what they claim to be. If you have some idea of what you are looking for, you can find the person you need.

But of course, like everything else, a good craftsman will bill you for more. Or at least, they should.

I think accidentally, we have made a good topic to read here. Thank you @moikchap