Fiverr

Fiverr
Type of site
 Online marketplace, freelance marketplace, online outsourcing
Available in English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese
Headquarters Israel
Area served Worldwide
Owner Fiverr International Limited
Industry Freelance marketplace, Online outsourcing, Service catalog
Website fiverr.com
Alexa rank Positive decrease 413 (December 2017)[1]
Commercial Yes
Registration Required
Launched 1 February 2010 (2010-02-01)
Current status Active
Fiverr building in Tel Aviv

Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services. Founded in 2010, the company is based in Tel Aviv,[2] and provides a platform for freelancers to offer services to customers worldwide.[3] As of 2012, over three million services were listed on Fiverr.[4]

History

Fiverr was founded by Shai Wininger and Micha Kaufman on February 1, 2010. Wininger came up with the concept of a marketplace that would provide a two sided platform for people to buy and sell a variety of digital services typically offered by freelance contractors. Services offered on the site include writing, translation, graphic design, video editing and programming.[5][6][7] Fiverr's services start at US$5, and can go up to thousands of dollars with Gig Extras. Each service offered is called a "gig".[8]

The website was launched in early 2010 and by 2012 was hosting over 1.3 million Gigs.[9] The website transaction volume has grown 600% since 2011. Additionally, Fiverr.com has been ranked among the top 100 most popular sites in the United States and top 200 in the world since the beginning of 2013.[4]

On June 1, 2010, Fiverr received a seed investment of US$1 million from Guy Gamzu and other angel investors, and in May 2012, Fiverr secured US$15 million in funding from Accel Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing the company's total funding to US$20 million.[3]

In December 2013, Fiverr released their iOS app in the Apple App Store,[10] and in March 2014, Fiverr released their Android app in the Google Play store.[11]

During August 2014, Fiverr announced that it has raised US$30 million in a Series C round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel (formerly known as Accel Partners) and other investors. The round brings their total funding to date to US$50 million.[3]

In October 2015, Amazon.com started legal action against 1,114 Fiverr sellers it claims provide fake reviews on the US version of its website. Fiverr did not dispute Amazon's allegations and stated: "As Amazon noted, we have worked closely together to remove services that violate our terms of use, and respond promptly to any reports of inappropriate content."[12]

In November 2015, Fiverr announced that it had raised US$60 million in a Series D round of funding, led by Square Peg Capital. The round brings their total funding to date to $110 million.[13] At the same time, the company announced that it was expanding the marketplace to allow sellers the ability to price productized services, known as Gigs, at prices above the original US$5 price.[14]

Acquisitions

VeedMe

In 2017, Fiverr acquired video creation marketplace VeedMe.[15]

AND CO

In January 2018, AND CO, maker of software for freelancers, was acquired by Fiverr. CEO Micha Kaufman said at the time that many of AND CO's capabilities, such as invoicing, are "baked into" the Fiverr marketplace, but "the vast majority of freelancing is happening offline"—and Fiverr wants to enable those offline relationships.[16]

Gigs

Fiverr serves to allow listing and applying for small one-off jobs, or gigs, online. Jobs listed are diverse and range from "get a well-designed business card" to "help with HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and JQuery".[17] Fiverr is a company built on the model of listing temporary work positions. Freelancers work in a variety of workplaces, ranging from home to office.[18]

User demographics

The Fiverr marketplace is dominated by young adults (only 2% of sellers are over the age of 55), the company has stated that the rate of sellers aged 55–64 grew 375% at the end of the second quarter of 2015, compared with the year before.[19]

Criticism

Fiverr has received criticism for advertising very cheap graphic services. At the end of 2014, Fiverr's Facebook page advertisement saying "You're paying too much for design" caused a public outcry.[20] In 2013, Fiverr lifted the five dollar base price and began allowing logo designers, graphic artists, voice over artists and other sellers to charge the base prices they set for themselves.

In 2017, Fiverr has come under fire for portraying unhealthy living and excesses in work behaviours as ideals to live up to.[21]

Fiverr has an "F" rating, the lowest possible, from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) in New York, where their office is located, and has a one star rating out of five, also the lowest possible.[22] 93% of the reviews of Fiverr on the BBB website are negative.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Fiverr.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2015-09-09.
  2. ↑ Ltd, Fiverr International. "Fiverr Acquires Professional Freelance SaaS Platform AND CO to Provide Its Software for Free". GlobeNewswire News Room.
  3. 1 2 3 Leena Rao (3 May 2012). "Task-Based Marketplace Fiverr Raises $15M From Accel And Bessemer". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
  4. 1 2 Robin Wauters (3 May 2012). "Fiverr helps get things done for as little as $5, raises $15m from Accel and Bessemer". The Next Web. Retrieved 2012-05-04.
  5. ↑ CrunchBase Profile – Fiverr
  6. ↑ Kaufman, Micha (2013-09-17). "The Gig Economy: The Force That Could Save The American Worker?". Wired. Retrieved 17 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Eric Pfeiffer (3 April 2012). "How Fiverr.com is changing the creative economy $5 at a time". Yahoo News Blog. Retrieved 2012-03-04.
  8. ↑ Hoover, Lisa. "Fiverr Outsources Your Small Jobs for $5". Lifehacker. Retrieved 8 March 2010.
  9. ↑ Mary Pilon (16 March 2010). "What Will People Do for $5? Fiverr Lets You Find Out". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2011-04-10.
  10. ↑ Bilton, Ricardo. "Fiverr launches its first iOS app to help mobilize the up-and-coming gig economy". Venture Beat. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
  11. ↑ Henry, Alan. "Fiverr Brings Its Low-Cost Side-Hustle Marketplace to Android". Lifehacker. Retrieved 14 March 2014.
  12. ↑ Aisha Gani: Amazon sues 1,000 'fake reviewers', The Guardian 18 October 2015
  13. ↑ Lora Kolodny (2015-11-11). "Fiverr Pockets $60M to Become Go-To Freelance Marketplace". Dow Jones & Company. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
  14. ↑ Abhimanyu Ghoshal (2015-11-12). "Fiverr will soon let you set any price for your services". The Next Web. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  15. ↑ Kaitlyn Tiffany (27 June 2017). "Fiverr launches 'Pro' tier for handpicked freelancers". Techcrunch. Retrieved 17 May 2018. Fiverr has announced its acquisition of Veed.me, a well-established video freelancing site useful mainly for businesses looking to hire videographers to shoot ads locally
  16. ↑ Anthony Ha (24 January 2018). "Fiverr acquires And Co, maker of software for freelancers". Techcrunch. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
  17. ↑ Dachis, Adam. "Five Annoying Life Problems You Can Solve for $5 with Fiverr". Lifehacker. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  18. ↑ Leamy, Elisabeth (4 August 2015). "Ways To Earn Money From Home: Services". ABC News. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
  19. ↑ Miller, Mark (20 August 2015). "COLUMN-Seniors gear up for the sharing economy". Reuters. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
  20. ↑ Hüfner, Daniel (9 August 2014). "Was darf gutes Design noch kosten? Licht und Schatten des Fiverr-Phänomens. (in German)". T3N News. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  21. ↑ Pershan, Caleb (23 March 2017). "Tragic Ads Attempt To Glorify Desperate Hell of Gig Economy". SFist. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  22. 1 2 Review of Fiverr on the official website of the Better Business Bureau of New York City
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