Another golden goose quitting Fiverr. Is this a trend?

[visualstudios]

Just now, smashradio said:

I'm sure you could do it cheaper, but I'm not so sure it would be a better freelancing platform. 

Oh, it would - because I actually know how it is working in one, unlike the decision makers here. They have no clue, clearly.

[smashradio]

1 minute ago, visualstudios said:

Oh, it would - because I actually know how it is working in one, unlike the decision makers here. They have no clue, clearly.

This we can agree on. I look forward to selling on your platform when it reaches 3.42 million active buyers. 😁

[smashradio]

(I love how all my topics always go completely haywire and off-topic. It's like a live chat! Fiverr? I want a live chat!)

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, smashradio said:

I look forward to selling on your platform when it reaches 3.42 million active buyers. 

Well, obviously that ain't happening. Scale is the challenge. That I do not know how to do (and costs a lot of money). 

[smashradio]

Just now, visualstudios said:

and costs a lot of money

Hence the 20%. 

[visualstudios]

1 minute ago, smashradio said:

Hence the 20%. 

Nope. It costs money to scale. Once scaled up, it doesn't cost that much anymore. So yeah, hence the 20% at first - but the ability to scale that back gradually.

[smashradio]

3 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Nope. It costs money to scale. Once scaled up, it doesn't cost that much anymore. So yeah, hence the 20% at first - but the ability to scale that back gradually.

Staying on top costs money. But since I like arguing against myself, one concern is that freelancers on certain other platforms can charge less, meaning Fiverr can lose it's edge if not careful. 

[visualstudios]

1 minute ago, smashradio said:

one concern is that freelancers on certain other platforms can charge less, meaning Fiverr can lose it's edge if not careful. 

Exactly. 

Once you are the standard, you can control the market. You can drive the others, that need to charge more because they need more capital to scale, out of business by lowering your costs. 

If I have a platform with 1M users, and I can charge 10%, I'll be making much more than the platform that has 100k users charging 20%, all while dumping on them pricewise, and becoming even more attractive and stealing all their userbase. It's a no brainer.

[smashradio]

Just now, visualstudios said:

It's a no brainer.

It's a brainer if you think about it. What kind of client do you want to attract? Fiverr aims to move up-market, so it should be more expensive. I exclusively use Rituals for everything, my lotion, wonderfully scented soft foamy shower foam, shampoo, deodorant, even my fabric softener. It's all overpriced stuff made from the same ingredients as the cheapest soap at the grocery store. But why do I shell out 20 euros for a small bottle of hand soap? For the experience. The attractive packaging, the overly friendly staff following you around with a woven basket to hold your purchases, the nice little gift they give you as you leave, and the way they personally hand you your bag as you exit. I'm paying for the experience, not the actual product.

[smashradio]

To add to that: my experience working on other platforms has been like the grocery store white label brand of soap. As a buyer, it tasted like the generic pasta pot you buy at the chinese dollar store. My experience working on Fiverr is more akin to the luxury brands in that regard: it's the same goo, different and better packaging.

[visualstudios]

34 minutes ago, smashradio said:

My experience working on Fiverr is more akin to the luxury brands in that regard: it's the same goo, different and better packaging.

We have vastly different experiences then. Fiverr is anything but luxury. It's low value.

We have millions of meksells, people selling spells (lol), etc. It's a flea market, not high end shopping.

Edited April 30 by visualstudios

[smashradio]

30 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

We have vastly different experiences then. Fiverr is anything but luxury. It's low value.

We have millions of meksells, people selling spells (lol), etc. It's a flea market, not high end shopping.

You have to compare it to other platforms. Everything is relative. 

[arbelkimmick]

I saw her video too and although I think it's for a lot of the reasons you mentioned a MAJOR factor that she lightly touches on is the fact that AI has replaced so many writers and even voiceover artists like myself. AI is now coming for UGC creators (my main source of income as of the last 2 years) and it's important to offer features that AI cannot. Not easily done in every category. 

Just like many YouTube influencers quit YouTube, people will want change and move on. I personally don't see myself leaving Fiverr anytime soon and will continue to ride the waves that is freelancing ❤️ 

[visualstudios]

14 minutes ago, smashradio said:

You have to compare it to other platforms. Everything is relative. 

At least compared to upwork, which is the only other platform that can compare in terms of size and market penetration, Fiverr looks way less professional and lower end.

[desmond_aubery]

6 hours ago, visualstudios said:

You can't look at it like this, because the counter argument is obvious - hire me directly, outside the platform, and get your project done for 20% cheaper. When we're talking about $10 projects, it doesn't matter. When we're talking about $10k projects, it does.

The more expensive you are, the harder it is to justify your rate being 20% higher than it could be (and is) when dealing directly.

To put it in simpler terms, it's like VAT. It's always the end consumer paying for it - and there's a limit to how much the end consumer will take. It's not the seller paying 20%, it's the buyer. So you can't say "as a seller, I don't care about the 20%", because it's not your problem. It's the buyer's problem. And the buyer does care about the 20%, specially when that means literally thousands of extra dollars paid for nothing.

Imagine a sliding scale for platform overhead fee - based on $ amount of project? Would this perhaps be more equitable as Fiverr moves upmarket?  

[williambryan392]

I think there could be multiple factors for anyone leaving fiverr at the moment (or indeed at any time).

Making money elsewhere.

AI has potentially hit revenue.

Just got bored of it.

Maybe got burned by the level system, and it doesn't look good for the personal brand to be a lower level.

 

On a connected yet side note, I'm always curious about sellers who tout massive numbers but also have teams. I don't think they tell the whole story. I've been considering a lot how to scale, interviewing some people etc, but have been looking at the numbers to work out if it's worth it.

So let's have a hypothetical if I were to make 350K in a year with a team doing the heavy lifting...

Minus 20% fee = $70K

Let's assume you pay 50% of the gig value to another freelancer as the fee (I think this is actually low but let's give the benefit of the doubt)  = $175K

You're a volume seller, so you need a VA (or 2), and a team manager. Let's say you hire cheap, @$10K per person per year = $30K (and you're not paying your manager a commission which most ask for).

Let's ignore software costs to manage this team, bank/FX fees, increased accountancy costs and all the other little things that you end up paying for. We're also ignoring promoted gigs, and seller plus fee.

We have $350K - $275K = $75K. That's before tax.

 

Now I'm not knocking it, kudos, if you can build something great, who doesn't like $75K and if you aren't even touching the business due to the hires then that 75K pre tax for probably just doing a weekly or monthly check in with a team manager is pretty darn good. 

But anyway, I just want to make the point that a lot of the time people see these big numbers and don't see the costs that go alongside.

 

[markp]

48 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

On a connected yet side note, I'm always curious about sellers who tout massive numbers but also have teams. I don't think they tell the whole story. I've been considering a lot how to scale, interviewing some people etc, but have been looking at the numbers to work out if it's worth it.

So let's have a hypothetical if I were to make 350K in a year with a team doing the heavy lifting...

Minus 20% fee = $70K

Let's assume you pay 50% of the gig value to another freelancer as the fee (I think this is actually low but let's give the benefit of the doubt)  = $175K

You're a volume seller, so you need a VA (or 2), and a team manager. Let's say you hire cheap, @$10K per person per year = $30K (and you're not paying your manager a commission which most ask for).

Let's ignore software costs to manage this team, bank/FX fees, increased accountancy costs and all the other little things that you end up paying for. We're also ignoring promoted gigs, and seller plus fee.

We have $350K - $275K = $75K. That's before tax.

You can do it much cheaper than this, operating differently from what you described. There are some really hard lessons to learn doing this, and at some point, you have to consider other things like your mental health as well because doing this, scaling to 7 figures plus, will eventually drive you into the ground, one way or another.

[visualstudios]

1 hour ago, williambryan392 said:

Now I'm not knocking it, kudos, if you can build something great, who doesn't like $75K and if you aren't even touching the business due to the hires then that 75K pre tax for probably just doing a weekly or monthly check in with a team manager is pretty darn good. 

I'm working on everything and not even making that. Sounds way too good, actually. Like... borderline unethical, to make so much money doing so little. But hey, people can get away with it, I guess.

[williambryan392]

57 minutes ago, markp said:

You can do it much cheaper than this, operating differently from what you described. There are some really hard lessons to learn doing this, and at some point, you have to consider other things like your mental health as well because doing this, scaling to 7 figures plus, will eventually drive you into the ground, one way or another.

Please go on! I'm curious re doing it cheaper (and still hiring capable people who can deliver a quality end result). How would you operate, if say you were a copywriter (and not just using AI)? Or use another freelance niche of course. Really curious!

To scale to 7 figures you have to delegate, and if you can pretty much disconnect yourself from the business then you can protect your mental health to a degree. Not saying you're wrong.

54 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Like... borderline unethical, to make so much money doing so little. But hey, people can get away with it, I guess.

Think it's only increasing in the world of property owners and business owners/CEOs. A million used to be considered a crazy amount of money when I was growing up, kinda like a 6 figure salary. Nowadays less so. Although I still think it's a lot of money!

[visualstudios]

22 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

Think it's only increasing in the world of property owners and business owners/CEOs. A million used to be considered a crazy amount of money when I was growing up, kinda like a 6 figure salary. Nowadays less so. Although I still think it's a lot of money!

Oh, I get that. I just don't understand how it's possible. It certainly cannot be possible for 99% of people, so what's the differentiating factor there? Everyone would want that, but that can't be achieved by the vast majority, so... how to ensure I'm in the minority that gets it? Because I don't see any path there.

[williambryan392]

6 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Oh, I get that. I just don't understand how it's possible. It certainly cannot be possible for 99% of people, so what's the differentiating factor there? Everyone would want that, but that can't be achieved by the vast majority, so... how to ensure I'm in the minority that gets it? Because I don't see any path there.

You're right, it's not possible, and that's for a variety of reasons. I think a lot of the time (not all the time) is because people don't take the risk or put in the work.

The overly simple answer is scale and delegate. If you can do something once in a day, work out how to do it 10 times, or a hundred times.

Also diversify. Something I've been thinking about is doing a course on career growth. It's a popular gig of mine, and I find a lot is transferrable to different clients. This would mean I could sell whilst I sleep. Could you do a course on video editing, could you sell tiktok shorts, and delegate the work, could you provide a voice over gig and delegate? You might not want to, but I think you could.

 

 

[emmaki]

1 hour ago, visualstudios said:

Oh, I get that. I just don't understand how it's possible. It certainly cannot be possible for 99% of people, so what's the differentiating factor there? Everyone would want that, but that can't be achieved by the vast majority, so... how to ensure I'm in the minority that gets it? Because I don't see any path there.

This is the whole digital marketing hustle/influencer culture at the moment. In the quitting video, you can see it in action. She gives the basic strategy: as soon as you have a little experience, start selling digital products and influencing people. It's a modern-day pyramid scheme that requires a certain "cult of celebrity" to work, and, not to put to fine a point on it, requires a certain kind of personality and looks.

The thing that worries me is that generations of people are growing up believing that this is a viable career choice. It is, but it's like any other career that depends on fame and fortune. It's not one where just hard work will get you anywhere.

 Surely this is OK to approve. 

EDIT: just so anyone knows, 95% of my posts are being not approved at the moment on any subject I write. This includes on topic and helpful comments. I've made approximately 20 - 30 posts on here, and this is, I think the only one visible. 

I also made a post on this very subject last night before smash did. Didn't reveal the name of the person. Said pretty much the same stuff. I've said stuff under here. Let me just add that McDonald's is a real estate empire. They make a huge amount from real estate. It's not the burgers. That's like the front. Anyway, it's comments like these - adding extra information to a conversation that mysteriously get deleted. Why? I don't know. 

For example, in a comment further along in this discussion, I mentioned how digital marketing is often more of a celebrity thing based on a loose pyramid scheme that is wholly dependent on gaming algorithms - algorithms which often affect impressionable people and which are developed by social media companies who care about profits, not people. Visual Studios is right to find the business model iffy - it's socially damaging. Didn't mention Fiverr. Deleted. But if you post it, it's fine. The not-really-a-mystery at all continues.

At least they fixed the double post hidden post issue. I told them in another deleted comment that the issue was a plugin. Few hours later, repeated. No thanks, of course. I'm making an assumption that I helped to fix it. They're not terribly interested in the other (less visual) bug I've found, too. 

Go figure.

Edited May 1 by emmaki

[priyank_mod]

1 hour ago, visualstudios said:

Like... borderline unethical, to make so much money doing so little. But hey, people can get away with it, I guess.

You just succinctly described the entire capitalism in a single statement. 💯

[visualstudios]

15 minutes ago, priyank_mod said:

You just succinctly described the entire capitalism in a single statement. 

Not necessarily. Capital allocation is one thing. I do see the value in having capital to invest. But being a middleman that creates nothing doesn't even provide that value, and has no capital requirements, pretty much. It's the difference between being a logistics provider (like amazon) and a dropshipper. The first provides value. The second is just garbage.

[visualstudios]

22 minutes ago, williambryan392 said:

The overly simple answer is scale and delegate. If you can do something once in a day, work out how to do it 10 times, or a hundred times.

I don't even have enough clients to fill my schedule now, so that's a non factor. To scale, you need... scale.